Wednesday, June 30, 2004
Things that make you go blech...
sometimes the commercials for technical schools are just funny. they describe boring jobs as though they are like, soooooo super fantastic! *giggle!* the latest i heard was to work with medical billing. i respect the people who do it because it's a thankless job and i couldn't hack it. you take the insurance info, type it in, type in the procedures, and tackle all the bureaucratic BS. how fun! why didn't i consider doing that?! oh wait... because i would claw my eyes out.
just like the class last night. it made me realize why they warn against making bomb threats... because if you were allowed to do it i would have been quietly dialing one in during class just so we could get out early. of course i wouldn't really, but you know you're in a terrible class when the thought runs through your head and you think "now that's not such a bad idea..."
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Random sludge...
i just had my first experience with getting unlinked. so i was tactless and asked why. i'll let you know if i find out.
J is still alive and kicking. and still disagrees with me on politics. you really should avoid talking politics in a relationship. i don't think there's a faster road to the "wow the person i'm dating isn't as intelligent as i thought" place than talking politics with them.
the whole blogging front seems to be cooling down lately. tony posts less, several sites have shut down, people are leaving on vacation or losing internet for so long that they're losing their site (at times)... and i admit that i've been posting less.
even emails have been slowing. and one of my old emails just got cut off for good this time i think. which is fine, i've been expecting it. train of consciousness. maybe i should take a shower. i don't make jokes about people wanting to join me anymore. maybe i had bad results with it. maybe i don't really remember. maybe i just think it instead of saying it. maybe i should shut up now and act like a productive member of society. or maybe i should act like a social misfit just for the hell of it. i need help... or maybe just a nap. weird mood, very weird mood.
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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We'll see where this goes...
have you ever wanted to write about something interesting and yet you cannot for the life of you think of it? i feel like that right now. i feel boring at the moment, even though i know i'm not. oh well, we'll find something to write about i'm sure. it always comes to me after i babble a little.
so i haven't talked to J since sunday. kind of strange. and i emailed him on sunday and haven't gotten responses from those either. i hope he's still alive.
sometimes i feel like blogging is a bit like playing with fire. sometimes i feel like it's only a matter of time before i'm caught. i also find it ironic that i'm willing to post, sometimes several times a day, but it takes me a great deal more motivation to write a simple email.
i also found it ironic that i had a church youth leader back in middle school who gave us a hangover cure that he used when he drank in high school and college. i never used it because he said you'd be running to the bathroom after every drink, and that didn't sound very appealing. maybe his advice was one of the reasons he wasn't invited back the next year. or maybe it was that he taped a show with american gladiators and they decided not to air it. they wanted a famous youth leader and he failed them.
maybe i better get back to starting a paper so i can enjoy my 4th. now that i know that she doesn't have any clear expectations for the paper, it should be easier. just write some crap for several pages, click print, staple it, and never look back. ok, so not really, but it's tempting.
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Tuesday, June 29, 2004
Busy... *updated*
*updated section* so i forgot when i wrote this the first time that i was going to tell of my latest twisted dream. i forgot most of it since i was woken up by a phone call, but what i do remember of it was that ross from friends (not the actor, but ross in the armchair) was reading a card and asking why it was a sympathy card for the loss of a pet but also explained how to balance your checkbook. i am not kidding. i don't know how i made up that little gem in my mind, but there it is. who knows.
more fabulous news... i just looked outside and it's POURING... and some idiot loser stuck a dark green full-page flier under my windshield wiper. so i'll get green dye all over my windshield if i ever get the paper off, and green dye rolling down my white car. thanks buddy. anyway, back to your regularly scheduled boring message...
aw crap... life's starting to get busy again. i've got to head out for school soon and read several research articles. after all, i have to be able to have some fun this weekend despite what's due on monday! i better buckle down and get some stuff done. i'll try to be back tonight!
if you haven't already, look below this for pics of the hair transformation!
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Monday, June 28, 2004
Metamorphosis...
my hair went from here...
to here.
i donated about 12 inches. some little kid will have a gorgeous head of hair pretty soon. i'm too tired to post anything else at the moment. i'll be back tomorrow. but i want to wake up to good things in the comments and the email... or both. sorry, and both. night!
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Sunday, June 27, 2004
Updatage...
kind of a weird 24 hours. good and bad. it's been raining off and on for a couple days now. what's new... apparently i just need to get used to it. i tried doing work yesterday but couldn't concentrate on it. i was hooked on listening to good music and then trying to watch a movie. that seems to be a signal for everyone to call. nice way to get in touch with close friends, though. my old roomie called during the first movie i tried to watch. we talked for a couple hours. it was good to talk again. although, i still get the feeling that she has mixed feelings about the upcoming engagement that will more than likely happen with J. but most of the people in her life are getting close to marriage or are married, so she might just have mixed feelings in general. J came over at that point, and we started watching another movie together. we also talked about engagements because i found out (through the roomie) that two of my friends from undergrad had gotten engaged. he's one of those guys that other guys don't like because he makes it really hard to top his romantic ideas. he's really loveable in every other way, but he does set the bar pretty darn high. anyway... part way through that movie one of my best friends from high school called. we talked for a few hours... frustration, mean people, hopefully getting together next weekend, etc. even if it wasn't always a happy conversation, it was great to get to talk about everything together. like i've said before, you can't beat best friends.
