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This is why I love my boss: the Vice President of my department left yesterday for a three week vacation to Vietnam. Today she gathered us all up at 2pm and told us to get out. In fact, she ordered us to have a meeting at our local art house theatre. So we went to see Far From Heaven.
What a beautifully filmed movie. And an interesting story. Julianne Moore, Dennis Quaid, the hot actor who plays the President on 24 whose name I can never remember. Normally I'm not a huge fan of period dramas, but it's a movie that left my heart aching.
I'd like to see the film again. I tend to get sidetracked by color symbolism and play of light and shadow in a film, and I think I may have missed some other things. There's this whole thing in the movie with highlighting transition and nature vs. nurture with regard to race relations and being gay. I won't say anymore about it because I don't want to spoil it, but it's such a great movie -- go see it!
I'm guest-posting for Kathy while she's in Florida. Poor Kathy, letting me loose on her blog! Heh.
If you're interested in Catholic Patron Saints, here's a link to the post.
I can't believe there is a Patron Saint of dysentery and salesmen, and it's the same person. Bwah!
I've been taking birth control pills since I was 16 or 17 years old. That means I have [in theory] possibly 800-ish extra eggs just hanging out in my ovaries.
A few years ago I considered becoming an egg donor. I figured that I wasn't going to use my eggs, so maybe someone else could. I've never questioned the issue of my own fertility -- I come from good farmer stock, a long line of pregnant at the drop of a hat women. I'm relatively intelligent, have no serious health problems, etc.. So I thought I'd make a good candidate. Plus, you get paid up to $5,000 [sometimes more] for a donation.
I have to confess that I never made it past the first meeting. Hearing about what one has to go through to retrieve the eggs practically made me run out the door. You have to inject yourself daily with fertility drugs for a week or two and you're not allowed to have sex for fear that you will get pregnant. Then they stick a massive needle into your ovary and "aspirate" the eggs while you're under only light sedation.
As a rule, I don't mind needles. But when you're talking about shoving a needle the size of an ice pick into my girl parts, well, I get a little nervous. And then I started thinking about the legalities of the whole mess. In 18 years I might get a call from someone claiming to be my long lost child. I wasn't psychological prepared to deal with that, and I'm still not.
My husband's secretary is having fertility problems. In the last couple of years they've spent thousands and thousands of dollars on fertility drugs and therapy. I don't know that they ever considered an egg donor, or if it is even an option. At this point they have started the adoption process -- I think they're going to adopt a baby from China.
But I wonder if I would go through the process of egg donation if someone specifically asked me to do it. It's one thing to decide against it in the face of a nameless couple who needs an egg donor, but what if his secretary had asked? Or a close friend?
It's a strange situation, and I kind of wish that I had the intestinal fortitude to do it when I went to that first meeting. It's in my nature to help people in various ways, but I just couldn't get past the idea of having to go through the medical procedures and then run the risk of having to invest emotionally later on. I guess we all have our limits.
Yesterday I took a stroll over to the kitchenette on my floor to heat up my lunch. I stopped to chat with Roz, an assistant whose desk is closeby. Somehow we got on the subject of going to the gym. She started talking about a friend of hers who has 12 children.
12 kids? Who the fuck has 12 kids these days? My great-grandmother had 14 children but that was back in the 1910's or so when birth control still wasn't readily available and the cost of living wasn't so high.
Then Roz said something that totally blew my mind: she knows someone who has 23 children.
I know that some women really like the feeling of being pregnant, but how do you support that many kids? If you're an ideal family of two parents making the average income [from two wage earners] each kid is going to cost you approximately $170,000 to raise up to age 18. So 23 kids is going to cost around $4 billion. That's not even counting college.
Plus, you know with 23 kids that woman can't possibly work. So the husband or significant other [providing there is a husband or significant other] has sole financial responsibility for the household. And how the hell do you have 23 kids without killing yourself or others? That's a whole lot of wear and tear on your body, not to mention the exercise in patience that would have to be.
I can't even fathom having one kid, let alone 12 or 23 of them.
And now there's some moron in Afghanistan trying to break the world record for having children. He's already fathered 50 kids and has four wives. He says that neighbors give his kids food because he can't afford to feed them all, but he wants to have another 50 kids because he thinks it will be great to break the record. Who cares if most of them die of starvation, right?
People look at me like I'm evil when I tell them I don't want to have children and I don't particularly like children. But with people having 13, 24 and 50 kids I think there's someone in the world more than making up for my lack of interest. It makes me sick that there are people having kids to get government aide, or in order to have a reason not to work -- in combination with people who are having kids because they don't know how not have children due to a lack of family planning knowledge or because of religious convictions it's no wonder the world population is increasing at an alarming rate.
I'm officially prepared to throw my support behind a few American Idol-ators.
Personally, I hope Frenchie takes it all. Oh sure, I could say it's because her name is Frenchie or because she has a great voice. And to some extent, that really is why. But the truth of it is that I want to see someone win who doesn't look like a Barbie.
Now true, Kelly Clarkson isn't your typical size negative 14 pop singer. But what is she, a size 4, maybe a 6? That's still pretty thin.
I'd also like to see Kim and both Patricks make it to the final 10 for the same reasons. And when Clay opens his mouth I get a little sexed up -- I can't help it, he reminds me of Rick Astley...I just wish Clay would re-dye his hair red.
And, you know, I'd like to see Julia make it to through the final 10 just so she can see a stylist. That girl is so South Jersey it's not even funny. Yeah, I know she's from Connecticut, but she is so white trash. But she can sing.
The villain of the show this year may just be bitchy Kim. I'd like to see her fall off stage or something before she gets voted off though. Just for the fun of it.
I'm so 10 years old.
There is a pay phone on the corner of 17th & Chestnut. I walk past it almost every day when I meander the streets during my lunch hour. 9 times out of 10 the same guy is on the phone.
I'm pretty sure the phone guy is completely insane and likely homeless. He's probably in his mid-40s, a scruffy white guy with a long straggly beard. Here's the clue that he's crazy: he wears a tinfoil hat and wraps tinfoil around his shoes. Oh, and he's constantly holding the phone out a foot in front of his face and screaming at the receiver.
Today this was the conversation as I walked by Mr. Crazy Tinfoil Hat Man and the phone:
This is not the first time I've heard this guy go insane about his stocks. I've been thinking that maybe I should do a study on him. Every day during my lunch hour maybe I should just record him doing his thing and take a picture of him. Of course, I'd have to be clandestine about it -- crazed lunatics tend to get a bit verklempt if they think you're spying on them.
But what I really wonder is if he's really talking to someone. What would happen if I hip checked him away from the phone and grabbed the receiver? Would his broker be on the end of the line? Is the crazy coot really an extremely wealth crazy coot? Is he one of those eccentric millionaires who likes to make the straights nervous?
The time has come for me to mount my full on, one-woman boycott of and protest against that corporate evil-doer, Best Buy.
Let's review. It started with a bad decision to order a digital camera from Harmony computers in mid-January. What should have only been backordered a week ended up being one of these: "Well, we have no idea when it will come in, but it will be at least another two weeks." So I cancelled my order.
Craig had been yelling at me to buy the camera from Best Buy because we could put it on his Best Buy credit card and save the $300 for our trip to Paris. So I ordered it via the website last Wednesday, opting for their store pick up service. The next day Craig checks his email to get his pick up confirmation number only to discover that our camera was being shipped to some random woman in Missouri. What?
What ensues is Best Buy's crack customer service team letting it slip that there's a glitch in their computer system that caused the problem, yet treating Craig as if he is trying to steal a camera from Best Buy. It's now a week later and there is still no resolution in this case. I still don't have a camera, even though Craig's credit card was charged $300. Best Buy's customer service team doesn't have a fucking clue what's going on despite getting a daily phone call from Craig.
Yesterday I typed up a nastygram and sent it off to their corporate headquarters. It got sent to the President, Vice President of Marketing, and the Technology/ecommerce guy. They probably got circular filed. I'm completely pissed off about the whole thing.
It looks like I'm going to have to spend that $300 afterall. Bastards. But I'm cooking up some ways to make their lives hell about it. Cross me, will ya!?
*Update*
Not ten minutes after I finished writing this rant, I received a call from Craig. A corporate office representative from Best Buy just called him, apologized profusely for all the crap that we've been through this last week, and said that he is personally taking care of putting through a refund to Craig's Best Buy card and offered us a $50 gift certificate.
And people say it doesn't pay to be a total pain in the ass.
Of course, I won't believe it until I see it. But at least there are some signs of having this resolved.
Ahem. So now the slurping and gulping of Monday night's episode really makes more sense.
But really, it's only Sarah being tied up and making some poor sap smell her feet. She's not naked or having sex with anyone on camera, right? It's not an ideal career choice, but at least it's not full on porn. And you can't tell me that Fox didn't leak this information themselves. Joe Millionaire is getting kind of old and the ratings are sagging just a bit, so they accidentally-on-purpose let the cat out of the bag. Because you know everyone in the world is going to watch it now to imagine little Sarah all tied up with no place to go.
Of course, it would be hilarious if, on their next date, Sarah answers her door in liquid latex, dirty feet, a ball gag, and carrying a whip.
It's just a Joe Millionaire kind of day around here. On my ride into work this morning I noticed The Daily News [the local equivalent of USA Today] had a big ass cover picture of Zora with this little article about her ties to the region. It was pretty boring, and isn't there enough going on in the world to give something else front page coverage?
I just braved the frozen tundra of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway to get my fingers and toes massaged and painted. It was worth it -- the new nail tech gives a kick ass foot massage...much better than the half-assed attempts I get from Craig. You'd swear I had toes that could catch salmon or something, instead of the beauteous, goddess-like feet that I possess.
What I am not digging, however, is the plastic wrap she put on my toes to keep my toenail polish from smearing when I put my socks on. It feels like I'm wearing a giant sweaty condom over both feet. Not that I have ever had a giant sweaty condom over both feet, but I'm just saying.
The streets are pretty bad outside, and it just keeps snowing. And those bastards in administration aren't letting us go so that we may have a chance of getting home without being killed. I just know this is going to turn out like that episode of The Simpsons where Skinner makes them go to school and then they all get snowed in and the kids have to ration out relish and mayonnaise packs to survive.
...Reunited with Nibbles, Skinners directs, “Now, chew through my ball sack.”
It's been snowing like crazy here since I woke up. We're only supposed to get 1-3 inches, but if it keeps up like this we're going to get more snow than that. I keep waiting [and fervently hoping] to get an email from the President telling us to run for cover.
Of course, I do have a pedicure and manicure scheduled for 1pm. But I'd be willing to put off my beauty rituals for a day.
Come on, snow day!
A thousand people were asked whether Einstein, Jesus, Mozart or Elvis Presley should be cloned for the benefit of mankind.
Twenty-two per cent voted for Einstein compared with just 12% who thought Jesus should be cloned.
Who thinks this shit up? Furthermore, is there even any evidence to suggest that Jesus was a real person instead of some parable in a work of fiction? At least with Einstein, Elvis, and Mozart you know they were real.
And, of course, even with a clone all you get is a replica of the DNA, not a replica of the person's personality and intelligence. So, for the sake of argument, let's just say that Jesus was a real person. He gets cloned, but Cloned Jesus turns out to be some sort of freaky B&D-obsessed mass murderer.
Actually, that would be kind of funny.
Last night I seriously thought about watching reruns of South Park on my cable On Demand service instead of watching the State of the Union. As I forgot to buy a bottle of wine on the way home from work, there would be no State of the Union Address drunkapalooza. I know how I get, and so I figured anything would be better than spending a sober hour screaming at the Shrub through my television. I'm amazed that John had enough self-restraint not to watch.
But I couldn't tear myself away. I'm a firm believer in knowing your enemy, and I'd like to have some basis of fact when I complain about the evil whose name I dare not speak. Plus, I'm such a fucking news whore.
I don't really have a whole lot to say, since the words were coming out of his mouth but I didn't believe any of it. And I noticed the Shrub has a slight lisp. But I would like to respond to a couple of things....
There, that's all. Glad to have gotten that out of my system.
I just returned from my first triumphant gym trip during my lunch hour. Let me just say that, while I am not a prude, I would rather not watch anyone trim their pubes while stark raving naked. Nor do I want to sit on the bench in front of my locker after this same woman has sat bare-assed on said bench. There's something to be said for having just a modicum of modesty in the interest of not grossing me right the hell out.
What is it about locker rooms that cause ordinarily normal people to become insane? I mean, yes, the locker room is a naked place. I have no problems with getting naked in a locker room, changing my clothes in front of other women, or showering in front of other women. It goes a little too far when naked women start traipsing around the locker room, asking strangers to inspect the cut of their bikini wax. It's nice that you're interested in what I'm reading, but I don't want to have a staring contest with your nipples as I'm explaining the finer points of John Irving.
You can't take some people anywhere.
So I took a look at the State of the Union Address drinking game. I had to stop reading all the rules about 20 lines down. You know, the key to a good drinking game is to keep it simple. But maybe the beauty of this particular game is that we should all just drink heavily before, during, and after the Address.
But looking at the game, just without my accompanying baggage, makes me wonder if anyone has ever played the game right. There must be 50+ words that required a shot of alcohol. Just to keep track of what words warrant what drink, you'd need a spreadsheet and a designated sober person to declare it time to drink.
