Who Doesn't Love Waterworld?

I see one, two... oh, everyone hates it, that's probably a good thing. Have I spoken of my irrational love for the Kevin Costner bomb before? It is simply a bad movie - the acting is bad, the plot is full of holes, and they are smoking filtered cigarettes after any such means to make such things were long gone. Who knows, maybe there was a Phillip Morris ship around when the world flooded. I also wasn't aware that oil tankers came equipped with refineries.

But I’m a Mystery Science Theater fan and liked Kevin Costner when I was a kid. It wasn’t a crush, I was too young to be sexually attracted to anyone, much less some actor in his 30’s, but I enjoyed Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Field of Dreams, Dances with Wolves, and some of his other not-as-bad movies. I also really liked the premise of the movie, and the things that stuck with me were some of the metaphors that I identified. The biggest one was the presence of motorsports on the Exxon Valdeez. The smokers were the obvious metaphor for all the polluters and their love of motorsports just highlighted how stupid they were – using the one thing that kept them going for something completely unnecessary. It is the kind of metaphor that hits you like a brick and then keeps smacking you around.

That is why news like this, despite the layoffs, really makes me smile. Just one more sign that our cowboys in spaceship mentality is finally being smacked down a little bit. Could it be that civilization is leaving adolescence? Don’t get your hopes up too soon, you haven’t yet heard my Best Buy story.

Who Gets to Talk to the Imaginary Friend?

Everyone is pissed off about Rick Warren. Well, at least everyone with a basic understanding of discrimination, hate speech, and human rights. A guy on the Jim Lehrer News Hour compared Warren's appearance before the innaguration and a more liberal preacher giving the Benediction later with having an anti-semite in Warren's place and expecting to smooth it over by having a rabbi speak at the end.

But people HATE comparisons like that when talking about anything relating to gender and breaking outdated roles built for XX or XY people. Comparing gay people with Jews? How can you compare homophobia with the Holocaust? Oh... wait... homosexuals were rounded up then too...

Homosexual people and women who want to control when and how often they will or won't become pregnant are still expected to take this as "tolerance". When someone's politics don't directly affect my life, then I will tolerate them. However this guy wants to tell me how to live and interfere with my ability to be a productive and happy citizen, so sorry, no tolerance here.

8:30pm Update: As bad as this is, it is five minutes. The more we focus on this, the less we focus on the new regulation to make it more complicated and, in some places, impossible for people to get abortions, emergency contraception, normal birth control methods, or really make any decisions about one's own body without some doctor, pharmacist, nurse, assistant, or janitor slut-shaming and denying what could be a life-saving service. Even a month of that is enough to fuck up a lot of people. In my case, I get to spend my vacation grilling prospective pharmacies about whether or not they will fill my prescriptions, saying nothing about finding doctors. (my new and better insurance kicks in on January 1 - so long, Kaiser!) Hooray for stress that I don't need.

Ugh, Shut Up

Believe me, I know how annoying those ads for my company are. I also know that, while they are accurate, they paint a very rosy picture of what is a fairly typical corporation. I guess you could say that we're ahead of the curve, but we can't get as far ahead as maybe I would like to see us go. But every time that guy with the breathy voice comes on after the Jim Lehrer News Hour, I want to stab someone!

Stop the Presses!

The tagline under the top stroy on Yahoo right now is as follows

Tiger Woods' caddy makes an unflattering comment about golfer Phil Mickelson.

Source

That isn't news, that is gossip, and regardless of what the comment was (really, he could have issued a death threat or even something horribly misogynistic), who really cares? What a bunch of crap.

I Love His Reaction

"Let me talk about the guy throwing his shoe. It's one way to gain attention. It's like going to a political rally and having people yell at you. It's like driving down the street and having people not gesturing with all five fingers.

"It's a way for people to draw attention. I don't know what the guy's cause is. But one thing is for certain. He caused you to ask me a question about it. I didn't feel the least bit threatened by it.

Source

Blowing it off like this will make it hard to use this incident as evidence of danger to the rest of us. There isn't enough time to spin this into another stupid security measure that actually lasts. All this is evidence of is that there are people so frustrated in Iraq - educated, professional people just like us - at the irrationality of it all that they ran out of ways to describe it without throwing something. Someone got pushed "over the edge", and hopefully he won't be a political prisoner for long. My America shouldn't do that kind of thing to political protestors. It says so in our constitution.

Seven Years Ago

The week after Thanksgiving, on a Monday night, Minnesota and northern Wisconsin had a snow storm. Huge piles of snow dropped on the great white north, closing most schools on Tuesday. College classes weren't canceled until after everyone had already done their best to get to campus (about a third of the students at my college commuted to class from around town). It was also the second Tuesday that semester that classes were canceled after noon, the first one being on September 11.

I felt bad for any teachers - or students, for that matter - with Tuesday night classes, which met only once per week. Living in the dorms, the snow storm was nothing but fun for me. I woke up in my loft and decided to cancel my classes myself - screw what the administration said. I had just gotten a mattress pad for my bed and it was soooooooo comfy! Actually, I can't remember if I went to class or not, I'm pretty sure I didn't, but I was up and about that day. After all, the cafeteria was on the other side of campus, and I had to eat and catch up with friends.

That night, while hanging out in the dorm room we all hung out in, my friends and I decided that we were going to celebrate the storm and get drunk. Problem was that we had no booze, only one of us was 21, and the liquor store would be closing soon. So we created a shopping list. For some reason, two of us wanted wine coolers, another two wanted beer, and someone wanted some Boons. The 21-year-old and I set out with our backpacks. We weren't normally friends, him being an evangelical and me being an atheist, but we hung out and got along. He was also an Art Major and I was History. We decided that if we saw any of his Christian group friends, we would tell them that we were on the way to the library to study. If we were past the library, we were going to a classmate's apartment off-campus to study. What were we studying? Art History, of course. We could safely tell most of my friends the truth about out outing.

So onwards we trudged over the ice and through the little paths created in the foot deep snow. We finally made it to the Coburns liquor store with time to spare. My friend went in and bought the consumables - 22 glass bottles in all. When we were safely across the street, in the parking lot of some church or other, we packed the bottles in our backpacks, taking care to make sure we weren't seen. SCSU was a dry campus, after all. We ventured back slowly. Clinking bottles would be a dead give-away. My friend told me that if I fell on the ice and broke anything, he didn't know me. We made it back to the dorms, checked in with the night supes (it was past 10pm by now) and walked up the stairs to see the rest of our friends resting in heated comfort.

That night was a lot of fun. We peeled off our snowy clothes, drank, and danced all night long. Being only 20 years old, I wasn't smart enough to avoid a hang over yet, so the next day, I felt awful. I ended up canceling my own classes again and nursed myself while working on a paper for my Wednesday night class. On Thursday, I remember taking a good look at that snow with some co-workers at my admissions job. I remarked that it looked like it would be gone by Christmas. They thought I was crazy, but the snow was gone by finals that semester.