this morning we had to get up early to get a dining room table from one of my friends who didn't need hers anymore. J had borrowed the truck from his dad and stayed the night so we could get up early in the morning, get the table, and get it back to my parent's house and the truck back in time that his dad could get to work. we had stayed up really late watching the movie and then talking about everything under the sun, and then weren't able to sleep for some reason. it's like our bodies knew we were only going to get about 4 hours of sleep so they just decided 'why bother?,' yet punished us for depriving them of sleep. we hauled ourselves out of bed early to get tie downs to secure the table and got a shower curtain to use as an impromptu tarp since it was still raining. around that time we got a call from my friend saying that her old apartment complex had changed the locks on her apartment and thrown out all her stuff. fabulous. so we're all pissed, and i know J was really upset about having pulled all kinds of strings to get the truck for no reason. so we returned the tie downs, cut our losses on the shower curtain (it was $3) and crashed for another hour.
well, i crashed significantly longer. i finally forced myself to get up because i theoretically have schoolwork to do. i also need to get groceries, but i'm at that point when you're running out of so many things that you can't remember what all you're missing anymore. and i've learned from experience that weekend grocery shopping is a headache. but it must be done, so i'll dispose of all the expired products and get new ones. then i'll be happy that all the food is safe to eat at least. blah. oh well.
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Saturday, June 26, 2004
Perspective...
so i should have been spending the last few hours researching and writing a paper, but i wasn't. i got distracted. i made bread, tea, read the alumni magazine, and all kinds of other stuff. but now i have no regrets. flipping through the alumni mag from my alma mater, i was surprised. i feel like i have accomplished a great deal, but i went to a school full of high achievers, and i had done very little in comparison to some of the other alumni. of course, i also have to remember to put things in perspective. that's not what is important. i could strive for high status achievements, become known for being a big shot, and all that jazz. i know i could do that. but that's not what i want. i want the other road. the one where it's harder going and you get little appreciation. i want to help people, especially the impoverished and homeless. not something that garners a big reputation. and i'm fine with that. although i am still tempted to get a PhD before i start in on that. or simultaneously. i know, i'm crazy. anyway, that's all off topic.
so reading through it, i remembered another friend of mine who is interested in working with the homeless. i need to talk to her about what she's planning on doing now. then i read the story that changed it all. we had a young man at my alma mater who i knew of and had talked with a few times, but wasn't really friends with. i knew he had extensive health problems and had a lot to struggle with in his own life. i knew he unexpectedly dropped one of my classes and the prof wouldn't say why. rumors went around that he had to have surgery, that he got too sick to attend, the prof wasn't willing to work with him enough for him to continue in the class, and whatever else. well, i discovered through the alumni mag that he passed away recently. not during that class he dropped, but before he was able to complete his degree. turns out that he had a terminal illness and knew that he might not be able to finish before he passed away. but he was committed to learning and to that university, so he persevered. the article was written by the head of the department in which he as majoring, and this professor talked about how he could hardly get through a conversation with this young man without getting a little choked up inside. he was inspired by the commitment this man had to education and his fellow humans. asked others if they were having a bad day when they looked down or upset, although i never once remember him discussing the problems he faced... and that prof couldn't remember it either. anyway, i wanted to share because it really touched me.
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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All gone...
the hair's all gone. about 12 inches cut off. i took pictures, but i've been too lazy so far to put them up. i'll get around to it. last night was fun. after the hair cut, my mom treated J and me to dinner. then we got time to ourselves. we relaxed and laughed as always. i was rapidly going between wanting to go out and have fun and show off my hair, and stay in and just be mellow because i was tired. after admiring the cute little flippy thing i had going on with my hair, i went back into the living room and told him i wanted to do something fun. so he picked up my phone and started dialing one of our couple friends who recently moved closer. so we picked a middle ground at which to meet and headed out to watch dodgeball. i am dying to see farenheight 9/11, but wanted to see it just with J. plus we were all in the mood for something funny anyway. as we walked through the crowds hanging outside the theater i was appalled. so many underaged hoochies and pimps trying to pick each other up. there was a couple next to us in the theater who probably weren't even old enough to drive but were going farther in a movie theater than i've ever gone, and then ducked out early to... well your guess is as good as mine. but anyway, time with J was fun. feeling fun, gorgeous, and confident with my new haircut was fun. hanging with our couple-friends was fun. and saying goodbye to J was fun. but enough reminiscing... i have to get on with today and all the stuff that needs to get done!
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Friday, June 25, 2004
today is the day that we say our goodbyes to my hair. i plan on having before and after pics.
i'll be getting gmail soon. probably will use it for this email account. it's becoming a strange cult. it's an email service, but you can only get it through email or blogger invites. so it's like an elitist thing. but i'm joining their ranks. so if you need/want an invite start letting me know because i'm sure i'll be able to send some out myself in a few days.
have you ever just talked to somebody on the phone, hung up, then remembered that there was something you had to ask them really quickly... so you call back and they don't answer? so you try again and get really frustrated because you know for damn sure that they're 2 inches away from that phone. that's happening to me as i type this and i'm getting really frustrated. and i'm having to call because the person hasn't done something that they were supposed to do 3 weeks ago, so i'm already frustrated. remain calm. don't kill them when they do finally answer. just mildly maim them.
soooooo anyway, yes, hair coming off, gmail coming soon. let me know if you want future gmail invites. please don't ask for the hair... that would just be creepy. weird mood again if you didn't pick up on that.