I like the classics -- like Drunk Driver or Who Shit. I'm just a simple girl.
I'm fucking miserable today. Our water pipes froze overnight. After get about three hours of sleep last night I got out of bed, made use of the facilities, and then flushed the toilet. It made a weird, deep gurgling sound and, well, nothing.
Not to mention that I'm feeling slightly flu-ish.
But I don't want to think about that. The more I think about it, the worse I feel.
I wonder if the brothers who dismembered their mother were sleep-deprived. There would have to be something wrong with you to be able to pull off some sick shit like that.
I hate the fact that those asshats are trying to pull The Sopranos into their little delusional world of excuses. It always leads to the same thing -- the Deeply Religious and other crazed conservatives will get all pissy about the level of violence on television and in the movies and more ratings will be introduced.
I know that conservatives can pull all sorts of statistics out of their asses to show that warning labels and violence ratings work to keep children from seeing what they shouldn't, but they're polling the wrong people. Who remembers the Parents Music Resource Center debacle from the mid-1980s? Who remembers seeing the list of their top dirty songs, and then running right out to buy the album? I was already a big Prince fan, and he seemed to piss them off quite a bit. So I listened to him more.
And who remembers when the PMRC made 2 Live Crew, arguably one of the least talented rap groups ever, into recording superstars? 2 Live Crew would have lived on in obscurity but for the efforts of the the PMRC. Great job, PMRC! Glad to see your efforts to censor and rate have the exact opposite effect of your intentions! Excellent work!
So what happens when those same morons concerned authority figures try to regulate television viewing through ratings [begun in 1996, I think]? Well, the same thing! Has anyone noticed that South Park is pretty popular, due in part to the efforts of conservative groups who lobbied for television ratings in the first place? Because South Park has a TV-MA rating, every 8 year old boy in the world wants to watch it.
Are more ratings just what we need to reign in the violent youth of today? I seriously doubt it. More ratings are just a way for righteous do-gooders to feel better about themselves for a couple of months. Maybe they think they get extra points in heaven or something.
It has come to my attention that I'm too tired to sleep. How the hell does that happen?
Of course, it probably isn't helping that I'm sitting around on the couch, buried under my down comforter, watching Cry-Baby. The other day Statia and I were talking about Grease 2 and how someone's husband won't let her have a copy in the house, and how it has a huge cult following. I think all John Waters' films also fit in the cult love category.
There is no end to my love for John Waters for Pink Flamingoes and Cry-Baby and Hairspray. So how can I sleep when Cry-Baby is on?
...Allison, you got it raw! Bwah!
There's something marginally terrifying to know that you've haven't been to sleep yet despite actually laying in bed since 11pm, and then looking over at the alarm clock to discover that it's 4:30am. And knowing you have to get up in 1.5 hours to get a shower and go to work. And it's 10 degrees outside.
Can I be held responsible for not making it to work today?
I'll admit that I will use any excuse to not have to work, but I can't stand being at work and craving just a few hours of sleep. I'm always afraid I'll end up face first on my keyboard, drooling on my desk.
Is it all wrong that I'm sitting here watching Dirty Dancing instead of watching the Superbowl? Is it an affront to decent hard working people all over the country that I'd rather watch Patrick Swayze flub a Brooklyn accent than watch those cheesy ass Budbowl commercials and listen to Celine Dion warble her way through whatever horrible song she's singing?
I'd rather poke my eardrums and eyes out with a ragged rusty spoon then have to listen to or watch that awful-ness. All that chest-pounding leaves me a bit aggravated.
After Statia had lunch at casa de go fish yesterday and gave my cat an inferiority complex, Craig and I went grocery shopping. We're exiting the parking lot of the Superfresh on Delaware Avenue, stopped at the traffic light. Directly in front of us, across the from the Superfresh parking lot, is a Show and Tel sex shop. I'm told they have a massive selection of porn and sex accoutrements, and a stage on which toothless strippers jiggle their parts for nickels.
Anyway, we're stopped at the light and this guy comes out of the Show and Tel. He's wearing a grey sweatpants and a short denim jacket, and he's got a raging hard on. You might think it must have been a gargantuan hard on for me to see it across the street, but no -- it was the fact that he was wearing sweatpants. According to Craig [my resident expert on the penis], there is no way to camoflauge a boner in a pair of sweatpants unless you're carrying books. It looked like someone shoved a flagpole into the front of his pants, and he had his own Big Top Circus going on in his undercarriage.
So I, being about 12 years old, start laughing so hard I almost pee my pants. All I can do is wheeze and point until Craig notices what I have noticed. And then Craig starts to giggle. Luckily the traffic light turned green and we had to go. I don't know if I could have survived even another 30 seconds of looking at the guy.
It occurs to me that owning a penis must be very hard work. Just for starters there's the whole issue of circumcision. And then whether you are or aren't must be something difficult to deal with in locker rooms and stuff. But then there's the major factor of being attached to a peice of equipment with a will of it's own that takes every opportunity to embarrass you. It just sounds like too much work for me.
Sometimes I'm so fucking happy to be a woman.
I feel like a little old lady today. My shoulders ache. My back aches. My legs ache. It's not because I'm an arthritic old hag [although surely, sometimes I am] -- it's because of yoga yesterday with Statia.
The first time back to yoga in a couple of months can be a traumatizing experience. And it probably wasn't a good day for Statia to try it for the first time, either. Instead of 105 degrees in the Bikram studio, it was more like 115 degrees. I didn't leave feeling particularly refreshed, like I normally do. So while I, of course, will go back for more, I'm convinced Statia thinks I was trying to kill her and it was all one big joke on my part.
Erica Lynn should feel really relieved that she wasn't home [or just had her cell phone turned off when we tried to call after class] yesterday. The stench coming off Statia and I was almost too much to bear. Craig used the word "eye-burning."
Oh, and don't let Statia tell you any different -- she did great in her first class! She didn't pass out, and she finished the class. Excellent job!! It's just a shame the old guy in the jock strap had to camp out in front of us.
I am obviously having a nervous breakdown, or perhaps I have gone insane.
No, really.
I was just sitting here thinking about how even Al Sharpton is starting to look good in comparison to the schmuck whose name I dare not speak.
Gee, President Sharpton....
Re-joining the gym has left me with an empty feeling. Maybe I expected to get hassled by the plastic-y breast-implanted gym rep, or maybe I just expected them to suck up to me a little more. I fully expect gym sales people to fawn a little, but it just didn't happen today.
I guess maybe because I am a former member they didn't feel the need to bombard with propaganda.
My history at the gym is long and varied. I never worked out before college. As a college cheerleader I was required to work out with the team every day and go through weekly weigh-ins. After that my commitment to the gym was, and continues to be, somewhat sporadic.
My situation here is ideal -- the gym is a 5 minute walk from my office and it's usually completely empty by 2pm. I can work out without having to listen to some 'roided out freak grunt his way through dead lifting a bizillion pounds.
When I first joined this gym a couple of years ago I met with a trainer. It during the lunchtime work out rush. The trainer led me back to the machines and warned me about one thing. Apparently there was a member who was slightly mentally unstable. As soon as he started talking about the guy he magically appeared, as if summoned by his description. He was a total freak.
This guy was about 5'1" and about 120 pounds soaking wet, had a greasy mullet and acne. He sort of stalked back to the lateral raise machine, put the pin in the 20 pound bar, and screamed through a set of 50, acting as if he were lifting 500 pounds. Did I mention that he was wearing a Hawaiian print shirt and a pair of acid wash Cavarrici jeans while he was getting his weird work out in?
I pray that his membership ran out.
I just had to sit through a lecture from the Marketing Director on the importances of carrying my business cards.
"Oh, but you must carry business cards!" she shrieked. "It's so important, especially for you! You meet people all the time who qualify for your young executives programs!"
Um, I think she lost me right there. Has she seen some of the places I hang out? Does she honestly expect me to walk up to the guy drooling on the bar at Dirty Frank's, hand him my business card, and say, "I'm sure you can afford to give my agency $1,000 and why wouldn't you want to network with a bunch of schmucks Philadelphia's elite young executives?" Or maybe when I'm at that Rollins Band show at the TLA I can just shower the crowd with my business card. I'm sure there's tons of people who are just dying to go through Board training.
There are lots of people who live to network. I'm a fairly social person, but I don't gauge a potential friend by the business contacts they can provide me with. I think the very idea of networking sucks -- it sort of sucks all the fun out of meeting new people.
And, of course, I'm not particularly ambitious when it comes to my job. I have no desire to climb the nonprofit ladder. I do my job, I do it well, and then I leave. You won't see me working until 9pm. People who are networking in order to claw their way to the top of their industry scare the hell out of me.
So if I don't carry my business cards on me at all times, please excuse me. It's only because I know I'm not going to press the flesh on behalf of my agency after work when I'm crying in my beer at McGlinchey's.
I'm thinking that maybe I should get a couple dozen fake social security numbers and illegally register to vote in some of the states that traditionally end up in Republican hands during elections, and then organize a large ring of others to do the same. Prison doesn't sound so bad in comparison to living with another four years of President Dumbass and his roving band of Stepford miscreants.
The U.S. barely has any allies left in the world. Canada is pissed because of the administration blaming it for not patrolling the borders well enough. France and Germany are pissed because Rumsfeld called them Old Europe. Russia is pissed for a myriad of reasons. Everyone in the Middle East hates the U.S. Only Great Britain is still hanging in there, and 80% of British citizens don't support a war on Iraq.
Not to mention that our civil rights are being trampled at an alarming rate. I've seen the following quote all over the place but it makes more sense with each passing day:
I'm so embarrassed of the behavior of the current administration that I fully intend to lie and say I'm Canadian when I go to Paris next month. And if the evil whose name I dare not speak happens to sneak into office again in 2004, I have a plan in place to become an American expat. It saddens me that the current administration can't play nice with others.
Note to self: next time you cook beets be sure to wear gloves and not to wear white.
Oh yeah, I now have a pair of reddish pink splotched socks and tshirt, and my hands are also slightly stained. I'm a moron.
So I'm in the kitchen last night and In the Navy is on. I'm disco-ing around the kitchen, singing at the top of my lungs, when a movement near the window catches my eye. Curses! There are three neighborhood kids clustered at my window, totally pointing and making fun of me. That will teach me to cook with the shades up.
Undeterred by the fact that I am the laughingstock of the neighborhood, I cooked like a champ. I made potato-leek soup, vegetable soup with hot sausage, and hazelnut beet salad with goat cheese. Scrum-didili-umptious!
It was so nice to have the house to myself. As much as I love Craig to death, I'm really much better off living alone. I have this fantasy where Craig and I buy a double house -- he lives in one side and I live in the other. I must have a clean kitchen at all times, and it causes tension between us because Craig won't wipe the counters or clean up his messes. And I refuse to clean up after him. It's a vicious circle of annoyance.
Plus, he refuses to part with gifts. His dad bought us this absolutely hideous glass cat with a tealight candle inside of it. Craig won't throw it out, but doesn't notice for months that I've hidden it in the basement. My sister-in-law made us a frighteningly fugly ceramic basket for Christmas that Craig refuses to toss or store in the basement. Last night I smashed the ceramic basket on the back patio and threw out the ugly glass cat. There's no getting either of them back. I do what I must to get rid of the bad taste in my house.
Yes, it was sneaky and not very nice. But I would rather live with the bad karma than see that crap in the house every single day of my life.
What I am about to admit is so embarrassing, so shocking, so.....crazy sounding, that I barely believe it myself:
When my husband plans to be away from home overnight [like tonight], I go out and buy tons of food. Then I go home, put on my dancing shoes and some good old-fashioned cheesy disco, and I totally cook like a rock star.
It's shameful, I know.
In all seriousness, Craig is staying overnight at his parents' house tonight so he can babysit the dog while they're away [yes, I'm serious] which means I get the house to myself. It's mine, all mine [she screeches, followed by maniacal laughter]!
I like to cook. No, scratch that -- I fucking love to cook. From making instant pudding up to making creme brulee from scratch, I love everything about it. It's an alchemy of sorts that blows my mind. I'm often amazed that I am able to churn out such excellent dishes. It comes as a huge surprise that I am able to admit to being a fabulous cook, considering my early history of not even being able to cook sausage without burning it.
My main problem is that I like to cook alone. I'm not sure if that qualifies as being problematic. I know that when people like to drink or eat alone that usually means they've got an addiction. I like to cook when the house is empty and I can crank up Disco Inferno as loud as my stereo will go. Grating and stirring and sautee-ing just seem to be more fun as I do the Hustle across the kitchen.
I'm not really sure what I'm going to make tonight. I took the subway down to Reading Terminal Market during lunch [and had a lovely interlude with some asshat trying to lure me into the fold of Jehovah's Witness-dom. She backed off after I told her that she should take her Awake! propaganda and shove it up her ass since only 144,000 souls are getting into heaven anyway.] and picked up a huge bag of groceries. I ended up with leeks, beets, hazlenuts, baby potatoes, patty pan squash, parsnips, brussel sprouts, mushrooms, poblano peppers, jalapeno peppers, goat cheese, brie, and a couple dozen bags of spices. I'm thinking beet and hazelnut salad with goat cheese and maybe soup of some sort. I should have bought some salmon.