Finally, Catholics Can Enjoy The Beatles Again

Well, this is a relief

A Vatican newspaper has forgiven the late English singer John Lennon for saying four decades ago that The Beatles were more popular than Jesus.

In an article praising The Beatles, L'Osservatore Romano said Lennon had just been showing off.

- Source

This Vatican newspaper seems rather amusing and follows my own reasoning that The White Album is very awesome, calling it a "magical musical anthology." Surely this means that the Catholic church can begin to agree with me on other things like the importance of allowing women to make their own reproductive choices and the irrelevance of divinity.

There Were NO 'No on 8' Offices in My Area Code

In response to the victory of hate, figuring out just where the fuck we went wrong, in response to this, a comment on a Pandagon post that I needed to share with other people, here is my observation: I was at SF Pride, bawling my eyes out because I just happened to see two men get married. The happiness in me (and some booze) was that great. I saw the “vote no on the marriage ban” at that time. In the interim, I slowly saw this thing gain ground. Seeing a commercial on TV at the gym once, then a sign here and there (I remember the first time I saw that yellow sign, it was so foreign that I said to myself, “what is 8? why should I vote for it?” before I connected it with that thing that I didn’t think any decent person could support), then last week, it exploded.

Sunday night, I saw signs popping up in the middle of the night. I checked to find my local No on 8 office, and the closest I could get was Berkeley or Oakland. There were no offices with numbers from my area code (925). Monday morning, I made the mistake of taking the road to the highway to get to work and found myself in what I call “The Gauntlet of Hate”. Yes on 8 signs three feet apart for MILES, people guarding them, then there were the people WITH the signs. My rage was palpable, and the only thing I could do was give dirty looks and the finger. One of the people with signs looked sad when we made eye contact. That was my solace.

How could so many people be so arrogant?

I had sent a message to the No on 8 campaign the night before, asking for assistance, giving them my daytime phone number. I did not get a call back on Monday. I do not know how overworked or staffed the office was. I had been wanting a sign against 8 for my car for months, but the closest I got was a bumper sticker that I had wanted to tape inside my car, but I got effing lazy. I finally got my sign, found on the ground at UC Berkeley on Tuesday night, but it was too late. One person that saw me holding it that night approached me to give me the sad news. I already knew and just wanted to enjoy the return of rational US government to our planet, so I was more discrete with the sign, so as to avoid mourning for now. But I still wanted my sign, if only as a way to remind myself and everyone else that no, I was not a bigot.

Last night, some of my friends went to the SF protest and came back with a sign. I remarked at how badly I had wanted one but hadn’t gotten one until now. My friend said the same thing. We are all guilty in some way for this loss. We’re doing the same thing that Republicans are now doing about McCain. Only, instead of infighting and blaming those that didn’t vote with us, we need to figure out how to dispel the myths around Prop 8. Anyone that listens to KQED (or other CA NPR, probably) has heard that man who said that he supported gay people and their right to marry, but stopped short at it “being taught in the schools”, and that was why “of course” he voted yes on 8.

In other words, undoubtedly, many of those 52% that voted yes that did so because of the outright LIES told by the Prop 8 supporters. We needed to dispel these lies even more vigorously (myself included, don’t think I’m not as pissed at myself as anyone else) - no, we STILL need to. We need to remind people that this is a civil rights issue, and just like those people that protested school desegregation, the Yes on 8 crowd will find itself on the wrong and embarrassing side of history.

Obama, the Musical

I didn't know that my subconscious was looking for this, but it seems like Kenya had a direct line to my brain. On Sunday, this musical opens in Nairobi.

They're Made Out of Meat!

Ten years ago, this made the rounds of the internet. I wonder how many jokes I've missed because I didn't see this at 17.

"They're made out of meat."

"Meat?"

"Meat. They're made out of meat."

"Meat?"

"There's no doubt about it. We picked up several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, and probed them all the way through. They're completely meat."

"That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars?"

"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."

"So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."

"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines."

"That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat."

"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in that sector and they're made out of meat."

"Maybe they're like the orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage."

"Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take long. Do you have any idea what's the life span of meat?"

"Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside."

"Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads, like the weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're meat all the way through."

"No brain?"

"Oh, there's a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat! That's what I've been trying to tell you."

"So … what does the thinking?"

"You're not understanding, are you? You're refusing to deal with what I'm telling you. The brain does the thinking. The meat."

"Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!"

"Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you beginning to get the picture or do I have to start all over?"

"Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat."

"Thank you. Finally. Yes. They are indeed made out of meat. And they've been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years."

"Omigod. So what does this meat have in mind?"

"First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the Universe, contact other sentiences, swap ideas and information. The usual."

"We're supposed to talk to meat."

"That's the idea. That's the message they're sending out by radio. 'Hello. Anyone out there. Anybody home.' That sort of thing."

"They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?"

"Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat."

"I thought you just told me they used radio."

"They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat, it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat."

"Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?"

"Officially or unofficially?"

"Both."

"Officially, we are required to contact, welcome and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in this quadrant of the Universe, without prejudice, fear or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing."

"I was hoping you would say that."

"It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?"

"I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say? 'Hello, meat. How's it going?' But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?"

"Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can't live on them. And being meat, they can only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact."

"So we just pretend there's no one home in the Universe."

"That's it."

"Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you probed? You're sure they won't remember?"

"They'll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we're just a dream to them."

"A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat's dream."

"And we marked the entire sector unoccupied."

"Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others? Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?"

"Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class nine star in G445 zone. Was in contact two galactic rotations ago, wants to be friendly again."

"They always come around."

"And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the Universe would be if one were all alone …"

by Terry Bisson

Deep Down, They Must Know

They have to know, right? They say "Don't believe the HYPE" before promoting their joke ticket. They have to see the writing on the wall. Don't they remember why they didn't like him 8 years ago? Don't they see what that the train they're riding doesn't have brakes and the bridge ahead is out?

How do they wake up every morning, brush their teeth, put on their clothes, drive to work, eat their lunch, make their decisions, come home to their kids, turn on the TV and still think that Obama is Arab and that this is a bad thing? Why do we have to hear the counterpoint to Colin Powell's words? Why can't we appreciate their weight and see the emptiness of an endorsement by Kissinger (he is still alive?) or the fact that no, most Americans (i.e. 97%, according to a friend) will never make more than $250,000 a year, no matter how long they live, and taxing the rest of us more so they can keep their money isn't worth it?

They have to know this stuff, right?

Please, America, please, Diebold, please, don't let me down.

Note to Self

• Buying Sudafed, Affrin, and Saline Nasal Spray isn't enough, you need to use it, then you won't get this sinus pressure.


• But the only time I ever feel it is when I am near the Caldecott


• Didn't you feel it another time on Tuesday?


• Maybe, I thought that was on the BART approach to that tunnel


• You didn't take the BART through the tunnel, you parked at MacArthur that night


• Duh. Haven't the last few days been totally awesome?