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Thursday, June 24, 2004
Growth spurt...
an update on the growth spurt theory. further evidence sprouted up today... on my face, unfortunately. 3 zits. i know, gross. in high school, i used to get them, but then i became one of the blessed ones who pretty much stopped getting them. just rare occasions. i enjoyed that. i liked my skin... it complied with my wishes to not be polka dotted. until last night, when it apparently rallied forces to revolt against me. this is not acceptable. erg.
in other news, PBS rewarded my viewership of the depressing shows with a recorded sheryl crow concert. we're currently working out an agreement that might increase their viewership if i get rewarded like this on a regular basis. we'll see how it goes. i'm in a strange mood. oh, and meet the latest links i added tonight. robodopeness because he had the balls to take on the stupid idiots, and green living, which is a kick ass store where you can buy a huge range of fair trade and environmentally friendly stuff... AND they have a gift registry!!!!! you better believe i'm registering there when i get married. i decided a while back that i would try to have all my stuff be fair trade and/or environmentally friendly, but was afraid that somebody would have to be the registry manager since there isn't such a registry in existence. or wasn't. although i still may need such a person, this registry will hopefully make the job a little easier. and there are still years between me and a marriage, so who knows what will happen between now and then. anyway, before my mood gets any stranger, i'm off. night!
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Rest of the day...
so the interview went well. job will be hella hard i'm sure, but i need the experience. it's nice having internship interviews because it's so easy to get the job. i don't even worry about whether or not i'll be accepted. i'm sure i'll have an ego crisis once i try to get my first professional job next year. or maybe i'll just get lucky again.
talked to several friends today. was told that i am a shameless flirt and therefore was being recruited to teach my mad skills to a beautiful, but clueless, young woman. this girl works with one of my good friends, who is also a flirt, and she decided that we needed to educate this girl using our special expertise. since both of us are taken, she also decided that we would just utilize a "love 'em and leave 'em" tactic. we'd demonstrate picking up the guys but would then let them down gently; however, the single girl can obviously keep any guy she wants. i plan to discuss the best exit strategy with a few friends (*ahem* the beer!) because i don't want to leave any men permanently emotionally damaged from our little educational outing. hehe, you better believe i'll be posting about that night! i need the data link for my phone so i can take pictures of the debauchery.
quick other piece of randomness... i became a PBS nerd tonight. children's health and mental health benefits and funding sucks. companies are letting their employees die. i think it's a little too depressing to watch every night, but it's ok for tonight.
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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An open warning...
to the violinist (sean mackin, 24) of yellowcard. i'm watching you. if you screw up, if you get too cocky, if you do anything to piss off your bandmates, i'll be right there to replace you. i'll flirt shamelessly with the lead singer (ryan key, 23, he's hottt anyway), i'll wear tiny itty bitty outfits to boost concert attendance (not that they need any help), i'll do whatever it takes. love the band, love the electric violin, love the violin part in the songs... i want your gig. sure you have charisma on stage, you may appeal to some of the women in the audience, but the lead singer already does that. i can appeal to the men. i can take them to the next level. my enthusiasm will be contagious. just a heads up when they announce "now here's yellowcard featuring their newest addition, vortexia!!!" (or if you want me to join you for a duet and tour with you, then i'll play nice with the current violinist and pretend that i'm not just biding me time.) just letting you know so you won't be completely caught off guard when you're replaced. *muah!*
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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I'm confused...
so could somebody please explain to my why random people will pick fights with me on other blogs' comment boxes? i mean, am i really that easy to hate? or are they just so damn jealous that they can't help but take a couple jabs at me to make themselves feel better? i don't understand. i'm not the type to make enemies or have people publicly show how they despise me. any insight is welcome. just please don't hate on me.
there's something else i'm thinking about, but not sure what i want to write about it yet. i'm still mulling it over. maybe after the interview (or could be before i suppose). later!
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Good morning...
so i hope all the birthday people had a good time on their day! i have to get my butt in gear to get ready for an interview, then get several birthday gifts, and start studying my ass off. i've been procrastinating on the school work so badly that it's getting embarrassing. i need to lock away all other distractions and just leave the huge stack of research. yesh. but anyway....
so as you know, i'll be moving into a new place soon. i'm excited about getting to decorate it, and i've got all kinds of crazy ideas running around my head. most of them will be tasteful, but one is a little off the wall. because my boobs are growing again and i'll have to decorate, i put them together. i think it could be really cute for a room (probably the most appropriate for a laundry room) but probably would be misinterpreted as being early modern frat house. anyway, i thought you could make kind of a cute little wall draping by hooking several colorful bras together across a short wall. but you won't see it in my apartment because it's too frat-like. oh well. i know this is all strange and disjointed, but i have to run. i need to get ready and get focused for the interview. wish me luck!
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Wednesday, June 23, 2004
A birthday tribute...
i am grateful that many years ago an enormous baby was born into this world. this baby grew into the man i love. the one you have all come to know and envy... the man i call J.
there are so many things to love about him. all his little quirks. of course we have our difficult moments, and there are times when the quirks aren't so endearing, but i am still grateful.
i love his voracious appetite for books.
i love how he can provide the balance i need and cannot always create myself.
i love his logical and seemingly simple approach to money. spend on what you need, save some, but allow yourself a few luxuries. his mantra: it's just money, you can't take it with you when you die. so simple.
i love his hugs, enveloping me in love.
i love his gorgeous eyes.
his smile.
his goofiness.
his crazy sense of humor.
his ability to regress into childhood and take me with him.
his unconditional love for me.
i love how he sticks with things even if it's really hard going.
i love how he became inspired by me when he first met me.
i love the person he's become because of that and that he freely admits that the did it all on his own because he wanted to keep me.
but most of all, i love him because he is him.
happy birthday sweetheart.
(i apologize to anyone who became nauseous or diabetic from all the sugar.)
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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The chopping block...
this weekend, i will say goodbye to my hair. it will be chopped off for a good cause. it will be sad to see it all go... it's so gorgeous and healthy. but mine will grow back and these kids have no hair. it's definitely worth it.
i hope to have pictures.