I can practically hear the strains of You Make Me Feel Like Dancin'.
Of course, I'm now issuing an open invitation to anyone in the area who wants to come for dinner. I might like to cook by myself but I prefer to eat in the company of others! Or maybe I'm just trying to convince myself that I don't have a problem.
....gonna dance the night away....
When you're a Jet,
If the spit hits the fan,
You got brothers around,
You're a family man!
I was never in a sorority in college. At Temple U. most of the sororities have really bad reputations. The big joke is that there is supposedly some old law still on the books in Pennsylania that classifies any house with more than six women living in it as a whorehouse, and at Temple U. that ain't far from the truth. Who really knows if that law really exists, but I had never met any sorority girls who didn't fit the stereotype. And so rushing a sorority never sounded like a good idea to me. And so I have a very biased attitude toward sorority girls.
It always surprises me when I meet a woman who was in a sorority in college but is not a skanky ho. One of my co-workers was a sorority girl, but is so nice and normal and not a slut. It is through Rebecca that I am slowly attempting to transform my low opinion of sorority girls. One day I'll be able to hear the word "mixer" without sneering and picturing huge orgies. So help me, that is my pledge.
I must admit that I don't have a high opinion of fraternity boys either. Oh sure, I dated a few...but mostly because they were always so utterly stupid. And we all know that stupid in the head=good lay. So I'll admit that my motives were not always pure. But shit like that occasionally got me in trouble.
Take, for instance, the time one of my fraternity snacks took a particular liking to me. Poor, dumb Chuck. He showed up at my house one night in his standard state of operation: stupid and piss drunk. It was around 11pm, and he buzzed my intercom, wanting to come on up and romance me with his charming ways [I seem to remember he had a fondness for trying to sex me up by bringing a bottle of pink champale for us to drink and gifting me with a bag of Skittles. Trés hot.], but I was a little tired of him and was in no mood to deal with a drunk. I told him to go home. But you know how sometimes things don't register right away? Or at all? Chuck continued to buzz my intercom for hours. Hours! I was alternately serenaded with Air Supply songs and cursed out.
After recording all of it for posterity, I called one of his fraternity brothers around 3am to come and remove his silly ass from my doorstep. The ensuing scene vaguely reminded me of a Tom and Jerry cartoon, but Chuck had suddenly developed a Popeye-esque inflection to his voice.
I incorporated one of Chuck's ballads into my answering machine message after that.
Oh sure, I was a mean, mean woman back then, but it's all because of my prejudice against sororities and fraternities. I'm sure one day I'll discover the error in my ways. And then maybe I can join in the musical...when you're a jet, you're a jet to the end....
Speaking of being cold, how about all the controversy surrounding The Bloggies I'm trying to imagine the scene during Hamlet performed topless in an ice theatre. Talk about the turtling penis and high beams. They'd be a great advertisement for moisturizer -- I can't imagine how chapped ones nipples would get after rehearsing topless for weeks in frigid temps. It's giving me the chills just thinking about it.
Craig was making fun of the fact that Philadelphia calls cold weather emergencies for the homeless "Code Blue." He thinks they should name it something else. He just thinks it's tacky to name the siren after the color of people on the streets during the cold weather. I hadn't really thought of it, but I guess he's right in a sick sort of way. Maybe it should be something like "Code Get your Ass into a Shelter."
So I grew up just above the Pocono mountains [or, for those of you who are geological sticklers, that's the Pocono divided plateau] and it was pretty fucking cold. It's the reason I hate snow and super cold weather. The only good part about it is that I have a fair tolerance for cold weather.
When it's 30 or 40 degrees I can usually handle it without freaking out and going all frozen tundra bundled. Right now, however, it is 12 degrees outside. Yes, you read correctly: 12 degrees, with a wind chill of about -5. Now is the time when I get all pissy and snivelling. Oh sure, it could be worse -- it could be snowing. It could be -50 instead of -5. But who cares -- it's fucking cold as the proverbial witch's tit right now.
I'm having erotic dreams about electric blankets. It's sick.
Statia has been having problems with being cold and pinched nerves lately. After doing Dancer's Pose in 105 degree heat on Saturday morning, Statia will no longer have these problems.
That's right, Statia is going to a Bikram yoga class with me Saturday morning. You just don't know someone until you lie in Corpse Pose next to them when you're sweating like a pig. It will be a bonding experience. A smelly bonding experience.
It's the 30 anniversary of Roe v. Wade today.
My opinion on people who are anti-choice is irrelevant today. What is important is that everyone understands that this is really about the rights of women. It's also about access to proper medical care for women.
Understand this: abortions are going to happen whether it's legal or not. Isn't it better to keep abortion legal so that your little sister or your aunt or your best friend isn't forced to seek out some un-licensed guy who performs abortions in a dirty hotel room on dirty sheets with unsanitized instruments? If you loved one should choose to terminate a pregnancy for whatever reason, would you rather she die from infection than have the abortion done in a medical facility? That's really what this is all about. This is not me being melodramatic -- it's a fact.
Before Margaret Sanger [founder of what became Planned Parenthood] and her crusade to inform women by disseminating information on family planning, people mostly used the "pull and pray" method of birth control. In the 1920's it was illegal to inform women of their options. Sanger fought for those rights. It took until 1965 for the Supreme Court to overturn the last state law prohibiting the use of birth control by married couples. I'd like to keep my rights.
Abortion rates are the lowest they have ever been today. The reason for this is agencies like Planned Parenthood are doing their job: they are disseminating information about birth control and family planning. Anti-choice proponents think Planned Parenthood is an evil, evil entity and many fight tooth and nail to have federal funding of Planned Parenthood revoked. Apparently these people never stopped to think of what would happen.
Regardless of your feelings on abortion or my feelings on abortion, I would hope that everyone has enough sense to see the reality in any attempt to overturn Roe v. Wade. Making abortion illegal won't stop death, it will promote it. When Bush pulled funding for family planning in developing nations he didn't stop abortions -- instead he helped millions of women back into the dark. He stopped information on birth control from being disseminated, and he halted the flow of information about HIV and other diseases to more women than I care to think about.
What worries me the most is if Roe v. Wade is overturned and funding to agencies like Planned Parenthood is pulled, what's next? My voting rights? My right to have whatever job I want? My right to leave the house unescorted by my husband? I would like to keep the rights that I have.
I checked out the nominees for the 2003 Bloggies this morning. It's nice to see some different blogs get nominated this year, although some of the list is fairly similar to last year. Very few of the nominations on my list made it to the finals. Waaaa.
I was really happy to see that Mikey got a nomination for best tagline. A few other blogs that I read got nominated for various things, which is also nice. Congratulations to all the nominees!
I did get excited there for a minute over the last day or two. I noticed that I got two hits from the nomination site over the weekend -- I thought maybe go fish got nominated for something. But with only two hits from the nomination site, I'm sure that must have been a weird glitch. I mean, I would imagine that there are more than just two judges and I'm sure all the judges check out the entire list of initial nominees before making their final nomination choices.
Looks like I'll have some new blog reading today before I vote! Woohoo!
I guess it's safe to announce now that I am playing The Dead Pool this year over at Amish Tech Support and list my nominees:
Now, I'm certainly not actively rooting for Death to come a-knocking [well, not for most of my list anyway], but not one single person playing The Dead Pool has gotten any points yet.
So I think I'd like to offer up some sort of bribe to Death to get the ball rolling. Even if I, personally, don't get any points...someone playing in The Dead Pool has got to get some points soon! Perhaps Death would like to share some yummy chocolate covered blueberries. Maybe I'll leave them out on a saucer with a glass of milk, sort of like for Santa Clause.
Like a total smack, I decided to take a walk over to Lord & Taylor during my lunch hour. Apparently I was braindead on the way into work this morning, because I conveniently forgot that it's just about 2 degrees and windy as hell outside today. But I persisted in the name of free spending money in the form of a Christmas gift certificate.
I pretty much hate Lord & Taylor. I've never been able to find much that I like in that store. It's sort of mostly old lady apparel along with some freakishly hip clothing that is made for those with supermodel bodies [i.e., girls with no hips or boobs]. Trying on clothing at Lord & Taylor is an exercise in futility because nothing ever fits right. And don't even get me started on their pitiful Petites department...I mean, just because I'm short doesn't mean I like to dress like a kindergarten teacher.
But they do happen to have a killer shoe department. So imagine my delight and surprise when I found a pair of new black boots on sale in my size! They're perfect, and comfortable enough to join my list of "stuff to pack for Paris" list.
Yes, I really do have a list like that. I've had it since November. I'm über-anal retentive about travelling. And I'm a compulsive list maker. In one of my old journals from high school I actually have a list of people that I smooched. I suppose it's sort slutty that I needed to keep a list in order to remember, but keep in mind there isn't a lot to do in the small town I grew up. It's either smooch a lot of boys, take up a life of crime, or experiment with cow tipping. I think you'll agree that I made the right choice.
But I digress! List making. Compulsive. Practically OCD about it. If I'm not making lists of stuff I need to take to Paris, or lists of things I want to see in Paris, I'm making lists of things to do before I die or inventories of CDs and books that I own.
In the grand scheme of things, list making is not such a big deal. At the very least, I'm an organized crazy maniac. It drives Craig crazy though -- I generally don't title my lists [except in my head] so he's forever finding slips of paper around the house that might say:
Oh sure, I was grossed out about finding a roach in my Chinese food over the weekend, but at least I didn't actually ingest the little creepy crawly [and I'm choosing to believe that I haven't accidentally done so on prior occasions, OK? Don't burst my bubble]. But imagine knowing that your favorite bakery has been serving up bird shit bread to you for who knows how long.
Yeah, I've worked in restaurants and I know that the idea of cleanliness in the food production/food service industry is a total joke. But to be so blatant about it and so out of control about it is so skeevy.
I try not to think about stuff like that because, honestly, it's enough to make me stay home and cook my own meals made from veggies, fruits, and grains I grow myself and animals that I've slaughtered personally.
Of course, that would mean I'd starve. I do attempt to garden during the Spring and Summer months in my little 10'x10' plot of concrete patio. At most I'd say that I harvest about half a dozen peppers, two dozen tomatoes, and a handful of beans...certainly not enough to feed my little family of two.
Want to have a photo associated with your blog? Visit Zen Block -- they're putting together a list of blogger mini-portraits.
I submitted this lovely photo this morning.
Go ahead, be a pepper.
So I watched Joe Millionaire again last night. I totally felt like I needed a shower to make myself feel clean again afterwards. Evan Marriott totally creeps me out, especially after those pictures surfaced in which he does a great impression of a sundail. Creepy!
But I wanted to see it because he takes his little harem to Paris, and I'm doing all the research I can before I head off next month -- yes, even if it involves watching cheesy ass TV. I'm willing to make the sacrifice.
Is it just me or do those emeralds look a little on the synthetic side? And who takes a date to a topless show? I know it's the Moulin Rouge and all, but really -- if someone took me on a first or second date to a titty bar I'd be more than a little squicked out. And that hat, that horrible hat! That girl must be stopped.
Ugh.
Tonight, however, promises to be full of television viewing pleasure. Tuesday night is the one night of the week that I take my phone off the hook, put my knitting down, and put tape over Craig's mouth: it's Buffy and 24 night. The only night that I never leave the house. However, American Idol is on tonight, which presents a problem. I'm not sure if I will tape Buffy and 24, or tape American Idol. What to do, what to do? And how completely sad is it that I'm sitting here debating this?
Sometimes I really feel sorry for Colin Powell.
You just know that he wakes up every morning dreading having to read the papers for the latest dumbass thing that has been said or the latest word that the Commander in Chief has made up. I imagine him sitting at his breakfast table in a navy blue silk robe with his morning coffee, head in heads, weeping copiously because he has to work for such a complete asshat.
Maybe Colin is playing a little game of "poke the shithead." He came out in complete opposition of his boss' stand on affirmative action. While I'm sure not every single White House employee/appointee shares the official party line, I would imagine it doesn't make things easy on you to publicly announce you think your boss is dead wrong. Of course, it's not the first time [note: this article is strongly anti-Powell].
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
Dear Diary,
Last night I went to the Golden Globes. I had a beautiful dress picked out -- a few designers sent me some gowns and Jack came over to help pick one out. He brought over some cookies, but I wouldn't let him in the house with them. You know I have that rule about no food in the house.
Anyway. I don't know what happened. I woke up today in my 4th grade tutu covered in chocolate ice cream! Before I noticed that I had handfuls of cherries in my bodice I got really scared that I had grown breasts overnight! I was horrified.
But what makes me even more nervous is that I just turned on the The Today Show [I like to make fun of how fat everyone is] and Matt and that fashion freak were on there showing pictures of me in the tutu with a pair of hideous shoes I wore for Halloween a few years ago. I'm afraid that I blacked out from hunger and actually left the house in my tutu! Maybe I should have given in to my stomach and had that forkful of lettuce, even if I had used up my food allotment for the week.
Funny, I don't feel very hungry right now. I haven't felt this way in years. Oh god! The chocolate ice cream! I have to go throw it all up now. And then I'll spend the day on the stairmaster. You know the American public prefers women with the body of an 8 year old boy!
So upset.