• Totally, especially that little dose of weekend on Tuesday night


• That was so enjoyable, I really should move to the city


• Yeah, but you'll have to wait another 9 months until that lease is up


• Not to mention the moving and commute considerations


• No kidding

Third Quarter Goal: Cut Some Weight Results

During the Second Quarter this year, I did "The Second Quarter Shape-Up", but I didn't lose much weight. I did gain a lot of muscle, however. In mid-June, along with my "New Urs" goals, I began my new quarterly fitness goal, which is named in the title. Along with nutrition and regular work-outs, I put a focus on cardio and trying new things. I don't know if the Fourth Quarter will have a fancy name yet, but the goal there is simply maintenance, with more climbing and running, and maybe some yoga.

I'm down at least one size and 25 pounds from December, 2007. My legs are very strong and I can do 28 sit-ups in one minute. At my assessment in April, I did 17 sit-ups in one minute. I do walking lunges routinely, whereas when I began, I could barely do them. I've also been to at least one yoga class, a climbing gym, done a lot of weight training, and learned some other cardio techniques. I am also starting to run. Stopping drinking in August probably had the biggest impact, with me losing about 5-10 pounds in the month that followed that decision. I'm slowly reclaiming the body I had in 2004, and with any luck, I can get down to the body I had for a month or so in 2005, then stay that way.

¿Dónde está la Sociedad del Futuro?

When I want to know where my [South Indian] friend is, I text "donde?" When I asked a new friend if her last name was Hmong, I prefaced it with "pregunta sobre tu nombre". In California, I assume everyone has some knowledge of Spanish. (Even if mine is a little jacked)

I found a fun Spanish language station out here, La Kalle, tu ritmo Latino, and I love listening to the DJs chatter seamlessly between Spanish and English. Comida is practically a synonym for food, hola is another way to say hi.

Who is it that wants to be around white people all the time? My "White Population in California" blog post gets a lot of traffic, I don't know why. Maybe it is a few deluded white people thinking that diversity isn't amazing.

She Doesn't Like Puppies!

Palin's take on Net Neutrality

Beyond Freud

There was a special on NPR on Thursday about schizophrenia. I think I understand this condition. Mentally, you hear voices and/or paranoia gets the best of you. Social anxiety is a mild, more innocuous form of paranoia creeping up and thwarting one's best laid plans. Schizophrenia comes up fast, possibly because the paranoid, negative thoughts become loud and frightening. A woman told a story about her father's recovery that was aided with proper nutrition.

My outlook had a full turnaround in March with the introduction of proper nutrition, starting with balancing my macronutrients. It continues to improve as I add more pieces to the nutrition puzzle. It is time we stop thinking that just talking through problems will solve them. As valuable as psychotherapy can be, it ignores the very physical factors that impact mental illness. In other words, it is time we stop pretending that they way we act, think, and feel is anything more than a [more complex than we can currently understand] physical process.

Taking Birth Outside of the Hospital

Why are people still giving birth in a place where people die every day? Birth needs to be moved out of the hospital, period. Yesterday on KQED's Forum, there was a discussion about hospital infection. It is scaring me to go to a hospital when I am legitimately sick, and pregnant women most certainly are NOT sick. One of the worst things we've done for women's culture is turning pregnancy into a medical condition.

The AMA had a strong hand in this during their early years because they saw midwives as competition for their services.* We've lost a great deal of women's culture to the hospitalization of birth and the elimination of midwives as a normal part of pregnancy. Furthermore, at this point, hospitals have become dangerous places even for healthy adults. Why expose a newborn child and her healthy mother to hospital infections? And let's not even get into birth on the back and forced episiotomies.

The alternative to hospitals are NOT home births, however. We needn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Medicine has done a lot to improve pregnancy and birth, but it doesn't mean that it is THE way to give birth. Birth needs to be moved out of the hospital and into another building, at the very least. The other option is using alternate institutions that are specifically designed to assist women give birth. Assist women and be there for complications, including cesarean sections. In the 21st century, with irresponsible doctors giving out antibiotics to people who don't need them, with people clustered into closer and closer conditions, there is no reason that this is not a good idea, there is no good reason to keep maternity wards in the same building with MSRA.

*I noticed that they did not do the same thing with the dental profession, which was largely male.

Where I Point Out an Important Point

I read somewhere about the people that "believe in Hell" and that believe that one day, all of us sinners that do not believe the way they believe, or act the "right" way, will burn eternally, without the comfort of death to end the suffering. Beyond that, they strive to enjoy that, for the sake of their belief. For them, there is no mercy for the willful unbelievers. They, presumably, had their chance, and their screams are supposed to be music to the believers' ears. I thought I read this in Daylight Atheism, maybe I did, but I didn't find it. What it is, however, is evidence that religious feelings can define certain bad attitudes or behaviors (enjoying the suffering of others) and give merit to meaningless attitude or behaviors and consider them "good" (faith in the validity of an unproven (disproven, really) and outdated book).

By soothing the conscience of terrorists, tyrants and theocrats, imaginary virtues provide one of the clearest examples of how superstitious beliefs harm real people. Morality with no connection to the real world enables and encourages people to feel good about their actions when the appropriate emotions should be guilt and remorse.
-Source

Lincoln vs. Darwin?!?!

At the gym, there are a lot of old magazines, including an old Newsweek. I've seen this a lot, and every time I see it, I ponder the ridiculousness of the question. I've never read the article and I don't really care to*. Maybe it has a critique on how they both helped and hindered racism in America, or maybe it is more mass-media tripe.

Obviously, there is no reason to pit historical figures against one another in a "battle" for relevance or influence. They're dead. Furthermore, to even compare a man that discovered the process of evolution to a politician is evidence how devalued the theory of evolution is in society. Even as evolution allows advances in the fields of medicine and agriculture, saving the lives of many and improving the lives of everyone, we argue that a lawyer that found himself President at pinnacle moment in our nation's history can hold a candle to it's discoverer.

This is not to say that Lincoln was not influential or important in our history. No, it is only to say that evolution is a powerful and so far, correct set of ideas that lay the foundation of many of the things we take for granted in the modern world. Darwin first published those ideas and, for that, will always be more relevant.

*OK, whatever, they have the same birthday, blah blah blah

I Guess I Have to Get to Bed Now

I was the first to arrive at the YAG meeting tonight, explained that I had just come from the gym, people trickled in, pleasantries were exchanged, foody items brought, and Facebook etiquette discussed. Then we started up the movie where we had left off, with all of the non-Rwandan people leaving The Mille Colines. Hotel Rwanda is one of those movies, like Schindler's List that could never be MST'ed. It is suspenseful and horrifying and real. Had I been alone, I would have started crying at the end.

We discussed the movie afterwards, with questions from a book. They were questions asking people to draw parallels in our lives to what had happened on the screen. When I heard the first question, I said that nothing in my life has any possible comparison to what those people went through. I mean, I've stood up for myself a number of times, but nothing in my life - nothing in the lives of anyone I actually know - compares to what happened in Rwanda back then. And we decided not to compare, just discuss the movie.