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Birfday shout outs...
today is the mother load of all birth dates. nine months before this day must be the world's most popular day to have sex. i have four friends born on this day and another born tomorrow. he must have gotten the memo a little too late.
so happy birfday to all you happy people. J, J, L, and L... and D tomorrow. make it a GREAT DAY!!!
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Tuesday, June 22, 2004
Till death do us part...
i've always found this to be an odd belief. i never understood why people would give up the relationship just because they were parted by death. you cannot stop loving the person simply because they are no longer a physical part of your life. my grandfather died before all of his grandchildren were born (i would call this premature, but who can tell God what is premature?). he and my grandmother were childhood sweethearts and soulmates. after he passed away, my grandmother never even considered remarrying. she may be lonelier now because of that decision, but she couldn't stand the thought of being married to anyone other than him. she continued to honor their marriage. i never thought that this was odd. it seemed natural.
now i understand that some people do find love a second time and remarry, and i think that is perfectly acceptable. and even better if they are balanced enough to honor both spouses. while i can't say what i would do because love does funny things to you, i doubt that i could remarry if i were widowed. it's drastically different from remarrying after a divorce because you were not separated because the love went away.
anyway, i loved coming across a quote in tuesdays with morrie that reflected my sentiment. "death ends a life, not a relationship." how beautiful.
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Thoughts on blogging...
the blog scenery is changing. the madpony sisters and GFD are all bidding farewell to blogging. the sisters got busy i guess, and GFD is facing a lot of tough issues. poor girl, i wish her all the best.
blogging can be a tough business to balance. you can easily get sucked into it, so you have to maintain balance. you have to decide if people should know about it or not... probably the answer is "not" for the majority. you have to know what you'll do if you are discovered. although it seems like a minor issue when you start, it will get harder to make that big decision to say goodbye to it all should it ever become necessary. and for some reason people feel entitled to know about the blog if they're part of your life. i guess because it is shared online they feel like you left them out. but in reality, it's basically a journal... a place for your thoughts. you're just getting feedback and friendships from it.
for some strange reason it seems like best friends and strangers on the internet are more likely to take you as you are. you should never trade in your best friends; they're absolutely irreplaceable. they don't judge because they're beyond judging you. they love you with all your imperfections and will support you in whatever you do because they want what's best for you. it's the closest we'll probably ever get to being truly altruistic. the strangers have you grounds on which to judge you. now don't get me wrong, there are still some who will judge, and judge severely. but many try to be supportive and helpful. they started reading with kind of an understanding to take you as you are, so that acceptance is kind of built in. anyway, just some interesting thoughts on all of this.
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Apathetically lazy...
this is feeling like kind of an uneasy lazy day. i have a lot to do, but not sure what to do or how to do it. and frankly, i'd rather not do any of it if that were an option. i guess maybe i should research or something. i'm feeling so apathetic about school, though. and the summer session is such a master of illusion. it's almost as long as a full semester, but not quite. so you feel like you can take it at a slow and steady pace like the other semesters. have the first couple weeks to be lazy and not even consider the work, then slowly ease into doing some of it. nothing too in depth hits you right at the beginning. but no. in summer session they seem to knock off that beginning part and just hit you right away. you feel like you just started, and the prof hasn't even had a chance to explain the assignment yet, but oh it's still due. it leaves me confused. the semester is still long, so why are we rushing it? maybe the key is to either have the super short sessions (2 weeks long and that's it) where the profs have no option but to lessen the load because you're doing it so quickly or to do the full semesters. that way, in the short sessions you feel the urgency, the pace is kicked into high gear and you move with it, or you do the regular semesters and you roll with the calm and have just an occasional ripple when you're scrambling to get things done. meh, it's too late for me, but i'll just call it a word to the wise. a tip for those who follow after me. i'll take my apathy elsewhere now. thanks for listening to me bore even myself.
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Monday, June 21, 2004
Word to the wise...
if you didn't get home from a trip until late and didn't have time to get your life back in order for the next day, don't invite people to traipse into your bedroom. i made that mistake earlier today... and just now realized. as so many non-washer/dryer-owners in the under 35 category do, i brought home my dirty laundry when i went home. i washed it around midnight before heading out of town. shoved it all back in my bag and off i went. i know the laundry bag is around here somewhere, but it's still packed and is a low priority at the moment. so last night i just threw my undies over by the closet after my shower. i'd put them in the laundry once i found it. no big deal.
oops. i knew there was a possibility that a couple friends might drop by during the day and hang in the living room, so i made a feeble attempt to make it look semi-presentable. the mail was in a stack and the grocery store items that did not yet have a home were sitting nicely in their bag. i figured it would be forgiven. of course, the bathroom is accessed through the bedroom. my friend had to pee. i said no problem. didn't think about it. oh well. i'm normally neat. i just am bad at unpacking in a timely fashion. especially at midnight. when i have to get up in the morning. when i feel like i just spent the majority of the day in the back seat of a car with somebody who i'm realizing can be catty. obsessed with others' weight, including my own. obsessed with checking on what i was doing. obsessed with worry about whether i could drive the freeway at night, if i knew the route back, if i had ever taken the alternate route, if i knew what the exit was like. i tried to keep my sanity. i think i did fairly well. i remembered that it wasn't just me. she did this with nearly everyone. call it a quirk, an eccentricity. other than that the weekend was fun. the week i guess was pretty good. i need more time at the beach. i'm a beach kind of person. a city girl, yet a beach babe as well.