As always,
Laura
OK, I'll admit it: I'm sorry that the Eagles didn't win today. It was a good season for them and every time one of the sports teams get to the play offs it's a nice thing. But my feelings are all tied up in the Vet, and I would have liked a win for the last game there.
That said, I'm not completely unhappy that the season is over for the Eagles. I'm happy to leave all the crappy rhetoric thrown around over sports to Buccaneers fans and whoever they play in the Superbowl. I've never understood the tendency to get so crazed over your favorite team that you have to insult fans of the other team [and believe me when I say that Eagles fans are just as guilty, if not more so, in this whole fucked up thing]. And what bothers me even more is when fans of the other team feel the need to generalize all Philadelphians. If one more person tells me, as a Philadelphian, to bite their ass because the Eagles failed to win the game today....well, it's insulting and annoying.
I shouldn't take all of that shit so seriously, but I'm so tired of it. It's a sport. Some fans act like they're on the team itself and that they personally had something to do with a win or a good season. Football players make scads of money, more than I will ever see in a lifetime, because they were born with the ability to run, throw, and catch better than other people. They aren't necessarily smarter and they don't make the world a better place. They play a game. The importance of it gets blown out of proportion, both by themselves and the fans.
All right, I've had my little hissy fit and now I'm fine with it. I'll quit my insulted whining and wish all you fans good luck with whoever you're rooting for.
Apparently Christy's new boytoy really is connected to the mob. He came right out and told her. I guess that sort of takes that question off the table.
It's the fact that she still is half considering taking money from him and dating him that absolutely kills me. It's as if Christy has just gone totally outer limits, to rip off a line from an '80s classic.
Phil [a friend of Christy's] and I have always said we'd co-orchestrate Christy's wedding. It would be a nightmare -- large men in sharkskin suits carrying guns; loud women in red lipstick, high hair, and spangled gowns; the necessary italian food traditions -- and, without a doubt, the chicken dance and all bizillion versions of the electric slide. And we wouldn't be able to say no, for fear his connections would kill us. Maybe even a mob hit during the reception.
I keep hoping Christy wakes up!
So last night Christy and I went to the Khyber. Or, really, we tried to go the Khyber. Somehow we couldn't get in because the place was packed. Of course, it didn't help that Christy didn't show up to my house until 11:30pm.
So instead of seeing a band, we ended up at Cafe Monticello at Third and Market. Despite the fact that it was very late, they were still serving food. The food was good -- I had a portobello mushroom in cream sauce with crab. Unfortunately it made me sick as a dog when I got home.
It was rough day for restaurants.
Oh, and Happy National Sanctity for Life Day. Barf.
Let me take this opportunity to say this to Bush and his administration: kiss my ass.
What is the expression -- something about getting back on the horse?
After my harrowing morning of roaches and Chinese food, I made the decision that I had to have some really good restaurant food before the stigma of eating food not prepared by me set in and I'd never eat again.
So I shook off the Ho Sai Gai funk [yes, the one in the Port Richmond Plaza, Heather!] and Craig took me to lunch at Las Cazuelas, a fabulous Mexican restaurant down the street from my house where I met Statia for the first time. I'm happy to say that no roaches or other assorted vermin were in evidence. And I'm always happy to get to speak Spanish to native speakers who don't laugh at me for my feeble attempts, so that made me cheer up a bit too.
And people wonder why I hate the pigeon lady so much.
Upon the advice of several people re: my last post, I've decided to contact the Health Dept. It's curious that so many people associate the lack of hygiene with ethnic cooking. I've worked in enough restaurants to know that all restaurants have cleanliness issues. If I let it get to me I'd never eat in another restaurant again. But I choose to ignore it and enjoy myself. It's only when that grossness presents itself to me legs-up that I can't live in my own little fantasy world anymore.
Tonight I'm going out with Christy. I'm anticipating a highly entertaining evening of making fun of her. She's lucky we'll be at the Khyber and the band will be too loud for me to do much more than point and laugh like a lunatic.
A couple of weeks ago she called me up all nervous. One of the father's of her dance students wanted to take her out. My "bad idea" radar perked up. I said, "Well, that's probably not a great idea. I mean, he's a lot older than you, has a kid not that much younger than you, has been divorced twice, and when you go out with him and it doesn't work out you're going to have to face the weirdness of seeing him and his daughter weekly."
Christy's response: "Yeah, you're right. But he's rich."
I knew right then that she wouldn't listen to reason. Christy is blinded by dollar signs.
So she calls me this afternoon to firm up plans for later, and she says, "I have a story for you. You're not going to be happy."
I snickered. "Who'd you fuck?" She has a history of very bad choices.
"No one," she said. "I went out with that guy. He blew an outrageous amount of money. All told, he spent two grand last night."
My mind went blank. Who spends $2K on a first date? "Uh, what does he do for a living?" I asked.
"He owns a restaurant and about 15 other business. He also offered to give me $600 that I owe for my trip, and said that if I married him I'd never have to worry about money again."
That's when my "mafia" flag went up. I'm more than a little concerned about the way this could all turn out. If he lived in South Philly I'd be even more concerned, but he lives in Bucks County. She says she isn't even remotely attracted to him, which would be good except that she said the same thing about her last boyfriend and that last for a few months until he broke up with her.
This is going to be bad. So I'm going to make fun of her until she cracks.
This morning I made myself a bowl of leftover rice noodles with pork and shrimp from my favorite Chinese restaurant, Ho Sai Gai. That particular dish has made a fabulous breakfast for me on many an occasion. This morning when I got to the bottom of my bowl I noticed a weird little brown peice of something that looked like a fat grain of wild rice. I nudged it with a chopstick and flipped it over. Fucking legs!
I screamed at the top of my lungs and dropped the bowl. Craig came running into the room, thinking I was being murdered. I told him to pick up the bowl and take a look. Craig turned green and set about the business of throwing out all the leftover Chinese food in the house and tearing up the menu. Meanwhile, I am holding my stomach wondering if I can make myself throw up.
A roach! A roach in my fucking food! At the bottom of the bowl no less! I'm thoroughly disgusted. We have gotten take out delivered from Ho Sai Gai almost weekly since we moved here just over two years ago. Now I'm wondering how much extra protein I've actually consumed. I probably have some sort of roach-carried plague.
This is not the best way to start a weekend. I hope it's not an omen.
Things are shaping up for an excellent week of guest posting here at go fish at the end of February during my trip to Paris. At the moment there are seven intrepid bloggers who have volunteered to entertain you.
Craig picked me up from work last night. I climbed into the truck, situated myself, and then noticed that Craig was holding a massive bouquet of gorgeous tulips in front of my face.
"These are for you," he said. "I love you."
How sweet is that? I may get pissed off at him for doing stupid things occasionally, but I think I'll just refer back to the tulips when that happens.
Sometimes I think I don't deserve to have someone as wonderful as Craig. He is forever doing little things for me to make me feel special, or indulging me in my silliness. I wish there was some big gesture I could make to let him know how much I appreciate him, but I can't think of anything. He doesn't really have any hobbies, and he doesn't really need anything.
If you were a boy [or you currently are one], what could your wife do that would express ultimate gratitude? I'm not talking about anything sexual because that's well taken care of. I need ideas.
Sure, I'm embarrassed to say it, but I watched most of The Disco Ball last night. I even enjoyed some of it.
Usher, however, does not have the voice for Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now. And because I happen to catch some MTV special about celebrity fitness a few months ago, I know that Usher has regular enemas. So now when I see Usher I imagine him on a table with a water tube up his heiney. Usher=fecal matter. I had to avert my gaze.
Many of you may not know of my deep and undying love of The Bee Gees, but you may know of my fiery hatred for cheesy little boy bands. Who, then, is Natural and why were they chosen to butcher a perfectly good Bee Gees tribute? I wanted to scratch their eyes out for attempting to sing the patented Bee Gee falsetto. Leave it alone boys! I had to hit the mute button because Natural was so very bad.
That brings me to Aaron Carter. I have no words to describe how much I wish Aaron Carter would get run over by a large truck. And after assaulting my ears with his strangled rendition of I Just Want to Be Your Everything, I'm reading to drive that truck myself. To begin with, there's something so smarmy and smug about Aaron Carter I want to vomit. To continue, his voice is wretched. And then to desecrate a good song, well, he's taken it too far. I turned the channel after the first 30 seconds.
By the way, who the hell is Roselyn Sanchez? She did such a horrible job with Hot Stuff I almost passed out laughing. Was she drunk?
This latest baby dumping case was all over the news this morning. It's the same old crap -- teenage couple gets pregnant, no one happens to notice the girl bulking up, girl has baby unnoticed, and then they dump the kid. OK, in this case, the boy dumped the baby.
The guy says he had no choice since they didn't want the baby. Unfortunately, Wisconsin has a Safe Baby law in place and the girlfriend knew about it. So his excuse is stupid. What kills me is that it got to that point anyway. They both knew they didn't want the baby, so why didn't the girl just have an abortion?
Oh, I know what some of you may be thinking: "But Nicole, abortion is evil and wrong! You are evil and wrong for condoning it! You should go straight to hell!" Yeah great -- I'll save you a seat. Sure, this time the whole thing had a happy ending; the baby was found and saved. But statistics indicate that just over 100 babies are abandoned on the street every year, about half of which die. Is it more humane to leave a baby on the street to die a miserable death, or more humane to abort before it even becomes an issue?
In the case of the teenage couple from Wisconsin, it may have been a combination of things. Wisconsin's abortion laws require minors to get parental consent in order to have an abortion. Since the girl's parents didn't know she was pregnant, she obviously couldn't get their consent. And their choice might have been wrapped up in denial, confusion, religion-induced guilt, etc.
With National Sanctity of Life Day coming up on Sunday, it might be a good idea for Bush and other anti-choice legislators, policy proponents, and advocates to take a good look at what laws that prohibit or decrease access to abortions do. In a nutshell, they force people who should never, ever have children in the first place to have children. People who should never have children sometimes make very bad parents. It puts children through hell. Not quite the picture of pure joy you see in all those commercials that spout "Choose Life!"
Yes, there's adoption. But with U.S. adoption laws being what they are [a long, drawn out nightmare], more and more hopeful parents are adopting babies from other countries. Where does that leave babies given up for adoption in the U.S.? At the moment there are just about 150,000 kids in the U.S. in foster care waiting to be adopted. Only about 1/3 of them will actually be adopted. The rest will spend their time in an institution or in foster care. And we all have heard the stories about what can happen while a kid is in foster care.
I'm not saying that everyone should run out and have abortions willy nilly, and I'm not saying that adoption isn't a good option. What I am saying is that it's time to get over this notion that abortion shouldn't be a choice, and isn't a valid choice.
And for Bush to be anti-choice is the most hilarious and hypocritical thing of all -- how many criminals did he execute while governor of Texas? How many thousands of Iraqis will die because of a ground war? How many innocent Afghanis died because his army couldn't get their bombing sites right? He's a one man killing machine responsible for more deaths than I can count, and he gets teary-eyed and indignant because someone wants to abort a lump of cells?
Yay! Can't wait for National Sanctity of Life Day! Whoohoo!
Why?
Honestly, that bears repeating: why? Why would anyone want to shove 702 needles through his skin? I think this is the key passage:
I understand the idea behind piercings and I have piercings. I can even understand the attraction to pain [although I personally am not a big fan of it]. But the blood? And the needles? At the same time? Ugh.
He looks like a pin cushion, or a long lost relative of Pinhead.
I haven't seen the pigeon lady recently so I thought maybe my evil eye/death curse had worked and maybe she was counting birds in an insane asylum.
Guess what?
I just ran out to the Subway next door to get a 6" Veggie Delight, and ran smack into the asshat herself, spreading handfuls of rat and roach sustenance bread cubes into the bushes. Since I haven't seen her lately I let my guard down and stopped carrying a copy of the Streets Department Sanitation Violation Report around with me to present to her. Bastard!
Maybe the cold weather makes me testy. Maybe I've had it with the fucking pigeons and rats in the city. I turned around and called, "You. You feeding the pigeons. Are you aware that feeding the pigeons on city streets is illegal?"
The bitch threw her bag of bread cubes at me and ran off down the street without saying a word.
I was too stunned to do anything other than give a cackle, brush the crumbs off myself, and continue on my way. I'm sure she'll be back feeding the damn wildlife again tomorrow.
Maybe I ought to start carrying around my own sack of stuff to throw at her...like rat poison. Maybe it would be a better plan to just follow her around and spread the rat poison behind her as she lays down a cover of bread cubes.
Of course, then I'd have to worry about being pelted with dead pigeons and rats.
Yesterday at work Craig called me up and said, "You are not going to believe what is going on here." I thought maybe the faux punk former neighbors had returned to wreak bloody vengeance against the neighborhood or something.
But no, Craig was out checking stores yesterday in Olde City when he noticed smoke pouring from a building in front of him and broken furniture all over the road a few blocks ahead. Craig, being the nosy old woman that he is, parked his work van and walked closer to the action. And then he found out that some lunatic had set fire to a highrise and was throwing his girlfriend's shit out of the window. Craig called me after getting back in his van and driving off, which it turns out was a good thing -- because the moron plummeted to his death about ten minutes later.