As I watched the movie, I thought about how the settings looked familiar. I remembered late nights in restaurants, those plaid bags, walking through that town after dark to the hostel. I also remembered hearing gun shots in my hostel in Paraguay during the failed coup in 2000, but it was nothing compared to this. It was easy to see myself in those white and Asian people that left - relieved that they were leaving, but horrified to leave people to die. I don't know if could have left - I would have, but I don't know if I could have left. How do you cope with that? How do you cope with a world that didn't care after what you saw? How do I cope with the memory of this as a non-event - just more Africans killing themselves - in my own lifetime? How do we stop this? At least it is over, right? Is it over? What about Iraq? What about Sudan?

And after the white people left, after the UN left, there was just the corrupt General to be fed bribes. Bribes handed out with supplies obtained by a visit to hell. Bribes fed with a visit to the diplomat's office while the hotel was left unguarded. Bribes to keep 1200 people alive, to keep them from the machetes, to keep them from the frenzy of the men whipped into a rage by a radio announcer, calling them to kill all of the Tutsi's and eventually any Hutu that helped them. Bribes and calls to family outside of Rwanda, a refugee camp with the appearance of a 4-star hotel all to keep a few people from lying dead on the road with everyone else.

Watch this movie.

Oh, the People You'll Meet

The telecom supervisor that told me about how much more he used to make as a contractor, the 22-year-old that never turns off cruise control so driving is more like a video game, the male feminist and agnostic Columbia law student living in Chinatown, raised by Southern Baptists in Utah, the street vendor who lengthened that necklace for me, on the spot, the airplane repair project controller from Carson City, participating in the AIDS Walk with Team Gap with her teenage daughter that works there and her daughter's boyfriend, the NOLA native that danced in several Mardi Gras parades along with another co-worker from Baton Rouge, the former crack addict whose life was saved by the gay southerner who had lived everywhere, tried everything, and now does fundraising drag shows all over the bay area, and culminating with the homeless hippie kids who hitchhike to new places every few weeks [separately, they had just met up a few days ago themselves], find food, shelter, and showers wherever they might be, and live just to live.

This world is so full of people, experiences, and incredible wonderment.

Just a Farm Girl from the Middle of Nowhere

I spent the day analyzing information, then I stopped by a local bar and had a shot of Patrón, an early birthday gift from the co-worker that invited me out. After some socializing, I set out for home to get ready to go dancing in the city. I missed the 9:20 train by just a few moments, but I wasn't very late to the club. After running across the street, I waited in the short line, then showed the bouncers my ID. The normal $20 cover was waived because I was on the guest list, and I made my way inside.

The video isn't that great, but I wanted to show one outing option for visitors :D

There were three dance floors, one electronic, one hip hop, and the other kind of a mix. I liked them all, because I just like to move, but my friend was partial to the electronic floor. That floor was a little more friendly and fun, and I had a great time. My friend told me this was the most upscale club he'd been to, and it was pretty nice, but I knew it was hot when I saw the guy with the mullet. If you don't know, much to my chagrin, mullets are all OVER Europe right now. I thought for sure this was a group of kids from Europe - Italy, Spain, maybe southern France, but when I asked the guy where he was from, he said "Texas"! I was shocked, the told him that the mullet, essentially (I gestured to his hair), was all over Europe and that he looked omg so hip.

I love clubbing - I may not be the best dancer, the drinks might be overpriced, I may get slightly skeevy guys trying to dance up on me (and sometimes slightly cute guys too), and I might get really sweaty by the end of the night, but I love it all. I think my favorite part is when I think about where I'm from and where I am right now, and then how much more awesome life will get. The SATC girls taught me that life definitely does not end at 30 or even beyond, so I look forward to years of good times, laughter, and dance. The past 5 weeks of New Urs have been the best of my life, and I'm glad I get to share the experience with you, dear readers. You're very welcome to partake in the fun.

Where Have I Been?

Where have I been? Why here, in California, the entire time. Last weekend, a good friend came in to town suddenly. Sadly, she was able to stay with me and sleep through the night since there was no baby to wake her with its cries. Being the bitter, aging hags that we are, we decided to go to San Francisco for the 4th of July. Having no strollers to push or husbands to accompany us, we ate where we wanted and found ourselves at Coit Tower, which offered a great view of the city. Later, we spent money that we could have used to buy formula on some delicious wines and seafood at Scoma's. Neither of us being pregnant, we finished the meal with some tiramisu and irish coffee.

The next day, we awoke in a house painfully free of children around noon. No children whined as I got lost in San Francisco and none screamed as we strolled through Cathedral Grove in Muir Woods. Our empty wombs ached as we ate a lovely dinner overlooking the ocean at Sutro's in the Cliff House that evening. On Sunday, we awoke early, not because we had to get the children ready, or even to set a good example, but to drive up to Sonoma. We wasted a day of our prime childbearing years tasting splendid wines and idly flirting with the guys at the wineries. Eventually, we blew the $500 we could have spent on diapers on fine wines.

[pictures and links coming soon, I just wanted to get this post published]

Wisconsin Dialect

For far too long, I've been using the far more popular contraction "y'all" to refer to the second person plural. This is a vague representation of my mother's heritage in the Middle South [or the northern edge of "The South"]. But I don't really think they say "y'all" in Cincinnati. No, I think I used that contraction because I was lazy and it was easy. I also never noticed that my own dialect had a similar contraction, probably due to its underrepresentation in the general American dialect. But now, instead of "y'all", I will proudly be saying "you's" to refer to the second person plural.

Happy Fiscal New Year!

Hooray! Millions of people and thousands of organizations will begin a new year today! Accountants rejoice!

Stonewall

39 years ago today, in New York City, there was a spark that started it all. Sure, there had been activists before, bringing people together and shedding light on the subject. However, it wasn't until that last raid at the Stonewall Inn in the early morning hours that the forces brewing in America burst onto the stage.

But LGBT rights are not my fight, I know that. I am not in danger of losing my job, my family, my friends because of the person that I love. Furthermore, I can be assured that when I marry, I will be able to visit my spouse in the hospital, extend my health insurance to him (or vice versa), and be allowed all of the other rights that married couples receive in America. So really, there is no need for me to care. My stake in gay rights is second hand, but as MLK once said, "a threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

But really, my stake in LGBT rights goes beyond just my desire to see all people treated with dignity and respect. The struggle for LGBT rights and the visibility of non-heterosexual people and couples throws a wrench into gender norms and male-female relationships. They show the world that manhood and womanhood are not predicated on their relationship with eachother, but on their own merit. A man is not a man because he controls a woman that has "his" children, and a woman is not worthless if she does not marry [or devote her life to the church]. LGBT rights affirms the humanity of us all. Tomorrow, I will be proudly attending the San Francisco Gay Pride events, LGBT Rights=Human Rights.