i realized with a little horror earlier today that there is some redeeming merit to country music. i used to abhor it. i'm still not the number one fan by any means... i guess i've always been a rock chick... but i've slowly been exposed to select decent songs by a certain person who is wanting me to see that it's not all bad. and i don't like admitting defeat, but it isn't all bad. i think it's mostly because some things can trigger memories in my own life that are good, or warm fuzzy stories that others have told me. like i remember J telling me that he remembered and loved all the things that are talked about in that song that mentions stretch armstrong and growing up and stuff. he was cute enough when he told me about it, that it still can make me smile a little. anyway, i sadly saw a tiny bit more in it tonight. it used to be a more love it/hate it genre, but it eventually started mainstreaming with country-pop hits and country infused songs. and there were always the cross overs who did the gender bender of music... country rock. but anyway, i realized that you are more likely to get country songs that talk about the joys and good things in life. i love and survive on my rock, but if you're happy, you don't usually want a song to make you angry or bring you down. it only happens rarely, but it could happen. and since i'm getting over-saturated with rap on the "popular" stations, i'm finding that decent songs are only playing on my rock stations and the b-list presets, which is where country is located on my radio. i'd say there are a dozen or so songs i'd listen to, and it slowly grows, although there are still some songs that make me lunge for the opportunity to change the station again. i do have my limits.
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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More about pleasing people...
since last night's piece turned into a look into one woman's life and less about the topic, i left it there. but i also wanted to add that not being able to please everyone certainly goes for blogging as well. it's a bit frustrating at times. you start the blog for yourself. you gain readers. sometimes they know you in real life. sometimes they are strangers. sometimes they are both. if you are ADD like me and what you write about runs the gamut, then you'll never please everyone. i don't have what you would call a devoted blog. devoted that i write nearly every day i can get to a computer, yes. devoted to a certain topic like sex (obviously the most popular), drugs, music, college life, etc, no. it is a random stew of my life. and i like it like that. that's how i am in real life. i'm unpredictable. i'm random. i'm a little bit o' everything.
but i'm facing the reality here that i will not please everyone. some people like the "maybe" hook. others find it annoying. some like the pictures. some find them worrisome. some like the updates on my boobs growing. others don't. some like it when i talk about inner thoughts or passions or helping others or day-to-day life or rants or quirky ideas or whatever. but inevitably others don't like some of those things. many people get stuck in that. they want the fame or the praise and forget to write for themselves. and while it's nice and i would hate to think i'm losing readers because i'm writing for myself, that is the reason i started. and censorship never got anyone anywhere. so i'm just letting you know that i will remember that i'm doing this for me and all of you are just an added bonus... the icing on the cake. i do appreciate everyone, but i also figure that most of you who have gotten into the habit of reading me like my style and are fine with it continuing. the hard balance to maintain is to write for oneself yet maintain the audience. i think that's part of why tony is so popular... he has achieved that mix (and is willing to share his limelight). i hope i'm doing ok so far. let's keep it coming!
and i know i say this frequently, but i really do enjoy getting comments and emails and such, so if you want to do either, don't shy away from it!
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Sunday, June 20, 2004
You'll never please everyone...
and other random thoughts.
so it's late, and i have to get up early, and i have bags to unpack. but i feel the need to write. i haven't written in a while and i miss it. and i miss a big glass of milk. back in a moment. so much better. so anyway, i missed writing, but i traded it in for reading. all that reading you think you'll do over a break but don't because you're feeling lazy and a computer or TV gets in the way. i did all of that reading. well, all that could be crammed into like a day and a half. it was great. and i know i should have been reading for school, but i couldn't make myself do it. i needed the "me" time to read a couple of the books that were sitting in that ever growing stack of books on my "must read" list. and i feel like a better, more complete person for having read them. they were just that type of book. anyway... back to the topic at hand.
i have always known that you can't please everyone all the time. but as i took my shower tonight i realized that what felt "off" about one of the people from this weekend was that she was unhappy. and i knew why. she was trying to please everyone... possibly everyone but herself. now she hid the sadness well. she is sweet and considerate and compassionate and all those other good things and seems content and happy and well-liked and well-adjusted, etc. BUT there was just a tiny little hint of sadness that crept in every once in a while. nothing i had noticed before, and probably not apparent enough that the other people even noticed at all. but i realized it today.
she loves her husband immensely, but he doesn't show love in the manner that she wants, i don't think. he is an amazing husband. he kind of reminds me of the ya-ya husbands... he does everything for her and then some without even thinking twice. but the words aren't there. that exclamation of "oh thanks so much, that's amazing!" when she gets him something isn't there. it's the same even keel contentedness that is his regular demeanor, but it doesn't set apart his gratitude. i think that disappointed her... made her feel like once again she hadn't gotten it right. no reinforcement when she pushed the right lever in the maze.
she also has a daughter who is allowed to talk to her in a blunt and brash manner. it's not something i would have allowed, and i was left gasping in disbelief at a couple points, feeling like i had been shoved into a miniature battle ground and was going to have to witness carnage. except there was none. she wasn't rebuked for what she said, she wasn't told that she needed to wait when she interupted, nothing. it kind of bounced off her mom and dad. but she didn't really do it to anyone else. maybe they allow it in the home if she doesn't do it elsewhere. who knows.
finally, i think this woman is kind of caught. trapped. she is liberal, but lives in the wrong area. she is compassionate and very rational about the problems of the poor, but lives among the rich. she has a strange balancing act to handle the rich, conservative republicans and wearing the right brands, buying in the right price ranges, etc but agreeing with the liberal democrats and understanding the plight of the poor. i don't think she consciously realizes all of this. she is frustrated with how difficult it is to know who to share things with. you share too much of the wrong viewpoint with the wrong person and you have a problem. but at the same time she's a little into that ritzy store, ritzy clothing group. like a maid is nothing big, hermes items are a nice luxury, a $200 outfit is perfectly appropriate. but she isn't happy with her body. so she doesn't like the shopping as much. and she is so eager to share her views and research with those who would listen and understand, but it's like a geiser bubbling under the surface because she has to keep it buried around most of her friends. they don't think bush is a bad person. they don't see why the poor have problems.