The fascinating thing to me is that the guy who set the fire was a total loon who has a long criminal record, but his girlfriend is a lawyer and a law professor at Temple University. My basic gut instinct tells me not to date criminals, no matter how cute, good in bed, charming, etc. And I would think that lawyers would have an even better handle on the situation. You know: criminal=bad. It's a pretty easy concept.
I'm constantly amazed at the choices that people make. This woman, a smart woman with a lot going on, chose to make a serious commitment to someone who she not only had to defend in court a few times, but was abusive and had mental problems and obviously had issues with anger management. I know that some women have a strange attraction to bad boys and don't always think with their brains -- I understand it on a very basic level, but I don't think I really, really understand it. What happens to people that makes them willing to accept violence in their every day life?
Now that the holidays are over, knitting has become a whole lot less about "have to" and a whole lot more about "this is fun." I finished the brown cardigan about a week ago, and I must admit that I am rather impressed with myself. Since my Pencam won't take a good picture, you can see the "official" picture that came with the pattern here. And it really does look just like that, except mine is a warm brown color.
And this is the sweater I'm currently working on. You can see from the fuzzy picture above how far I've gotten. I thought making all those little fringes would drive me insane, but it's pretty easy and mindless. And the sweater itself is very easy, and I'm happy with the way it's coming out. The other thing I'm working on is a hat for someone special who helped me in a major way recently.
My aunt sells handmade doll clothes at craft fairs and offered to sell sweaters for me if I wanted to make some to fit the dolls she sells for. And after Brooke's baby shower, one of my co-workers contracted me to knit a sweater like the one I knitted for Brooke's baby. So even though I'm a slow-ass knitter at least I can supplement my income with a few side projects.
I'm still half-embarrassed to say that I'm a knitter, even though it's totally trendy now and all sorts of celebrities have come out of the knitting closet. But I'm slowly getting over it -- I mean, on some level what girl hasn't ever entertained the thought of how sucky it is not to be able to find the clothes you want, and how cool it would be to make or design your own clothes? And so now I get to do that. And I'll have clothes that no one else has. I've started to design a few sweaters of my own, and I'm excited about trying out some of the designs.
I'd say that doesn't make me old-maidish. Instead, I'd like to think of myself as a fashion designer. That way I don't feel like my grandmother.
My first instinct is to indict Bush as a racist when I read that he's planning to challenge some affirmative action policies at University of Michigan.
But the truth is that I haven't figured out how I feel about affirmative action. On one hand, isn't it the same thing to give preferential treatment to minorities because they're minorities, as it is to give minorities less of a chance because they are minorities? But on the other hand, I understand that affirmative action does promote a more balanced workforce with regard to race and gender.
If were to be tested in order to get a job and found out that my score was lower than many, but that I was hired because I'm a woman and the company needed to hire more women in order to meet affirmative action quotas, I must admit that I would feel dirty about getting the job. And I understand how that type of thing can create tensions.
But yet I know that affirmative action has been a necessary and useful tool to force all-male or all-white employers into a less biased hiring practice.
So I see both sides to the argument, but I honestly have no idea how I come down on the issue. But it does leave a bad taste in my mouth that Bush is opposing it. With his administration's campaign of terror against women, religious freedom, minorities, and sexual freedom, if it looks and sounds like a carrot it probably is.
It is with a heavy heart I announce that the economy has taken it's toll on an important member of our society: the porn czarina from Utah.
That's right, Paula Houston will no longer field complaints about porn from smut-crazy Mormons. Furthermore, she will no longer get to watch porn flicks and page through skin mags as part of her job description. She won't even get to recommend the banning of A Catcher in the Rye anymore! What a dirty bird!
What qualifications does one have to possess in order to be a porn czar? Houston is a former local prosecutor, which doesn't seem like it will give you the skills you'd need. Did I mention that she is supposedly a 41-year-old virgin? You'd think that in order to be a true smut czar, searching out the smutty in all corners in order to prosecute, you'd have to be pretty well-versed in sex. Houston seems like unlikely candidate.
Personally, I'd like to see a retired porn star in that kind of job. There's really no upward mobility for old porn stars, and porn stars would definitely know porn when they see it. It's the perfect "moving on up" type of job for someone like that.
Speaking of upward mobility, what does someone like Houston do after being laid off from her porn czarina gig? Since she's been exposed to all that smut, [according to Latter Day Saint propaganda] her mind should be all sorts of corrupted. If what they're saying is true, she should be about ready to go all commando in the Tabernacle any day now.
I'm one of those people who tends to remember dreams very vividly. I generally remember two dreams from each night of sleep. Supposedly, the average person has 5-7 dreams per night, although each dream can be an amalgam of random snippets and themes.
This morning the alarm clock went off and I turned toward Craig, opened my eyes and said, "Thank you!" It took me a minute to figure out what the hell was going on, but right before I woke up I had been dreaming that Craig and I were going to a restaurant and he held the door open for me. So my natural response was to thank him.
I do that kind of thing alot -- a couple of weeks ago I dreamt that Craig was chasing me around the room with a knife, and I was so pissed off at him when I woke up I punched him in the arm before I realized my dream was over and I was awake.
What worries me is that I occasionally have the erotic dream involving a person or persons other than Craig. Craig would be a little concerned if I woke up out of a deep sleep yelling, "Give it to me hard, Fred! Ride me like a horse, Annie!" It would be a little disconcerting, don't you think?
A few nights ago I dreamt that I was being manhandled by Henry Rollins, and we were rolling around, doing some heavy petting. I woke up in the middle of the night, and Craig just happened to also be awake. I swear, I almost called him Henry.
Maybe I should wear a muzzle to bed.
During my daily bitching about the current administration yesterday, polls were brought up by several people in my comments. We've all heard that Bush enjoys good poll numbers, he's enjoying tremendous popularity, blah blah blah. Scott reported on a CNN poll that showed the opposite, but no one was reporting it. Even though it's only one outlet, I'm happy to say that it's not entirely true anymore. CNN must have heard you Scott!
What kills me is that Bush's numbers are still as high as they are. 56% of those polled believe Bush "generally favors the rich." Only 56%? Wake up people! If you make less than $500,000 per year and don't invest heavily in the stock market and don't own a large corporation, you're really not going to benefit from anything this administration has to offer. Snap out of it!
What really shocks me is that 67% of those polled believes he returns a sense of dignity to the White House. This is the Shrub we're talking about, right? The guy who makes up words, bumbles over his speeches, and looks like a deer caught in headlights most of the time? And how can 53% of those polled approve of the way he's handling foreign affairs? While I'm sure he didn't do this single-handedly, the jackass has the U.S. on the brink of war with one country and facing a second war with a second country -- because of his mishandling of foreign policy.
Kelly pointed me toward a TIME poll that asks readers who poses the greatest risk to world peace: North Korea, Iraq, or the U.S. I'll bet you a loaf of homemade scrapple that you don't need more than one guess to get it right.
So Craig and I are going to purchase a camera after work today. I have it narrowed down to a Fuji Finepix 2650 or a Kodak CX4230. I have about $200.00 to work with, so those two seem to be the best two in my price range.
Anyone have something to contribute that may sway me toward one or the other? My main concern is that I am able to have physical photographs printed out, and that I am able to purchase a large memory card. I really would love to take just one camera to Paris.
If I hear "E-A-G-L-E-S, Eagles!" or the Eagles fight song one more time I may have to transform into my raging alter-ego, The Crazed Fish. Beware my wrath -- I'll slap you with my flippers.
See, here's the thing, I wanted the Eagles to win last weekend because of sentimental reasons, and I'd love them to win this weekend too. Not because I'm a rabid sports fan, but because of issues I have wrapped up in the Vet. I'd like the old stadium to go out in a blaze of glory, so to speak.
But, you see, we have in Philadelphia what is known throughout the land as drunk and disorderly gorillas. Or, as they like to call themselves, Eagles fans. There's even a jail and courtroom in the Vet. It gets a lot of use. I doubt Eagles fans are really the worst in the country, but I will admit that most of them get a couple of beers in them and turn into fucking idiots.
Kathy found out the hard way not to even try to go anywhere in South Philly during a big game. When I lived in South Philly I was afraid to leave my house during a game for fear some crazed lunatic would run me over in the street or worse. I lived close to the stadiums during the last time the Flyers were in any sort of play-offs and the noise was so loud no one could sleep. I lived next door to a neighborhood bar, so I was rinsing piss off the side of my house for days.
So yeah, I'd like to see the team win this weekend, but I don't need any constant and crazed reminders that the game is happening. You can take your Eagles Green Friday and shovel it.
Far be it from me to deny a Princess her due, so here I am about to undertake my part in the Bloggin' Lovefest.
The problem is that I love so many blogs/journals, it's hard to go with one [or even two]. I have already professed my deep, undying love for Mrs. Roboto yesterday, so today I think I will slobber all over myself to sing the praises of two of my favorite guys: Scott from The Gamer's Nook and John from Thud Factor.
So without further ado, here is my Ode to Scott and John....
Scott and John, with your political commentary so witty
You are truly two of the most entertaining male bloggers
Scott with your hockey-infested appearance and
John with your strange mulletted evangelist-looking guy,
how could I not love and adore you guys?
All right, that's enough of that -- my Odes are not exactly the stuff of Keats. But seriously, I can always count on John and Scott to keep me informed and keep me laughing [or cringing, as the case may be] and keep me entertained.
Thank you both for doing what you do -- my day would be a lot less interesting without you.
Want to make Robyn a happy girl? Grab a peice of the Bloggin' Lovefest while there's still time!
Cover bands have their place. That place is usually a beer bar with no carding policy, frequented by freshman college students. Every college town has an astonishing array of barely talented cover bands making the rounds, playing badly arranged versions of Brown Eyed Girl and Oh What a Night.
The Philadelphia area has it's fair share. Having not been a college freshman in 11 years, drunken sing-a-longs with bad bands has lost it's appeal [as if it ever had much of an appeal]. I always assumed that college bands were like college students -- you graduate or leave school and you move on with your life. Apparently, I am dead wrong.
Last night Craig picked me up from work to go window shopping for a digital camera and the radio was on. Some cheesy college bar was advertising the bands for this weekend, and, for some unknown reason, I paid attention. Much to my surprise, most of the names sounded very familar. In fact, I had seen almost all the bands [even though I recall it through a beer-soaked haze] in my college days.
Do college cover bands just continue forever? I wonder what their fan base is like -- I mean, 30-something and 40-something guys playing covers of Journey can't be that attractive to an 18 year old girl. Will they just continue to tour the city's underage drinking establishments until they're old and gray?
Will I listen to the radio in 20 years and hear, "And this weekend come to Brownie's Central East for a groovin' to the oldies weekend with Love Seed Mama Jump! Ambulances will be standing by..."?
Someone I work with who is a military reservist has just been called to active duty in response to the situation in Iraq. His unit expects full mobilization by January 23. He's been called for a year, with the option of a second year of service [as mandated by the Shrub]. Another friend is expecting to be called to active duty any day now.
I have to believe that this is a bad omen.
My grandfather, someone who I usually disagree with about everything, kind of summed it up best over the weekend: "If we don't invade Iraq we'll look like cowards, but if we do we'll look even worse." The very fact that he doesn't support the war and the current administration 100% speaks volumes to me -- this is a man who is a die hard Republican from way back when. He refuses to vote for anyone who is not a Republican. Ever. It looks like there's dissention in the ranks, folks.
It's naive to think there will ever be a time when everyone in the world is peaceful and at peace. A girl can dream though, right? It makes me sick that my friends are being called to active duty. Yes, I agree that Hussein is a bad man. He's bad for world peace. He's bad for the people of Iraq. But I don't want to see Iraq levelled and the people of Iraq killed because of him. I don't want my friends put in harms way because Bush has a beef with Hussein over trying to kill his dad, and because he feels the need to control the oil in that region. And yet I don't want to worry that Hussein has a long range chemical weapons that could hurt people like Angua in Israel or anywhere else, for that matter.
So what's the right answer?
Maybe the U.S. would be at the point of killing thousands of people in the name of peace even if Bush wasn't the "President." Whatever the case, it doesn't instill me with confidence to have him at the helm.
Pinky, are you thinking what I'm thinking?
Science is a way to explain away all sorts of odd phenomena. And so when I hear about the Virgin Mary's face appearing in a window or on a rose petal or wherever, I tend to think it's able to be explained through science. Namely that the shape in the window or wherever vaguely resembles someone's face and, if you're religious, you take the leap of faith and decide that you're seeing the Virgin Mary. Since I don't believe in god or any of that, it seems impossible to me that anyone could see the Virgin Mary or witness any other so-called religious miracles.
For me to say that I am not religious is one thing, but for me to thumb my nose at paranormal phenomena is quite another. I believe in ghosts and reincarnation, past lives, etc. Why is it so easy for me to believe in that, but so hard to believe that someone might see the Virgin Mary in a Camaro's paintjob? I'm not really sure. Maybe since I see ghosts, it's much easier for me to believe it. Maybe if I saw the Virgin Mary or suddenly developed stigmata, I'd be more apt to believe that god exists.
I guess I just need to see things to believe in them. I need proof. And I know that religious types will say that life itself is proof that god exists. My thought on that is if the christian god exists, what about all the other religions. Are they wrong? Every person who believes in a religion thinks that their religion is the one true religion and everyone else is just wrong. Sure, there's that whole free will thing, which can be cited to explain it all away. But there are religious texts that are older than the Bible, religions that were thought up way before anyone decided to make up christianity.