Northern California Wildfires

So it seems that while I've been frolicking in Alaska, holy hell has been breaking loose in California. I knew there were fires, and I knew there was a lot of smoke, but I've been more focused on work, working out, uploading videos and pictures, playing in the city, and fixing my flat tire to pay much attention. Even last night, as I sat in traffic on 680 N to Walnut Creek, I noticed the smoke, but I didn't think that the whole area was just "on fire".

Holy damn. And just in time for legalized gay marriage and Pride weekend..... Oh, the televangelists must be happy today. Yes, right wing policies of underfunding infrastructure, sending the National Guard to war, and ignoring the human impact on climate change all converged to make a tinderbox. But it was the gays being able to legally visit their dying partner that made the dry lightening.

Funny Stuff!

I was chatting with a friend at work and he turned me on to this old article, Interview with the Search Engine. My favorite part was when the search engine compared the internet to beekeeping in New Zealand. I think the interviewer got a little unprofessional though.

Quarter After Ten

AM or PM? Well, it looks like AM, but it's really PM. After a really scenic drive, some tasty halibut, and looking at fishies, we were off to a glacier. Later, we had mexican food and margaritas, followed by a trip to a real Alaskan Wal-Mart. I think we parked next to some drug dealers and scared them away.

Waste

Why does NewEgg use so much packaging?

USB Drives, packed in packaging easily 10 times bigger than the actual thing, stacked three high, with little interlocking sections on the packaging so it stays together, wrapped in 1" bubble wrap, in a box of styrofoam peanuts.

Waste
Waste
Waste
Waste
Waste

I sent the box of peanuts and bubble wrap back so they might be re-used.

Don't Ride the Line

Like most people that sometimes drive a car, bike riders scare me. Not because they would hurt me, physically, if we collided, but because if I hit them, well, I'll get the book thrown at me. That is why I'm happy that California has lots of designated and spacious bike lanes. But this morning, as I drove to work, I had to drive around a biker that decided that he didn't need to use the interior of the bike lane, but instead had to ride the white line. I understand that sometimes the bike lane itself has a lot of debris, but this was not the case, as far as I could see.

I hate to be "one of those" drivers, but jeez, please don't be "one of those" bikers either. Don't ride the line, stay in your lane.

Happiness

As I ate my egg whites on toast, I heard the news from San Francisco City Hall this morning about all of the people getting married. My own issues were a million miles away and I smiled and couldn't help from dancing a little bit. This must have been the way we felt in 1920 at the passage of the 19th amendment, or when the civil rights bill was signed, Title IX, not to mention Brown v. Board of Education, Roe v. Wade, and Lawrence v. Texas.

...

I finished my metrics and sent my boss my weekly project update, put on my sunglasses, and locked my office. I was headed for the gym after all today. I headed for building 12, changed, said hi to my trainer, and swiped my card with a real sense of pride before stepping on to my favorite elliptical. I started pedaling and looked up at the TVs to see what was on and I saw the words "Tim Russert" and "dead" and just froze.

I was still pedaling, but I couldn't put in my usual warm up program. He was so young, didn't I just see him? And I don't even watch TV that much! Tim Russert? What the fuck? How? Why?

I managed to program my machine, eventually, and get in a decent warm up, followed by a good, intense, and efficient half hour of strength training. He had a heart attack, suddenly, and at work this afternoon.

Drunken Airport Post!

Technically, it is a drunken airplane post, but w/e, KMA. I met a guy at the bar where I had two long beach ice teas. He was nice, too short though, never got his name, never told him mine. I have to pee.

Ha Ha HA!

I woke up on Thursday with a mild headache and the feeling of being a little "out of it". I figured that it was because of one of three possibilities - I had forgotten my medication the day before, I had taken an Ativan to get to sleep the night before, and it was entirely possible that the salmon I had for dinner had turned. But then, on Friday night, the reason became very clear - it had been PMS. So I do get PMS, but it seems to be different every time. Sometimes, I feel unreasonably crabby, sometimes, I get a headache, and other times, there are no discernible symptoms whatsoever.

Of course, it wasn't like I wasn't expecting this around this time. You see, I noticed last month that my body was starting to reset itself to mess with my Alaska vacation, which was originally intended for the 4th of July weekend. Previously, my body reset itself to mess up my Spain vacation too. But I foiled my body this time! I'm going to Alaska for the weekend of the 21st, and there is no way I can go through an entire cycle in just two weeks. Ha ha HA - I win the battle this time!

Strawberry Blues

After a trip to Berkeley by way of Fremont, I decided that I needed some fresh strawberries for dinner. As I approached the door to Whole Foods, I smelled the familiar, delicious odor but I didn't see the same little green pint boxes. I was afraid that the strawberry season might be coming to an end, but hoped that the local farm had just taken a break for Sunday. The produce guy inside told me to come back tomorrow, but in the meantime, I got a pound of the Driscoll's organic strawberries. They're almost as good, but they have dirt on them.

Also, I hope that hand lotion doesn't mess with my hair too much, because it feels really good on my poor sun-burnt scalp. I hope that heals soon too, because the sun also lightened my roots and I need to dye my hair again soon.

Phew, Money

I got my statement in my mailbox last week, which was good. I noticed the check was slightly higher this month, and a co-worker in the office next to mine had the same experience. But the statement comes earlier than the direct deposit, and I had paid a higher portion of my student loans last month. I also took a much needed shopping spree last week for work clothes. On top of that, at any moment, my rent check could clear, leaving me with far less money than I normally have - in that account anyway. It was getting so bad that I was actually budgeting myself - I had to turn down an opportunity to pay a group happy hour bill and get the cash on Thursday.

But then, I checked my account on Friday, and my checking account was a wonderfully comfortable amount. Phew, awesome, I got paid. What a load off my mind - I didn't have to worry about the rent check, I could go buy a bunch of supplies for my newest project, and I'd be able to pay a bunch of bills for the month. I think I'm also going to start buying supplies to get a pet - and no, its not what you think... Ok, one of you might know what I'm thinking about, but don't blow the suspense for everyone.

Surprise!

Yesterday, in a meeting with my boss, I learned that I am scheduled to be in Houston on the 11th to deliver a class that my group does. SO after some initial shock and rescheduling a dental appointment, I booked the same flight from Oakland on Tuesday to stay at the same hotel in Houston that night and the same flight out of Houston that I took just last week. I can't say I'm not excited, I love to travel and I love working in the 1500 Louisiana building.

More exciting still, I give the class on the top floor. It's only a 40 story building, not even as tall as the 1200 Smith building across the street.

But its still a marvelous view, if only they would let us go outside to the observation deck. Of course, I know *someone* that would ruin it for us all by base jumping.

Savvy readers might recognize this building. It's the same exact 1500 Louisiana building made famous in 2001. It really makes for better effect in my presentation about records management in the industry when I can say things like "and we all know what happened across the street 6 years ago."

Diet for the Old America

I guess I feel a little guilty about enjoying some delicious fruity sherbet from Baskin Robbins tonight. After all, John Robbins, who rejected inheriting the business and fortune of his father, inspired my biggest dietary restriction. I also own a signed copy of Ocean Robbin's book about youth activism. I just really wanted something cold and sugary and didn't want to drive to Whole Foods...