i know this is kind of a strange entry, but it was kind of an odd revelation. i feel like i had found a hidden passageway into her life and mind, and uncovered all these secrets that were hidden away from the light of the world. maybe it was well known fact to everyone but me. who knows. but i thought it was interesting introspection, and a rare opportunity to piece it together in somebody else's life. maybe tomorrow i'll have a chance to write about other aspects of my time away from the computer and you guys. i've missed ya! send some love my way to get me back into the swing of things! :)
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Thursday, June 17, 2004
WWWW...
no, that is not a typo. i was not wanting to discuss the world wide web. i am instead proposing a new line of men's jewelry meant to remind them to be good. WWWW: what would wife want. i can see it now... men sporting WWWW bracelets in a support group. big beefy men with soft interiors blubbering that they slipped up and went to a strip club despite knowing that it wasn't "what wife would have wanted." all the other men pounding him on the back and saying "it's gonna be ok. it'll be ok. it happens to the best of us, man." i don't know what all of this is, but it was the thought that came to me last night as i tried to fall asleep. that's when i have my most off-the-wall thoughts.
it's also when i realized that i have a guest room at the apartment, but the bedroom is BYOSP (bring your own sheets and pillow) and the bathroom is BYOSCTP (bring your own shower curtain and toilet paper). i should really extend that stellar offer to my friends. i mean, who wouldn't want to be accomodated in such a luxurious locale? i know i would! and it would have a real homey feel. the bed would look just like your bed, the shower curtain would look just like the one you have back at home. oh wait! it IS the one you had at home. and after you take your morning shower, you can just take the soaking wet curtain down, fold it up, and stick it in your trunk as you drive off. musty trunk smell, free of charge. ah yes. this is delirium at its best. i should share more of these crazy late-night "why can't i fall asleep" thoughts. well, maybe more next time. i've got stuff to do now! *muah!*
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Wednesday, June 16, 2004
An "A" kind of day...
today was good. the doc was great and i'm glad to have found one i like. the phlembotomist had the personality of a brick wall, but she could draw blood like a pro, so that's what counted. i also discovered the joys of my parents' neighborhood 99 cent store. then came the R&R portion of the day. i talked to an old friend who i'll get to visit in about a month, found out my grade would be changed for the stupid class where i got a B, watched monster, took a nap, talked to 3 more friends, ate good food i didn't have to prepare, and drank free wine. or complimentary... i guess nothing in life really is free. ABC programming is turning trashy. i just saw commercials, but it was like the pitches at the beginning of the stepford wives. the ultimate love test where you cheat on your partner for the sake of a game and $100,000. dangerous housewives... something about cheating and television (reality TV or playboy fantasy?). wife swap... well just let your imagination wander on that one and you get some pretty lively ideas. i guess they figured that people like watching train wrecks and are happy to deliver. superstar USA seemed to work out alright in that respect.
i wish there were something more lively to tell, but it hasn't been that crazy of a day. that's a good thing though. and thanks to those who wished me well. the doc is a keeper. well, off to more leisurely reading (because i'm choosing to ignore the mounds of reading that is piled in my trunk because... well, the fun book is in the house and the boring stuff isn't). i know, i have such discipline. ok, be good kids! i'll be back later.
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Tuesday, June 15, 2004
Stuffalumpagus...
who knows where this entry will take us. i just figured i better write whatever before i leave for the next 5 days. i might be able to write at the beginning of it, but definitely not at the end (well i guess i don't know definitely, but it's less likely). anyway. yesterday's topic of the day seemed to be victoria's secret and boobs. am i missing a memo on coordinating entries?
somebody must really love me. i just checked my email, and saw that Yahoo! mucho grande sized my email account! sweetness. on the other hand, blogger has been having problems publishing my blog entries recently. i know it says that it could take a couple minutes if you have a large blog and that i post frequently so i might qualify, but this is a little ridiculous. after it spinning for 15 minutes, popping up everytime as having published 0%, i gave up and closed it. so this is try numero 2 here. let's hope this one works.
so sunday night i got pretty much no sleep at all. i fell into bed tired, but as soon as i hit the bed i was wired. i may have fallen asleep for an hourish, but i'm not certain. but i distinctly remember turning over and seeing that the sun was already rising and feeling like i really had to force myself to sleep now or i wouldn't get any sleep at all. like i hadn't already tried that. after that incident, i made the executive decision to kill one of my clocks. it runs almost 20 minutes fast, and it ticks so loudly that i feel like i'm in some bad psycho movie with my thoughts slowly spiraling into insanity as each second ticks by. so i killed it. and it felt good. so last night, i crawled into bed and enjoyed the peace and quiet (well as quiet as it gets in an apartment directly above 6 air conditioning units). i slept until my alarm woke me up. then i turned off the alarm and slept some more. then i tried getting up and decided i just couldn't yet. my body had turned into a sleep klepto. and it felt good. so i mentally rearranged everything on my to-do list and got down to the bare bones list that consists of packing before class. everything else comes later. oh to enjoy the laziness!
and i've been told before that people are more desirable to others when they're taken. i've seen that play out a little in my real life, but i'm really seeing it play out in other blogging people's lives right now, either in real life or on the blog. anyway, just figured i'd share. well i just got a phone call to add to the to-do list and i still need to pack, so off i go. think positive things for the doc visit tomorrow!