But there's absolutely no proof that god exists, no proof that ghosts exist, no proof that demons exist. For all we know, we're going to die and that will be the end of it.
Just for the record, Mrs. Roboto is my hero. Really.
Despite the fact that I was a cheerleader and did all sorts of other join-y, extracurricular stuff, I was not in the normal popular kind of crowd. I wore a lot of black, dyed my hair purple in the off season, wore Doc Martens, and usually had Black Flag or Agent Orange playing on my radio. I didn't really want my team to win. I was the bitter cheerleader. I hated the crowd that got together on the weekends to break into daddy's cabin and have a kegger.
I stood up for myself when I had to, but Mrs. Roboto takes the prize -- I wish I could claim the lock story as my own. Of course, everyone at my school thought I was a satanist so maybe my well-cultivated evil eye would have been enough to strike fear into the hearts of the moronic. But I would have loved to feel the hard metal thump against someone's head.
For those of us who grew up, thinking we were going to be anarchists and then instead grew up to be part of what we never thought we would, remember who we used to be is a weird experience. I always thought I'd be an investigative journalist, bringing corrupt politicians to their knees, bucking the establishment, zinging it to the man. Instead I'm not doing anything quite so subversive or revolutionary. But I'd like to think I'm still doing something good with my life -- raising money for charity is somewhat noble.
Sometimes I go back through my old journals and I laugh. Mrs. Roboto says the girl she used to be "doesn't seem like a part of me but I'm sure she is." It's true. For most of us, the person we were in early parts of our lives is no longer who we are today, but the past is there, just under the surface, waiting for some weird memory to trigger it. It's always a part of us.
I am thrilled to say that I am back in Philadelphia, land of the fourth highest number of obese people in the U.S., home of Brotherly Love. Ahhhhhh!
The remainder of my trip was relatively uneventful. My mom and Ed took us out to eat Saturday night. Normally this would not be note-worthy, since they usually drag us along to their favorite pizza joint. But this place was Special. People they know said it was really nice and the food was excellent. And then I knew why we weren't just heading over to the pizza place.
The last time they came to visit Craig and I in Philadelphia we took them to eat at our favorite restaurant, and they really liked it and were a little disturbed that we wouldn't let them see how much the bill was. The thing is that I knew they would freak out -- the bill was a little over $100 and that seems like a small fortune for dinner if there's no place to eat around you except for McDonald's. So I knew that this was their way of trying to get us back for taking them out.
So we walk into this place and it's almost completely empty in the middle of what should have been their busy dinner hours on a Saturday night, which always makes me nervous. The big draw to this place is that they have a big glassed in cage with half a dozen huge tropical birds in it. Have I ever mentioned how much I hate birds? And I really don't like loud birds. Craig loves birds, so he was interested. So we sit down in a booth and the menu arrives, along with a waitress who reminds me of Flo. There's no pink uniform, but she's got that gum/cud-chewing, down home way about her [including permed frizzy hair that was likely going to end up in my food]. Both my mom and Ed order chef salads, which come with lettuce gleaned from the all you can eat salad buffet across the room and little rolled up peices of lunchmeat. Uh huh. And Craig ordered a crab cake sandwich, which he later told me had the consistency of a brillo pad and he had to hide most of it underneath his burnt pile of fries. I got seafood linguine, which wasn't horrible but tasted vaguely of lemon Pledge. I am an accomplished liar, so my mom and Ed thought the food was delightful and I had received such a huge portion of food that I ate most of it but you just couldn't tell.
The true test of a hick restaurant are what beer they have on tap. And at this place: Bud, Bud Light, and Coors Light. Surprisingly, they did have Yuengling Lager on tap, but there was no beer anywhere on the premises that was any darker than mid-amber. Oh, and a glass of beer was 50 cents. Not that that's a bad thing, but still.
I can deal with bad food at a restaurant. It happens -- not every restaurant we try is excellent. But what made the evening fairly unbearable were two things:
Going to visit my mother's house in the winter is hard to take -- it's so cold you can't escape the house. And the house is noisy. My stepfather is a former EMT who insists on keeping his dispatch scanner on and at top volume at all times. Morning, noon, and night that stupid scanner spits out static and inane chatter about the latest football game, or who's been arrested for DUI, or whatever. I just don't get it -- neither one of them pays any attention at all to world news, but boy howdy if my stepfather doesn't know that Ambulance #10 took a run to the local nursing home to pick up a dead body, his very world will shatter.
It's a shame -- both my mother and stepfather are such nice people. And I know that the lifestyle I've chosen for myself wouldn't suit them, and doesn't suit a lot of people. Country living really does appeal to more people than living in the city, and maybe there is some hidden merit to listening to a police/ambulance scanner 24-7. I just couldn't wait to escape Berwick, and it seems strange to me that anyone wouldn't want to.
I'm so happy that our visits are infrequent.
Here I am in good old Berwick. The fun just never stops.
It took us 2.5 hours to drive up here. The minute we stepped into my mother's house it started to blizzard. Timing is everthing I guess.
Being here makes me depressed. We were driving up the street where they do the Christmas Boulevard on our way to the house and there was one lone decoration here and there, and it made me so glad I still don't live here -- economically depressed and nothing to do [don't ask why I make that immediate connection -- it's all psychological with me].
My stepfather works in a factory which is constantly threatening to close, leaving all the employees out of work. My mom and stepfather don't want to make any plans to actually enjoy their lives in case the plant closes and they have to be more careful with money. Most people who live here work in a factory, and most factories here are always on the verge of shutting down, maybe with the exception of Wise potato chips.
And, of course, hardly any of the factories pay a livable wage. Is it any wonder the population of Berwick is about 10,000 people [which I find hard to believe -are they counting pets?], and there are just about 5,000 bars in the town? I'd want to get drunk every night too if this is what I had to look forward to until I die.
Yes, I am not an upbeat girl when I am here. But it does serve to make me feel incredibly lucky that I escaped.
I'm often amazed at the books that have been banned or challenged over the years.
Lysistrata was banned for decades in the U.S. under the Comstock Law of 1873, which is still, for the most part, technically in existence [although mostly unenforced -- for now]. Lysistrata is an anti-war play. It's funny and I didn't really find anything offensive in it.
It boggles my mind that Leaves of Grass was banned. The poetry is beautiful! And why Black Beauty would ever be banned is bizarre.
But that's in the past, and we're smarter now, right? Right? I mean, who really thinks reading something and learning things is bad? That's archaic and silly.
As archaic and silly as it is, book censorship is still practiced in the U.S. A few years ago a school in Georgia required students to get parental permission to read King Lear. King Lear! Huckleberry Finn has been dropped from curriculums around the country.
Every time a school district refuses to allow The Chocolate War, The Catcher in the Rye, Go Ask Alice, or Of Mice and Men to be read for curriculum, students are deprived. I consider myself really lucky -- my school district didn't give care what we were reading. We could have been doing book reports on Playboy and they would have just been happy we were reading.
I did an independent study project on James Baldwin in my senior year. You know if an enterprising English literature teacher tried to get Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone or Go Tell it on the Mountain on the curriculum now, there's be a big brou-ha-ha. Those books changed my whole outlook on life. We did a segment on Ralph Ellison's The Invisible Man. I am not the same person for having read that book. And it makes me want to cry to know that people are being denied the opportunity to read that book somewhere because some bunch of assholes wants to pretend the world is a perfect place.
It blew my mind when people started to freak out over the Harry Potter books. Books about magic and dragons and other science fiction-y type of things stimulate the imagination. My collection of Piers Anthony books is massive. Yet I never once thought any of it could be real, and I'm pretty well-adjusted.
Funding is being decreased at an alarming rate for music and arts programs -- which means an entire generation of kids is growing up without access to beauty. They aren't stimulated to be creative. Books that force a person to think are being purged from required reading lists. People like to say that kids today are spiralling out of control -- violence and sexuality in teens is through the roof, obesity is on the rise. The most hilarious thing is that the people in control created that mess. They bitch about kids being apathetic, but don't want to take responsibility for educating them without teaching them to be creative or to think for themselves.
I have a myriad of reasons for not wanting to have children. But a large part of it is not wanting to bring a kid into the world in which we all live. The U.S. educational system is a big joke, the U.S. government is hell bent on destroying the environment, the economy, any semblance of world peace, and by the time my kid would be old enough to retire there will be no money in Social Security to do so. It's depressing and sick: I have no hope.
Brooke's baby shower is today and I, being the total cheese whore that I am, was put in charge of getting the cheese tray. So I called DiBruno's cheese shop and ordered up a nice cheese platter with crackers and olives, etc.
I forgot that DiBruno's is about six blocks away, cheese is fucking heavy, and it was supposed to windier than hell out today. I get there and they present me with this massive cheese platter and a bag of water crackers, melba toast, and fresh bread. But no olives. So I had to hike over to their other store [secretly trying to come up with a way for me to get all of it back to work without killing myself or destroying the platter] for a pound of kalamata olives and some marinated mushrooms [because I was there, and I can't resist].
'I'll take a cab!' I think to myself. I'm a genious. But I have no actual cash on me, and there isn't an ATM machine anywhere close. Curses, foiled again!
So I need you to picture this: 5'2" girl in a beige coat with a huge main of fur, stomping down a Philadelphia sidewalk with a gargantuan cheese tray and two bags of other foodstuff hanging off one arm. Fighting the wind, red hair blowing in her face, fighting with the lid of the cheesetray which has suddenly come loose.
For six long-ass blocks.
My arms feel like they're going to fall off my body. And, to top it all off, my hair now looks like ass because I was sweating and it's like a wind tunnel outside. What kind off hostess can I be when my hair looks like Ed Grimley?
And all to celebrate the coming of a baby. I hate babies! And today's adventure doesn't endear them to me any more. Urgh.
Come with me and you will see.
A late-night-freak-show-Jubilee!
Kick the Sandman in his sack;
Stay up late - Insomniac!
So I went on a mild shopping spree during lunch today.
Since Craig has already given me my birthday present early [the glam coat], I bought him a watch he's been drooling over and I plan to give it to him as his early birthday gift. And I did the normal beauty product drag up Walnut Street. Now that the new Kiehl's store is open I fear I will drop a boat load of cash on prettying myself up.
But the real mission for today was to finally purchase a book on NASCAR for my stepfather. Since it isn't supposed to be too awfully snowy this weekend, Craig and I are making the three hour trek home to my mom's to celebrate Christmas.
And I will admit that I put off purchasing the book because I'm so mortified to actually purchase it. However, considering I need to wrap the book this evening in order to leave here right after work tomorrow, I couldn't blow it off anymore.
If it's possible, I think it was worst than I anticipated.
I searched Barnes and Noble, looking for the sports section. No sports section was evident to me. I asked, innocently, about the sports section. It was hidden away in a corner. There were no NASCAR books in the sports section. I debated whether or not I should ask. Finally, I bit the bullet.
As luck would have it, this totally hot [and terminally hip] guy was behind the help desk. I gave an inward shudder and hoped an embarrassed red glow was not spreading over my face the way I thought it was.
"Could you direct me toward where books on NASCAR are located?" I asked with great trepidation.
The hottie immediately got an amused look on his face. "Uh, you're looking for a book on NASCAR?" he asked, snottily. "Yes, that's in the transportation section. Right over there in the corner next to Sports." And I swear to you, he snickered.
They probably took a photograph of me and are passing it out all over town with this caption: "this girl is a total hick -- she purchased a book about NASCAR." It was awful.
But the humiliation wasn't over. I felt like a total ass to begin with, and I couldn't very well just buy a book on NASCAR. It would be like going into a drug store and only purchasing condoms and/or a pregnancy test. You don't want to look skeevy or sleazy -- you have to purchase something normal to keep up the outward appearance of nonchalance. So I hunted around and picked up a new paperback: Gould's Book of Fish by Richard Flanagan. I get to the counter, NASCAR book carefully hidden underneath the novel, hoping the ultra-hip girl behind the counter won't notice what I'm buying.
She picks up my purchases and scans them. And then smirks. And then, the worst: she called me ma'am! "Have a nice day, ma'am," she called after me in her snarky little chirp.
My stepfather had better appreciate the fact that I lost all of my street credibility just to purchase this book for him. I'm ruined for ever, I tell you! I will be laughed out of all the cool bars and restaurants in town! I will have to hide my face at clubs! My library card will be revoked!
Next year I will definitely purchase over the internet.
You know I think all of us East Coast Bloggers are all that and a bag of Rap Snacks. Thus, it is with a heavy heart that I announce I am unable to attend the East Coast Blogger gathering in the Poconos on March 14.
I just know those bastids are going to frolic amongst the heart-shaped tubs and champagne glass jacuzzis, and I'm going to miss it all.
Curses!
Solonor linked to the hidden bias tests at the Southern Poverty Law Center, and I must admit that I was curious how it would come out for me, so I took the tests.
My results -- I have a "slight automatic preference" for gay people, other people [who aren't Arab Muslims], and thin people; a "slight automatic association" between blacks and weapons, and European looking face and being "American;" a "moderate automatic prefence" for white children; "little or no preference" between white and black adults, and light or dark skin tone; "little or no automatic gender association" with science and liberal arts; and a "strong automatic preference" for the young.