Ya Voté

I did something yesterday that would have gotten me arrested if I did it in 1908. When I left, the guy that gave me my ballot thanked me for voting. It made me feel good.

The First Wave and Eminent Domain

Last night, I got my protein in the form of delicious raw fish at a local sushi place. Today, there was cheese and sour cream with the baked potatoes at lunch, which was a little more protein than yesterday. But before all of that, last night, I caught the end of the Hillary Swank movie about Alice Paul. I had seen clips of that at The Henry Ford exhibit about American women's suffrage. That was the first I'd ever heard of the movie, and my friends and I joked about what it must have cost The Henry Ford to cast an Oscar winner in their video. We then saw a "visualization" of a slave riots with nothing but recorded voices, timed lighting, and cardboard cut-outs. Obviously, they blew the budget on Hillary Swank.

Since then, the image of her playing Alice Paul, tied to a chair, with a tube in her throat, stuck with me. I'm not sure I would have her strength, but thanks to her, I don't need it. Not here, in the United States, at least. See, she and other activists were arrested for pointing out, in front of the White House, the hypocrisy of not allowing women to vote. She then went on a hunger strike in prison. When meeting with the prison psychologist, she said that the hunger strike was an old tactic of Ireland. Someone would starve themselves in strike on the another person's doorstep and if that person did not acquiesce to the striker's needs, that would result in a stinking corpse on one's front doorstep. When she encouraged other activists in the prison to strike as well, she was force fed. A leaked tale of her treatment made it to the press and it made news everywhere. The same thing today would barely bat an eyelash, but back before there were a billion people on the planet, it added to the changing tides in America after WW1.

I'm not sure if the movie captured the elation of the moment when the last necessary state ratified the 19th amendment or if it was me. I remember looking at old LHS yearbooks from before 1920, with all of the very relatable 17 and 18 year old women, thinking about how they could not vote. I don't think I remembered that the voting age was 21 until only a generation ago, but the feeling, much like the imagery, stuck with me. The thought of not being able to vote strikes fear in my heart. I guess that would explain why my potentially deadly near-miss on Super Tuesday didn't really hit me until the Friday afterwards. I just knew I had to vote.

Since the age of 7 and the 1988 presidential election, voting has been important to me. I've so-far only missed odd-year elections, which really, I shouldn't shirk the way I do. I'm voting on Tuesday, mainly because of the two state-wide ballot initiatives to do with eminent domain. The last statewide initiative about eminent domain did not go the way I wanted it to go. Obviously, Californians do NOT understand the "personal property right" of "crapping in your yard and sculpting with it."

Sun Signs and the Second Wave

I have an interest in astrological knowledge because I am interested in how the events surrounding our early brains shaped our lives. As far as I know, astrology is the body of knowledge with the most information about this. My co-workers know this, so last year, one bought me a copy of Linda Goodman's Sun Signs. Linda Goodman was a famous astrologer in the med 20th century, and this book has descriptions of different signs, including how to spot someone of a sign and understand a man, woman, child, boss, and employee of that sign.

Interestingly, the book describes Cancer women as having large upper bodies - having a sweater size larger than skirt size. A child born in July was conceived in October, just after the harvest, when food was plentiful. But as the year wears on, carbohydrates run out, and a mother will begin to eat more and more meat during a large part of her pregnancy. In the northern and western hemispheres (quadrisphere?), we have a lot of animal protein. I think this is accurate, and this dietary influence, which was much much more pronounced before this century, might be the reason for my "linebacker in drag" physique. But the assessment also describes a cancer as one who is not very open about "himself", which is not me, not at all. Its also not my dad for that matter, who is also a Cancer. Its also hard to know how much overlap there is between what the book says about a certain sign and a description of typical human behavior. Unlike global warming, I think we could do double blind studies with astrological information.

The book is interesting, but also infuriating, as it was written in 1968. Even though written by a woman, the sexism of American society before the second wave of feminism shines through free and clear. Someone is only called "she" or "her" and possessions/traits hers if the person has been specifically identified as a woman. Generic characters are always he, him, and the traits his. Female employees are secretaries, men anything else, and I haven't read the boss section, but I doubt that the words she, and her even appear in that section. Even the women's section is rife with sexism. The section on the Virgo woman warns the reader that "unfortunately" Virgo women are rarely virginal.

Reading the book makes me grateful for the work and sacrifices of all of the women in the second wave that allow me to realize this in the first place. Because of those bra-burners, I am free. Free to make my own decisions, earn my own money, and be my own person. Free from pandering, free from harassment, and free to enjoy myself. I am proud to carry on their spirit now, in the third wave, because we know there is still work to be done.

In other news, I just read that Sagittarius, the sign of my little sister, is very very incompatible with both Cancer and Capricorn, which might explain why she seems so distant. I'm going to see if taking this viewpoint for my sister improves my relationship with her.

Heat the $#^ing Pool!

I don't quite know why, I will attempt to explain, but if it doesn't make sense at the end of this post, just realize that I don't really know why I love America's Next Top Model. I can't keep my eyes away, I see it on MTV, VH1, or whatever channel it was on before those two, and I have to watch. But at the same time, I hate it, it pisses me off, and I don't understand what their problem is.

It isn't about watching "skinny bitches" in awkward situations, because I tend to sympathize with all of the contestants. What I get infuriated about is the seemingly arbitrary judging and the dangerous working conditions. At least two contestants have been hospitalized for dehydration, and one was essentially kicked off the show for being too ill to work. She was compared to the other contestant that either wasn't as sick or wasn't facing as daunting a task as this one was. The working conditions are such that if the contestants really had a choice, they would turn down the job offer.

The best example of this in my mind is the pool photo shoot in Barcelona. The contestant Caridee, who is obviously much thinner than the other contestants, experiences hypothermia. The other contestants assume that she is "overreacting", because the water was cold. Caridee was told "you have a problem with cold" and to make sure she "doesn't waste the client's money" by letting them know this up front. Obviously, "the client" is too poor to provide a safe working condition. Frankly, I think ANTM does many shoots outside of the United States in order to skirt labor laws, and it pisses me off. Models are already held to extreme physical standards, to expect them to work while sick, in water so cold it causes hypothermia, is abuse. If that is how the modeling industry "is", then the industry has a serious problem.

Once Again, Nothing New

Oops!

Well, I'm getting more visitors, it seems, and hopefully more than just my parents. But to keep everyone coming back, and maybe, someday *gasp* leaving a comment, I must post. Post. Post. Post.

I have tons of drafts saved up, some that will never be public, some about race, some about TV, at least one very important MST3k post, one about life in California, and a few other random things. I wrote one after my trip to SFMOMA. I'd love to publish it, but its kind of crappy. It is supposed to be about how I have an eye for beauty, and then how being surrounded by beauty reminded me of someone I find rather special. I came up with what seemed like great lines, encompassing one of my newer theories. This theory is actually inspired by a line in an Ani DeFranco song about how men are like delicate flowers. A couple of readers should recognize that one.