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Monday, June 14, 2004
Classola...
another fascinating day in the world of grad school. things were looking grim in the first class of the day, until he pulled a trick out of his hat. the key to teaching is a minimal focus on teaching and maximal entertainment. we were still learning, though, so it was all good. but it was some of that really cool fun stuff that isn't in the prescribed syllabus so it's "off the record." way fun. it's actually worth memorizing it so i can call people's bluffs and stuff.
massive break between classes. got some work done (i know, truly amazing), ate some junky trashy mexican fast food with friends (never a bad time), then we headed to the mall to waste time. as large as that mall is, it wasted all of an hour, tops. i guess when everyone is too poor to buy anything, it doesn't take too long to wander the whole thing. but being a mall walker would just be boring. there's something about walking too long in a mall that is tiring. and since we passed our exit and had to retrace back, we decided we deserved cookies. more time to waste, so we zoned on the tv at my place for another hour. next week we are being more proactive. we're packing DVDs and watching marathon-style at my place.
night class finally. it's kind of dry, although he breaks it up with some stories. i had time to update my school planner, my regular planner, write to-do lists, get rid of old post-its, and all kinds of stuff. sadly, it only wasted 15 minutes out of the 3 1/2 hours. thankfully, he could see that we were all getting restless, sped through the last little section, and let us out a little early. hallelujah.
so i'm still trying to figure out if i'm having another growth spurt. now my boobs are feeling weird. could they be growing? could i have just strained a muscle underneath them? should i have kept this to myself? (probably so.) oh well. unless something seriously goes awry before i see the doc, i don't think it's anything i need to talk to her about. especially since it would go something like this:
me: "hi, my boobs are feeling weird."
dr.: "ok, how so?"
me: "uh, i don't really know? just weird. like different."
dr.: "riiiiiiiight. so anyway, you're still alive and look fine, so off you go!"
ok, enough personal disclosure... probably too much even. off to tackle that to-do list.
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Sunday, June 13, 2004
Change of plans...
life doesn't usually go according to plan, does it? after the last post, i sat down to do the research i needed to do, only to discover that the university web system was down. no library access, no email, no nothing. ok, so i waste a little time. still not up. ok, new plan. so i swallowed my fears into that big pit in my stomach and made a call to discuss the issue at hand. first a bad reaction, then a reconsideration, and a decision that it was probably a pretty decent idea after all. so now i had to do research on that. did that for a while. then i started dreading the late night tonight getting the school research done whenever the system did come back up, and the late night tomorrow packing to go away for the rest of the week. i have to be packed early since i have to go to school mucho early and then head out after late night classes. not fun. i feel like i'm being cryptic here. i guess it's because i want to make sure i go through with this stuff before i actually announce it beyond the 4 people who know right now. and i can assure you that it isn't any of what you're probably thinking. i know, cryptic, but nothing fatal or anything. and more not-funness... i go to the doctor this week. i'm not phobic or anything, but it's not exceedingly pleasant for women. oh well... that's life. well anyway, still have more crappola to do for class tomorrow and the server's finally back up. off to bury myself in research!
P.S. admire my new comment box! check it out, it's so gorgeous!!! awww, it just makes me SMILE!
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Ickiness...
i'm dealing with some very scary thoughts right now. things that make me just want to curl up and hide under the covers all day. but i have work to do for class tomorrow, so i can't. and i have to talk to people about these scary thoughts at some point today. but my stomach is just churning about it. ug, i want life to go away sometimes. maybe if i get all the other stuff done, then i can still spend the rest of the day curled in a ball forgetting my troubles. ok, that's actually some motivation.
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Saturday, June 12, 2004
Erg...
i'm pissed. well not pissed, but not happy either. i live in a tiny apartment, up until recently, a tiny apartment with a roommate. so storage space for clothes was minimal. i made that difficult decision that many women in my position are forced to make. after the 268 degree days were over, i packed all of my totally adorable summer shirts into a bag and stored them at my parents' house. a few weekends ago i realized that i would soon be able to wear them again, so i brought them back to the apartment. i pulled out a super soft t-shirt to sleep in. it somehow got a neon pink stain on it. i was disappointed, but not devastated. it was just a sleep shirt, it didn't really matter. today i pulled out another cute shirt to wear. i put it on, looked down, and saw a dark grey stain on one side and another neon pink stain on the other side. oh no. now i'm starting to panic. why oh why? how many other shirts will be restricted to lazy-saturday-afternoons-spend-inside-only wear? not good. especially since i also recently discovered that my rinky-dink dresser here leaves an occasional wood-colored stain on clothing. i can't afford to buy a new wardrobe right now, or ever in the near future. freakin' a.
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Nightmare...
bizarre. i had a freaky dream last night. i dreamt that i had just dropped somebody off at their house (it was late at night), and as i walked back to my car i noticed an SBC (phone company) work van parked right next to my car. i was parked on the left side of the street, and this van was just inches away from the passenger side of my car in the middle of the street. i don't know why i didn't go back and notify my friend to watch and make sure everything seemed safe, or why i didn't go back inside and wait for them to leave, or anything else. i just hopped in the car and drove away down the street. check the rearview... the van's following me. i freak out. i turn onto another street in a lame attempt to lose them (lame because it's long blocks without any tricky places to lose somebody). still definitely following me. i speed up and get a little farther away, but i'm still an easy target. so i pull out my phone as i come to a T intersection, and instead of turning one way or the other, i don't move fast enough, so i go onto an embankment and into the driveway of a school. i figure if my car didn't die there, then i was good to go and just went with it. i thought about calling my parents really quick to let them know i wasn't ok but was about to call 911 in hopes that they could make it ok, but i don't remember if i did or not. but i did call 911 and eventually convinced the operator that i was really being followed by this work van at 2 am. she seems unsure that she could dispatch a police car to intercept and keep me safe since we are on the move. she also asked me if i had a description of the people in the van, and i had a distinct feeling that if i looked over at them (when they were alongside me), there would be a guy in the passenger seat with a gun aimed at my head and he'd shoot me in the face when i looked. she said ok, but still wasn't sure she could get a cop car over there. so then i suggested that i could get on the nearest freeway, tell her what entrance i got on, and she could dispatch officers to get on soon after and surround my car like they did with OJ simpson to protect me and then a couple more to get the van. i don't think she thought i was worthy of that many officers, but i think we did go for the freeway option. at that point i woke up very freaked out and determined i was never getting any service from SBC. freaky crazy dream. blech.