We all have some biases, whether we know it or not. The result I was most surprised about what my slight preference for white children -- I don't like any children at all, let alone a certain color children.
I'm going to take some of those tests over again in a few weeks to see if the results vary at all. I guess I should just be thrilled the tests didn't reveal that I'm a raging racist with huge preferences over one thing or the other.
And Solonor brings up an interesting point -- the tests really only measure your immediate reaction. Of course, I'm a strong believer in going with your first reaction. The validity of these tests could be, and likely has been, debated to death.
How did your tests come out?
Someone mentioned to me yesterday that the current U.S. administration was planning to start requiring U.S. citizens to register any international travel plans. I've been unable to find any documentation on it -- could someone point me in the right direction? I feel an apoplexy coming on.
Anyway.
Good news -- Mr. Blackwell has released his 2002 list of the worst dressed! I never noticed whether Meg Ryan was well dressed or not, but I completely concur with the rest of his list. But he forgot Brittney Spears -- or maybe [like the rest of us] he's trying to block her from his mind. Maybe someone used the Jedi mind trick on him: "Mr. Blackwell, you do not see Brittney Spears. She does not look like a whore. She is simply not there."
But yeah, Shakira, Anna Nicole, Pink, and that Aguilera chick -- they all look like someone shrank their clothes in the wash, dressed them, and then put them in a steel cage fight with a badger. I can halfway forgive Kelly Osborne because, well, I just can.
Personally, I think Mr. Blackwell ought to turn his attention to individual cities. Or deputize some of us regular folk to hand out fashion citations. I would sign up in a heart beat for that job. Can you see me now, out and about with citation pad in hand yelling, "Honey no! Don't you know that wearing stirrup pants with flats are not meant to happen? It's tacky! I can't let you off with a warning, that's just awful!" or running after some fly guy on the sidewalk, "What is up with the purple alligator skin slip on loafers, buddy? Those are wretched -- here's a $100 ticket just for being an eyesore!"
I think it's my calling.
What qualifies me to perform such a sacred duty? According to our intern, I have "full flava" and my new stylist told me that I have a "great look." Of course, you can't trust those damn stylists. If she thought it would get her a better tip she'd probably tell me I was a goddess. Of course, I am, dahling, but I don't expect strangers to pick up on that!
But I like the "full flava" thing -- bwah!
Let me clear this up: just because I was a cheerleader doesn't mean I enjoy watching football or basketball. I understand the games well, having been exposed to it on a weekly basis for a million years, but watching most sporting events is just about as exciting as watching paint dry.
Yeah, so, I don't watch sports on television and I rarely attend sporting events. But I am going to make an exception this weekend -- I'm going to watch the Eagles game.
It's not about the game or the team. Making it to the Superbowl would be a nice thing for the city and the team, but I just don't care about it. It's about the stadium. This game will be one of the last played at Veteran's Stadium. So I will watch the last game[s] at the Vet.
Maybe it's silly for me to feel so sentimental about the stadium, but I am so saddened to see it go. A new stadium will replace it this year, and the Vet will be imploded. It's been around just slightly longer than I have. It was the first location I cheered at in college. Temple U. didn't have it's own football field at the time, so we played at the Vet. I had some great times there.
Yep, that's me on the end. Do you see how empty the stadium was? It's because Temple's football team has always sucked. Hardly anyone voluntarily came to those games. Because there was hardly anyone watching, we had so much fun goofing off.
My grandparents and my mother came to the Vet to watch me cheer once. That, in itself, is a minor miracle, but it's a funny memory! I talked my mom and my grandparents into taking the Broad Street subway to the game. That was pure comedy gold -- it's the one and only time any of them have been on a subway. My grandfather was petrified that he was going to get cooties from all the non-white people on the subway. The look of terror when a little black girl bumped into him was priceless. My grandparents had just returned from a pilgrimage to Dollywood, and my grandmother had a silly pair of glasses that had Dolly's eyes painted onto the lenses that she insisted on wearing the whole time. It was a funny, funny day.
Another hilarious time at the Vet was after the homecoming game my freshman year -- MC Hammer was our homecoming entertainment. We were all on top of one of the dugouts being smacked asses, and he was all Hammer-pantsed out, doing his little Hammer dance across the stage in the middle of the field.
So many funny memories that I can't help but be kind of sad to know that the Vet is in it's final days. Sure, the stadium is falling apart and is a total hazard, but I'll miss seeing it.
Arrivederci, old friend!
So Charles Pickering has been re-nominated for a court of appeals judicial seat, along with 30 other nominees who were turned away by the then Democrat-controlled Senate. It's just one more step closer to making sure I have no rights whatsoever as a woman. Back when he was a Mississippi legislator in the 70's he tried to outlaw abortion and continuously voted against funding for family planning programs.
And let's not forget this little nugget from the last hearings:
But then again, the current administration doesn't seem too awfully concerned about making sense.
Last night Craig and I were going through some boxes of junk that have been following me around from house to house for the last thirteen years. We came across a treasure trove of artifacts from my first year of junior high school.
At Berwick Area Junior High School [in 1983 anyway] all 7th graders were required to take a half year of industrial arts classes [aka: shop class] and a half year of home economics classes [aka: home-ec]. I was pretty excited to take shop class -- I had never used power tools and it never occured to me that I might lose a limb or anything. Home-ec, on the other hand, held no fascination for me whatsoever. I mean, who the hell wants to learn to be a haus frau, right?
In 2003 I'm sure that home-ec and shop classes have been upgraded to be glamourous and hip. In shop kids probably build Habitat for Humanity houses or something, and in home-ec kids probably learn to oven dry pot in order to make hemp bracelets and tie-dye stuff.
My first day of shop I vividly remember walking into a huge, cavernous room with lots of sharp things. The shop teacher, Mr. Less, was missing a few digits, which didn't strike a note of confidence with me. I sat down and Mr. Less looked over us with disgust. "No jewelry will be worn at any time in this room," he barked, giving me the evil eye. "And you will wear these at all times!" And with that he pulled out the most vile thing I have ever seen: shop safety glasses.
I recoiled in horror. They were hideous. I would look like a moron. Surely, he didn't mean me. And the jewelry! Didn't Mr. Less realize that it took me twenty minutes each morning just to pick out my jewelry and put on 100 rubber bracelets.
Despite all that, I had a wonderful couple of months bonding with the planer and the jigsaw. I made a spectacular cutting board and even a set of bookshelves which are still hanging in my bathroom at this very moment. See, quality workmanship was produced in that shop class.
Home-ec, on the other hand, was pure silliness. We were all divided into groups and we each had our own little kitchenette. Every class we cooked something new. Guess what my project was? Go ahead, guess.
Any ideas?
That's right: segmented orange with confectioners sugar.
Yep, instruction was actually given for segmenting an orange. It was like a class in independent living for the mentally challenged. My instructor actually demonstrated how to peel an orange and how to sprinkle on the confectioners sugar. And fanning out the slices into a pleasing arc sure was difficult.
I've always wondered what one would have to do to fail the orange segment part of the class. Fail to remove the pith correctly? Fail to fan out the segments correctly? Miss the plate when sprinkling the sugar?
While I'm sure the school district thought this type of education would prepare me for adulthood, I'm sorry to report that I have never sat down with a beautifully prepared segmented orange artfully sprinkled with confectioners sugar.
But dammit, I sure can square dance.
As many of you know I will be leaving the frozen city of Philadelphia late next month to visit the equally cold city of Paris for a week. But who will keep the home fires burning?
I already have one spectacular guest poster lined up, and I sure could use a few more. I'll be handing out guest post passwords like candy! I know you want one.
Here's the deal -- I'm leaving Friday, February 21 and returning Saturday, March 1. Anyone who wants a password has to post at least once during that time, but you can post as much as your little heart desires. I would prefer not to come back and find out that go fish has been splattered with porn, though. I know that's a deal breaker for some of you.
I'll be taking guest post offers until February 14 [Valentines Day, awwwww] and then I'll email out all the passwords that week.
Come on, wouldn't you like to be a fishie too?
How did go fish end up being the fourth site listed for underarm stubble on Google?
Oddly enough, I also got a hit from a search for Yemeni stripper girls. Um, sorry -- no Yemeni stripper girls here.
What kind of construction work only makes $19K a year? Does old Evan the "millionaire" only work three hours per week? He obviously isn't in the union. Most of the construction workers I know are pulling in at least $40K.
Yeah, so I am grudgingly admitting that I tuned in to watch Joe Millionaire last night. The whole thing. I feel so dirty.
And those women! I'm assuming that FOX went through and chose the money-grubbingest, most devious and petty chicks they could come up with. Of course, I don't know what would possess a chick to put in an application for something like that anyway -- you'd pretty much have to be starving for affection, dying to get on television, and intent on marrying rich. Personally, I would feel like a complete ass trying to win the love [OK, lust] of some guy on national television. And then there's the issue of disease. Evan gets to smooch on [at the least] all these chicks, and if even one of them has mono [or something worse], they'll all have mono. Gross!
It really wasn't even very interesting to watch. The little Pygmalion thing in the beginning with the butler was kind of funny, but also kind of pathetic. Urgh.
I just had kind of a funny thought. Maybe the U.S. government should be the official sponsor of Joe Millionaire -- the sponsorship could be linked in with the Bush administration's $2.2 million marriage promotion fiasco. Heh, now that would be funny.
Sometimes it helps me to get through a Monday if I just get my eyebrows waxed and get a manicure.
Aw, don't my brows look delightful?
I'm so boojie.
It has come to my attention that I will likely die before I get around to doing everything on my list of Things to do Before I Die.
Now some I know I will do shortly -- like all the stuff involved with going to Paris next month. Maybe I ought to add in more things I want to do in Paris so I have more stuff to cross off, thereby making myself feel better and more accomplished. Does that make me pathetic, or just silly?
I've been hard at work learning French. I think I've got the basics -- I can now ask where things are, count, ask how much stuff is, and say that I would like to have something and ask for the check. Well, and a few other things. But I probably have just enough French to make it by without sounding like a total smack. I have just about six weeks to learn as much as I can.
But back to the list -- that's just all the stuff I could think of in 30 minutes this morning. I can't imagine what that list will look like in, let's say, a month. I should get busy trying to accomplish at least one non-Paris related thing this year.
I was considering putting in an application for Blogwhore 2, but realized that I would not be eligible due to my vacation in the middle of the competition. I'm no Philo, but I think I'd make a damn fine Blogwhore.
Maybe next year.
Like almost all teenager girls, I used to lie through my teeth about my age. From the time I turned 12 I was telling guys I was 16 or 17 in order to make myself seem cooler. I probably could have passed for older, so that wasn't a real issue -- I was certainly an early bloomer and you know most guys [of any age] are really only focused on your ta-tas anyway.
Usually lying about my age was not a big deal -- like if my friends and I were at an amusement park...we'd find some hot boys to hang out with who thought we were much older, smooch a little, and then we'd never see them again. No one got hurt, and I got a little bit of older-guy action.
Things that seem like a good idea at the time if I don't get caught often go wrong for me. All wrong.
It would seem that, along the way, I picked up a few stalker types.
My first extra-nutty stalker was a boy named Rob. I met him while on vacation at my Aunt's house outside of Philadelphia when I was 13. He was 17. And sure, he was a sweet guy and a good kisser and all of that. When I left to come back home after my vacation, Rob insisted that he would write to me every day and maybe he'd even come to visit. Considering my mom's Rules for Dating, that was a scary idea to me. But whatever.
Rob wrote a letter to me every single freakin' day for a year. They were letters full of teenage boy romantic fantasies: "I love you so much. I can't wait to see you again. You make me feel so special and wonderful. I can't wait to kiss you again." Blah, blah, blah. Meanwhile, I was rolling my eyes at these letters and every once in a great while I'd send him a postcard.
So I visited my Aunt again the following summer. Rob was on her porch waiting for me to arrive. With flowers. It was kind of sweet, but also kind of creepy. And then I left to come home, and the letters continued. At this point he had graduated from high school, and I was 14. Right around December he decided to enlist in the Army. That's when I got the proposal.
Yep, I was 14 years old and Rob asked me to marry him before he was shipped out to boot camp. Uh huh. So I did what any normal girl would do -- sent him a letter telling him that I did not live in West Virginia, was way too young to get hitched as I was only 14, and told him I never wanted to hear from him again.
I got a few more letters before he left saying he didn't care how old I was, he loved me, blah blah blah, but after he began boot camp I never heard from him again. No doubt he came to his senses and realized how icky the whole idea was.
After that, lying about my age lost it's appeal.
I am the original high maintenance type of chick. I don't like to go without showers, dig in the dirt, sleep on the ground, live off the fat of the land, or anything like that. But every once in a while there will come a day when I spend the entire day in my pajamas and yesterday's undies, with no shower, underarm stubble screaming to be shaved, doorag perched on my head.
Sloth, thy name is Nicole and today is that day.
I guess I'm just feeling lazy -- I got up kind of late [9am] and it's snowing like crazy outside and started to stick to the ground. There's no good reason for me to get pretty or clean today. Oh sure, maybe later I'll get the urge to bathe or shower. But for now I will remain vaguely funky.