I guess its more like a hypothesis? I am becoming cognizant about how I misuse the word theory. I want to help retain its scientific importance. The atheists sent out the peanut butter and bananas creationist videos the other day. My brain cells are hurting so much, even from about 20 seconds of the peanut butter one. Peanut butter jars can not create life from non-life, but some scientists in not America are on the verge of creating life from non-life. Science has some very good approximations about how life was created on earth and are testing them on a daily basis. Assuming some entity did it inhibits creativity, intelligence, and yes, an improved standard of living. Just because a creationist doesn't understand science doesn't mean that no one else can either.

Hmm, I promised not to make this blog bitchy, does this count?

Putting the Stimulus to Good Use

I thought the "Stimulus Package" was a dumb idea as soon as I heard of it. "Throw a bunch of money at low to middle class Americans, they'll go out and buy some crap and save the world" - yeah right....

I mean, even if I got the highest amount possible, it isn't enough to really affect my spending habits. I mean, sure, I could use it to offset the cost of my trip to Alaska, or my addictions to World Market and Whole Foods, but really, $600? My rent is more than twice that.

But I knew the money was coming my way anyway, so for months now, I've been trying to figure out what I could do with the money. I wasn't about to play their game of bribery with the American public, but I didn't want to let the money go to waste. That made both spending and saving the money out of the question. I thought about just not cashing the check, but that was throwing the money away. The best I could think of was donating it to charity.

The only problem with that is it feeds into the whole "private charities can do better work than government programs" which is only true when we underfund those government programs, like we do now. Then it hit me - give the money to one of the hundreds of underfunded government programs! Finally, and just in time too, the checks are arriving this week. I still think the stimulus package is a bunch of bullshit, but at least I'll know that those tax dollars were well spent.

Note: Bear in mind, that this is my situation. Most people that don't need the money won't be getting any anyway, I just make the cut. I just wanted to share my idea.

The Moth

It might as well have been Mothra. Sunday night around 10pm, I saw a big ol’ moth on the wall, near the ceiling, above my bed. It had to go – I wasn’t about to sleep with a moth that big just sitting there – but it was huge. Smacking it with the fly swatter would kill it, but it would also produce a giant moth corpse that would fall to my bed. This was also not acceptable. So I slept on my couch Sunday night, but not before opening my bedroom window shade to let in the most amount of light so the moth would move.

I realized that moths, big moths, are more like small animals than bugs. A bug can be smashed, wiped up in a tissue, but a moth will leave a corpse. It is like having a tiny bird in my room – I can’t kill it, yet I am too afraid of it to get that close to it. Around 5am, I saw that it had moved to the vent above the door into my bedroom. At that point, I could swat it with the fly swatter. It did fall, but on the ground, and I scooped it up with the swatter and put it in the garbage. I don't like big bugs, and though I did grow up out in the country, they were thankfully a rarity back home.

A Basic Science Primer

As an educated person, I should know all of the scientific data presented in this series of videos. The only critique is that we might not be using the best tone when we explain this stuff. I do not know what kind of tone we need to use, but we should be experimenting with different tones and strategies.

Why do people laugh at creationists?

The only people so stupid as to not understand the answer are the creationists themselves.

Their claims are just plain stupid. They wouldn't be able to make these claims if they knew anything about science or the scientific facts. Scientific speech is not the same as free speech.

Are Tater Tots Only a Regional Delicacy?

I don't know if people outside of Minnesota (possibly the whole greater Taco John's region) understand the concept of the perfect tater tot, hash brown, or even the potato olé. I'm having tater tots (served with breakfast) from Whole Foods. They are not warm and they are tough. They're also some kind of grayish yellow color. Maybe its just me, but I'm not sure this would even pass back home.

This Year's New Trend

A while back, a friend left a pen in my office, then he left another one in my car, and I'm pretty sure he left still another one in a huddle room. That last one was a red pen, and I learned that it was very effective in drawing on my fingernails. So, until the pen ran out of ink, I would color in my nails, then paint over them with clear polish. Some co-workers found it hilarious, others found it smart. You can sort of see the remnants of the red in the Catcher video.

Then my co-workers got me some red pens and my red nails were back. But they ran out of ink too. Not one to steal office supplies, I went to Office Depot myself and bought me a whole box of red and blue pens. Well, I bought the wrong red pens (just fine point, not the ultra fine point, now I know) but the right blue ones, so now my nails are blue.

Nevermind the bits of polish on my skin - I just painted them and in order to cover the whole nail, some gets on the skin.

I should also note that dark blue was one of the first non-conventional colors I experimented with when I began painting my nails creatively in the 8th grade. I began with dark blue, red, black, and white. I mixed those colors to make as many colors as possible, but without yellow, I couldn't do much. I looked and looked for yellow every time I could, and finally, I found it, and I began several years of painting my nails in ten different colors. That lasted a whole decade, from roughly 1996 until 2006, when I started my current job. I haven't been brave enough to try this look in the business casual world.

As for why do I do this, I love color and can't bear to be "normal".

April Now

April 22 doesn't mean much to me, neither does April 18. But April 19, April 20, and April 21 mean a lot.

In either 1990 or 1991, the excitement culminating on April 19 was the town of Waco, TX and the compound of the radical religious sect, the Branch Davidians. On that final siege, federal agents raided the compound, and there is infrared footage of an ATF tank running over an American citizen. It is not clear if the tragedy of killing those people to enter the compound was worse than the abuses happening inside. April 19, 1991 was the date of my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary. This happened about four months after their second daughter's death from breast cancer. In 1995, April 19 became the date of the sudden death of 256 people in Oklahoma City, OK. A bomb exploded outside an office building and destroyed a significant part of a busy office building.

April 20 brings back memories of college and the annual NORML concert at that one bar in St. Cloud, MN. However, for the most part, it is a normal day (no pun intended).

April 21 is actually not much of a day either. At least, it wasn't until last year when I got a phone call from somewhere in Port Edwards, WI, the location of my grandmother's nursing home. I IMed my cousin who, apparently, had just gotten off the phone with another cousin. Grandma was dead. It has been almost a year now (not yet, it isn't the 21st yet), and I still get worked up thinking about it. I have a hard time saying anything more blunt than "my grandmother passed away." She was such a presence - a force - in the my life and in the lives of the entire [my last name] family. 12 kids, minus the first one that doesn't like us and the second one that died in 1990, and 17 grandkids, minus the three from the oldest kid, growing up with The Farm and Grandma. This is an important day in my life.

You Moistened My Dry Look!

Maybe its because fashion is cyclical, and I'm about ready to bring back the late '70s. Maybe its because I watched Puma Man (Pyuma Man?) last week. Maybe I'm just a sucker for guys with a good head of hair, but I say its high time we brought The Dry Look back.

Thoughts?

Ever Notice?

So often, it happens in my life that I set out to do something, then something else comes up, and I forget my original intention. This blog post is a great example.

Other times, I realize that I have a question about my day and want to blog about them, but in the process of blogging, I remember the answer. The answer somehow ruins the post so I discard it entirely. Other times, I save the post as a draft for a while. I have at least 10 drafts saved up here, just waiting for refinement before publishing.

But now, I remembered my thought. Why is the 'o' (oh) key so close to the '0' (zero) key? Couldn't they have put the zero over by the one? I'm not yet a touch typist, and there are many times I need to type something like "Fill out the GO-#### paper and get it back to me". But even when I typed that example, I wrote "G)-####". Sure, I could learn how to type better, but it doesn't cover up the design flaw.

Instant Excitement

Do you have a PDA that receives email? Do you get many emails per day? Set your PDA to vibrate or make a noise when you receive an email. Set the PDA on a table near you and wait for the excitement and/or heart attack to ensue. Maybe I'm just stressed out, idk.

Hilarious

Remember When the Highway Melted?

Its almost been a year.

We are What We Eat

Literally, that is what we are. My mom is a registered dietitian, but like most kids, I was raised part by my mom, part by my peers, and part by marketing departments. I was also a depressed little girl that didn't want to run around. Add in that little obsession with food and I became a fat depressed little girl, and it spiraled from there.

When I was 18, I gained 20 pounds in college and admitted to my mom that I literally did not know when to stop eating. She took me to another dietitian and discussed my diet. I lost those 20 pounds over the next few months, and over the next few years, I lost an additional 30. But I still had a terrible relationship with food.

Over the past month, I've been seeing a new nutritionist that has recommended eating more a balanced diet, and has made me realize that I eat way too many starches. She also mentioned that starches tend to "spike" in our bodies, causing us to crave more starch and even mess with our moods. Since focusing on eating more proteins, assuming I'll get my carbs by default, and focusing on fruits and vegetables, not only have I lost about 5 pounds (in a few weeks), but I feel better. I feel calmer, and I can feel how sugar affects my mood.

I'm also trying to eat more consciously, and stopping when I'm full. I try to stay on the outside of the supermarket and yes, I buy organic and local when I can. All things advocated in this article, Pollan: Nutrition 'Science' Has Hijacked Our Meals -- and Our Health. We're eating more than ever, yet we're terribly sick. We've been pumped full of chemicals too. I've been taking chemicals for over ten years now too, but no one bothered to look at all the mac and cheese I was eating or tell me how that might affect me. I know food alone can't make me not depressed, but a more balanced diet makes better sense than a higher dosage of a chemical that includes sweating and suicidal tendencies as side-effects.

Seventeen Years

Seventeen years ago, April, 1991, I was in the 4th grade. One Friday night, instead of riding the bus home from school, I walked with a friend to her house. We played, it was a good time, then my mom came and got me and took me home. In the garage, as I heard the opening of Full House, I got out of the passenger front seat of my mom's car, slammed the door and screamed.

I couldn't talk, I couldn't say "hey, I slammed my right index finger in the car door, please someone help me," all I could do was scream.

Someone came and opened the door, I hadn't broken my finger, but it was bruised. We bandaged the finger, and for a while, I wore a single cloth glove in school to ensure the bandage stayed on, yes, like Michael Jackson. My fingernail was slowly coming off as a new one grew underneath. The old one was still connected by some scar tissue at the end. One of my female classmates wanted the dead fingernail after it came off, I don't remember if I said she could have it or not. When it did come off, I think it came off in the bath, because I never found it. Afterwards, the scar tissue at the tip of my fingernail caused it to split just at the point where the fingernail came detached from the finger.

Before this incident, I had started to notice that I couldn't remember right from left. I had started to simulate writing to determine which side was which. Even before my finger stopped hurting, I realized what a great benefit I had gained. My normal fingernail was the left side, the weird one my right. Even now, at 26, you might notice me check my index fingernail when someone mentions going right or left (except when driving, I can tell right and left when driving, for some reason [and thank goodness]).

Of course, that was until yesterday, when I noticed that the split was gone. It was gone! GONE!
GONE!!

Sorry about my dry skin. As you will notice, aside from the odd colorings on the white part at the base of my nail, this is a completely NORMAL fingernail. I'm trying to remain calm.

After 17 years, that one little abnormality caused by a trauma so bad that I could scarcely remember the feeling a year later, my right index fingernail was back to normal. I've only known my family longer than I've known that weird fingernail. Its been a comfort, always letting me know, without fail, which side was right and which was left. But now, its gone. I don't even have a picture of what it used to look like.

New Foods

I am a super taster. What that means is that I have an overabundance of taste buds that make lots of stuff taste bad to me. I also am one of those people that can taste bitter. I learned this in the 7th grade with a rather memorable lab and a piece of paper on the back of my tongue. I've heard that those people typically do not like vegetables. As a vegetarian and a person aiming to have a more healthy diet, this is a significant frustration. For instance, cooked carrots have been known to make me gag, and I only begrudgingly eat broccoli. Hence am I teaching myself to enjoy new foods.

I grew up a very picky eater, it was a long time before I could enjoy cuts of meat like steak. I think I had scarcely learned to eat pork chops before I went vegetarian. Mexican and Chinese food were also among my dislikes at an early age. I have just now learned to enjoy mashed and baked potatoes and am trying to learn olives. So far, I have realized that they are very "intense", but I do enjoy certain green olives with the pits. I still do not like apples (but only in their raw form), mushrooms (in any form), and yogurt. Those dislikes all seem to be texture based, since I like applesauce, will eat things made with cream of mushroom soup, and can't say I dislike the flavors of yogurt. Someday, I hope that my taste will change to the point where I can enjoy carrots and broccoli too.

Several Loves Together as One

Mike as Morrissey in MST3k. Featuring a song written at a time in Morrissey's life when he was very very sad, breakfast.

Did I mention that I cried? Morrissey is very very sad, no doubt, but thats what makes him great, in my eyes. He rocks out without so well without ever shouting or screaming, and when you're feeling depressed, you can always count on him being there, in your MP3 or CD player, feeling even worse. No, its not wrong not to always be glad, and please, tell me more.

Incredible

I logged into my pseudonym gmail account, where I keep all my political crap. I realized I hadn't read Alternet since last week, and I realized that I hadn't missed it, at all. Instead, I read about why Africa is the way it is, watched some dazzling historical fiction about England's defeat of the Spanish Armada, watched some really attractive reenactors make the Great Wall in China, learned about Muslims in Spain, reveled in the differences of Spanish culture, and began to really read my old Chinese history text. When I got off the train in Lafayette, I was sobered to see 4000
4000
on the hill. While I was gone, 10 young, healthy people died in Iraq.

The 80's are Back

They're back in a big big way, on the heads of Spanish men everywhere, if everywhere is within the borders of Spain. While there, I saw lots of boys with rat-tails, men with full out mullets, and even a guy (white) with jerry-(geri?)curls on the metro. One guy in the Cordoba train station had a dreadlock mullet, I'm so not kidding.