In other news, go fish is slowly but surely shaping up. My designer is hard at work fixing the bugs with the calendar navigation and a host of other things. I'm trying to figure out a way to import my old MT database since I wasn't able to export the file before it died. Before long things will be perfect. I hope.
Gee, i stink.
Earlier today I needed to make a post office run. So Craig joined me for little jaunt to my local office.
Today is trash day in Fishtown. You know how it is -- you get pissed off if you get caught driving behind a trash truck on narrow city streets because there's no way to pass them usually, and it completely slows down your day.
Right. So Craig and I are walking along, returning from our P.O. visit and there's a trash truck in the street and there are about five cars behind the truck, all beeping their horns and acting like assholes. Finally, the trash truck driver sees a spot by the side of the road where he can pull over and let the other cars pass by. The guy on the back of the trash truck starts waving people by, when for no reason whatsoever the guy driving the last car opens his car door, stands on his car and yells, "Yo, fuck you nigger!" to the guy on the back of the trash truck. And then he got back in his car and drove away.
I couldn't move. My feet were rooted to the sidewalk. I just stood there staring at this guy. Have you ever been in a situation where everything just gets quiet, and the blood starts pounding in your ears, and you're sure your head might explode? I wanted to run after the guy, stop his car, and just pound him until he bled profusely. But I could not move. I was embarrassed to be white, and embarrassed that I live with people who are so ignorant.
I forget sometimes that people like that exist. My world is sanitized for my comfort -- I surround myself with people who don't pay attention to skin color. Brooke and I might joke about people not like her because she's black or people not liking me because I'm white, but we all make fun of people like that. And I just forget that people have such malice in them.
A few nights ago I was watching Conan O'Brien and he had Charles Barkley on. Conan mentioned the stupidity that came out of Trent Lott about Strom Thurmond, and Barkley said something like, "Well, it doesn't surprise me. That's the way people in the South think. I'm more comfortable in the Northeast." And I buy into that type of generalised thinking -- Southerners and mid-Westerners are more concerned with issues of race than in the Northeast or in the Southwest. I forget that there are just as many racist assholes living here, like the guy in the car and like my grandfather.
What bothered me the most is that the guy wasn't very old. He was probably my age. I tend to be a little more forgiving toward old people because saying stupid shit like that was OK when they were growing up. It's not a license to continue thinking that way, but I can at least understand where it comes from. But for a 30 year old guy to think it's OK to use that word and think those things is completely unacceptable to me. How can anyone grow up in the 1970's and 1980's and still have a racist bone in their body? I don't understand.
And it pisses me off. And freaks me out. I'm rapidly losing hope in the future.
It's no secret that I hate the Mummers. And after their late night serenade a few days ago, I like them even less than usual. Of course, it should come as absolutely no surprise to me whatsoever that they have managed to ruin my plans this fine Saturday.
Christy and I decided we'd take the 9am Bikram yoga class. I got excited just thinking of it last night -- it's the perfect way to begin a cold, Winter morning. And then we were supposed to run over to Pearl Arts to get her the ingredients to cook up a lovely photo album in which to deposit her huge collection of photos from Africa.
I should have known those fucking Mummers would come between me and my good stretch.
As it turns out, because the outdoor portion of the Mummers Parade was cancelled on New Years Day, it was rescheduled for today. And my yoga studio is right in Parade Route Central. As much as I just adore drunk drag queens, I had to decline to visit the studio today.
So here I sit, saddened by this horrible state of affairs. It's a travesty.
In 2001 there were 2,344,000 marriages in the U.S. That's up from 2,178,367 in 1975. I'd say over 2 million people getting married every year is a pretty hefty number.
Apparently the Shrub doesn't think so. The U.S. government just spent $2.2 million on promoting marriage. Silly me, I didn't realize that the idea of marriage was falling by the wayside. I mean, it's not like we're all conditioned from birth to think that our ultimate goal is to find love and get hitched, right? Right?
Yep, $2.2 million. To promote something that really doesn't need to be promoted. And it's going to the Shrub's pet project: the religious groups. $2.2 million that could be spent on something that matters -- like child care or helping to fix the medical malpractice crisis or promoting family planning.
I know that in promoting marriage, the Shrub is thinking 'Well, hey, if these folks get married, they'll pop out kids, and the woman will stay home and take care of the kids. There will be a return to the one income family, and good old-fashioned values will return to America.' I know it's all about thinking that if the kids are raised by the mother at home and spend less time in day care, the kids will be better off and less aggressive and will grow up to be good, upstanding citizens. It should come as no surprise to me that my beloved President would think this way -- and he couldn't be more wrong.
I know what the statistics say about kids who spend inordinate amounts of time in daycare. But the problems really stem from daycare centers that are understaffed or staffed by people who are untrained. If the government would take that money and develop better daycare, it would make a much wider [and greater] impact.
And the idea that children are better off in a two parent home is utter bullshit. Sure, it's an ideal situation to have two parents, but is it better to have two parents married who fucking hate each other, to have married parents who are abusive, to have two married parents who aren't fit to be allowed in public, let alone have children? I grew up in a one parent household and I think I turned out to be a pretty normal person, smarter and way more well-adjusted than alot of people who grew up in normal two parent households. I would have been harmed if my parents had lived together -- I'd probably be stuck in Berwick, working at a factory, getting drunk every weekend with my kids.
And, let's face it -- this idea to promote marriage is a slap in the face to everyone out there raising their kids in a non-traditional family. Promoting marriage certainly won't be aimed at lesbian and gay couples raising families. It's not aimed at me -- a woman who is married who has no intentions of having children. I get penalized for being married, not rewarded.
It makes me physically sick to my stomach to think that the $300 million [total] that Bush wants to spend on promoting marriage could do so much good, and is being wasted on something so frivolous and retarded. The Bush administration masks this in child welfare, but it's really all about wanting to return to a society where the father is the head of the household and breadwinner, wifey is in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant, ministering to the 2.3 darling children.
It's time to nominate blogs for the 2003 Bloggies! Woohoo!
Do your duty and go nominate your favorite blogs -- I'm on way to do that right now....
My resolution for 2003 -- fuck that. I refuse to be tied to resolutions. I'm going to continue doing what I'm doing.
In fact, I have this list in my head of things I want to do before I die. Today I'm going to make a physical list. And instead of yearly resolutions, I'm going to have lifetime resolutions. Sort of.
Won't I feel cool when I cross Visit Paris off my list in February? Planning an excursion like that is freakin' exhausting, you know. We've had our airline and hotel reservations bought and paid for for over a month. But now we're getting down to the nitty gritty, the 'what do I want to see and do' stage of things. I sat down with my guidebooks the other day and started planning.
I've discovered that there are way too many things I want to do to get everything done in a week. I'd have to stay there a month to do it all. Which means that I have reason to return, I suppose.
My ass gets super jetlagged. I have a plan though -- an untested plan. I have to be on the plane around 7pm...so I figure I'll watch a movie for the first few hours. Around 10pm I'm going to pop a sleeping pill or two. I plan to sleep like a champ until we reach France, and then I will take a few ENADalerts. We get into Paris around 7 or 8 am, and then we'll go to the hotel, check our bags, and go on a little walking tour of Montparnesse Cemetary [since it's close to our hotel] until check in time. After check in, we're going to hit the Catacombs. Lots of walking, not quite fresh air....it'll be great! And then a quick trip over to the Seine for a ride on a bataux mouche. Maybe a light dinner and then off to bed to sleep it off.
I think it'll work. If I don't wake up the next day feeling like a truck ran over me I will consider myself a genious. I shake my fist at you, jetlag! Feh.
My first day of work in the brand spankin' new year, and, boy oh boy, is it ever exciting. Not only do I have to sit here all day while I am secretly pining to be at home in bed in my flannel pajamas [yes, imagine the glamorousness that is my bedtime attire], but I also get to begin my day with a boring all staff meeting.
Sometimes too much information is a bad thing.
To top it all off, it looks like Craig and I will not be traversing the three hours to visit my mom and have Christmas with her and the rest of the family this weekend. The Poconos are supposed to get a foot of snow today. I don't want any part of that. Of course, maybe it's not such a bad thing that I won't have to spend the weekend congratulating myself on escaping the horror that is my hometown.
Maybe I can fake a brain hemorrage to get out of this meeting....
I took the day off from work today. This must come as a total shock to those of you who know how much I love and adore my job [note the biting sarcasm]. It was a fairly peaceful day, thanks to the fact that I had the house to myself.
It became clear on Christmas Day that I wouldn't have the great pleasure of seeing my father for the holidays. See, sometimes good things really do happen if you wish for it hard enough. He called me around 5pm on Christmas Day for his usual shot of attempted guilt at not embracing him for his feeble attempts to be fatherly. As usual, it was not hard to rebuff his weak harrassment. He threw in this weird lecture on It's a Wonderful Life. He made it a point to tell me that he cries at the ending every time he sees the movie, it's his favorite movie, I should really go watch the movie now, blah blah blah. It was ten minutes of stupidity regarding It's a Wonderful Life.
Since my father has never once just had a conversation with me that didn't involve him trying to guilt me into accepting him as The Best Father Ever, I'm assuming he was trying to tell me something.
But I digress. The deal is that he wouldn't be making his annual trip to my house to collect my gift and make me uncomfortable. He sounded hurt when I said I was just going to pop his gift in the mail. Maybe he thought I'd try hard to make sure I saw him. Or maybe he was just stoned. Who can know?
My point is that today I left the house today to drop his gift off at the post office. On the way to the post office I walk through a little community grass plot called Palmer Park [and here's an extra tidbit -- they shot part of the last episode of The Hack at that park] and noticed at least half a dozen pairs of underwear lying on the ground or snagged in the bushes.
What?
What's funny is that they weren't cotton grannie panties or other kind of undies that one wouldn't mind shedding in the interest of a quick sexual interlude. They were nice looking silky, frilly undies. Of course, I didn't pick them up and sniff them or anything so it could have been crappy underwear that just looked nice from afar. But who is having that much sex in the park? It's not like it's secluded or has lots of trees to hide behind or anything. There's a major road on one side of the park, a hospital on the other side of the park, and a row of homes on the other two sides of the park.
Perhaps there is a prostitution ring that operates underneath the park benches? The old guys who are always sitting on the benches are really pimps. Maybe soon on the news you'll see Palmer Park getting busted as the premiere Philly ho spot.
Maybe I should start recruiting my own stable of chicks, and then we could start a turf war. It could be just like West Side Story....
When yer a Fishtowner yer a Fishtowner to the end, from your first gappy grin to your last malt liquor....
Yeah, so thanks to Christine of Big Pink Cookie and Blogomania [for reinstalling MT for me], and Starli [for tweaking my design and doing some coding], go fish is almost back to normal.
You'll notice things looking all screwed up around here for at least the next day probably, but then life at go fish will return to it's normal degree of frenetic posting. How I've missed those days.
Until things are all purty again and all of my archived entries have been uploaded, why don't you go and visit the old go fish blog? You know you want to.
I've said it once, and I'll say it again: I fucking hate the Mummers with a fiery passion that has heretobefore never been known.
Really.
I thought I was safe -- it was raining like crazy yesterday and the outdoor portion of the parade was postponed until Saturday [when I will safely be away from the city and firmly entrenched in the lore of cow tipping in my hometown]. No parade=no filty stinking drunk drag queens with banjos. Right? Right?
It's midnight last night. I have just turned off the PC, and I'm joining my husband in bed. I have just sunk my tired head into the cool smoothness of my downy pillow when the unmistakable sound of a goddamn string band echoes through the quiet streets of Fishtown.
I put the pillow over my head, hoping to suck the breath out of my body before the xylophones come any closer. The rage built up in me as the roving band of miscreants with instruments crept ever closer to my house. I thought of ways I could horrible maim them without getting caught. I searched through my memory for a hidden stash of boiling oil I might have just sitting around in my house.
As I knew they would, those bastards stopped in front of my house. You have never known white cold fury until you are rudely kept from sweet, sweet slumber by a bunch of drunk schmucks with saxophones, banjos, xylophones, and drums parked outside your house at midnight. For thirty minutes. Thirty long minutes of a Mummer serenade.
I glowered at them. I swore at them. I ranted and raved. When no one took any notice, I placed a super secret curse upon them that will damn their descendants for eons to come.
This morning I am a haggard old woman, kept from my beauty sleep, compounded by what the curse took out of me. Only the memory of yesterday's victory over those assholes at SEPTA is keeping me from impaling myself on a knitting needle.
Woe is me.
Yep, Happy New Year everyone! Already things are looking up.
'But it's not even been 24 hours since 2003 began, Nicole,' you may be asking yourself. Well, it's not every day that I get an apology from those bastards at SEPTA. Some of you may remember my nastygram to SEPTA a few weeks ago when one of their drivers almost ran my sorry ass over in the road while I was actually crossing in the crosswalk legally.
Today when I checked my email, I received this missive from SEPTA's Deputy Director of Transportation....
Maybe this signifies the year of the empowered Nicole -- able to complain like a pro, and leap SEPTA vehicles in a single bound. No pushover I! I will take names and make complaints. Crappy employees everywhere, take note: beware my potential wrath. *maniacal laughter*
Or not.