oddly enough, i think i also considered going to the nearest 911 station, which was a fire station, and having the dispatcher call them to get everyone woken up and prepared to let me in and lock back up. then i would have several big tough guys there to protect me and they could sneak me away on a fire engine if they had to. but i figured that my assailants might be smart enough to figure out that if i went in and shortly after an engine went out, i was on the engine. so i nixed that.
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Friday, June 11, 2004
Good friday...
so today wasn't so bad after all. a few plans fell through, which was ok since i was over booked anyway. felt like the flood-drought cycle set into motion in my life. K and A didn't work out, and i didn't hear from mo, but J got to visit after all. and i got the apartment stuff settled. since a better offer came through, i didn't do much research, but i'm just fine with that. like i said, a good day overall. i relaxed, read, got a W/D without rental charges for the new apt, J came over, we made out, i mixed a tad too much alcohol into the cherry coke he brought and i commandeered, we ate cinnamon sticky buns fresh from the oven for dinner, i was told that i am prettier than kate hudson because i got J and she didn't (i know, it made me laugh too), and life was good. i'm debating if tomorrow will be another chill day relaxing at home (i can start the day off with more cinnamon buns) or if i want to go shopping for fun stuff for the gazillions of summer birthdays that are coming up. J, roomietta, both suities, the beer, and hopefully that's it in the near future. it's a tough call, especially if i go to a store that would have fun stuff to decorate the new apartment. so i guess that should be my answer right there... no shopping. i'll buy too much that i can't justify, and i'll feel bad later. although i could find a good interview outfit... no! i will be strong tomorrow. good night all!
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Busy to lazy...
today was supposed to be a crazy busy day. now things on my to-do list are dropping like flies. was going to see J and K separately, and possibly A... probably all are out now. might be able to find out about the apartment today, but the manager was out when i called. will call back. still haven't heard back to schedule my interview. hope she calls soon. it's dan's bday today, and he had suggested some kind of homecoming dinner with mo... don't know if that'll happen or not. either way, happy birthday! so i suppose while everything's up in the air i better start some serious research and brainstorming for monday's classes. especially since i'll be gone all next week and may not get an opportunity to research further then. but lunch comes first. then we'll get down to business.
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Thursday, June 10, 2004
Good things...
it's about time for a list of the good things in life.
california pizza kitchen frozen pizzas. friends. getting to interview with my first choice internship. having friends who can understand why you'd want to help others. music. cheesecake bites. get togethers with friends. time to relax. good surprises.
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Choice...
it is a common misconception that we have a high degree of control over our lives. day after day, second after second we are out of control. accidents happen. whether it's a pregnancy, a car crash, a slip up at work, a natural disaster, or something else, accidents happen. even people who diligently plan their lives are faced with the unexpected. it's inevitable.
it is interesting to compare wealthy and impoverished women just on the family realm. wealthy women plan their lives, go to college, grad school, begin careers, work their way up the ladder. then in the blink of an eye, they're 45 and facing menopause. what happened to that family i was going to have? what happened to the miracles of the new fertility technologies? all gone. their plan to have a family slipped away from them without them even realizing it. many women in poverty face the opposite dilemma. they get pregnant, often unexpectedly, start a family, and face the reality that they will be unable to pull themselves out of poverty. they may have aspired to go to college, to rise out of poverty, to better themselves, but they choose to provide for their families instead and surrender that personal betterment. cycle of poverty. both are unhappy outcomes, and neither woman will feel like she had control over her life.
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Achilles heel...
i'm so sick of hitting my head against a brick wall. but i'm going to face ignorant idiots every single day of my life if i decide to be an advocate. i'm going to need some blood pressure medication and yoga classes and tai chi and chai tea all to off set the stress they cause. being passionate can be a downfall. but i'm not easily defeated. and i'm not a crack smoking, oprah watching, welfare queen either. i know that may come as a surprise to some of you. i'm willing to defend them and give them part of my wages despite not being one of them.
the thing i just cannot fathom, though, is how others can be so callous to their fellow human beings. how can you spit on the impoverished and homeless when you've already trampled over them in your rush up the corporate ladder? how can you look at them and not want to help? how can you resent them when you have so much more than them? you have something while they have nothing. be grateful for what you have and stop resenting them for not being born into the same comfortable lifestyle that you have.
i have a love-hate relationship with humankind at times. i love them and think they make life worthwhile most of the time. i want to spend my life helping others. but other times, i cannot help but be ashamed of my fellow human beings. ashamed that they can be so cold, prejudiced, full of hate, and so many other terrible things. it makes me sick.
i will come back with something less dismal once i shake this from my mind.
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Wednesday, June 09, 2004
Welfare-to-work
well, i was going to write about the idiots in my program, but then i discovered a comment on tony's blog that made me see it was so much more important for me to set the damn record straight. i can't believe that i'm stooping this low, except that i absolutely abhor the misguided assumptions about people on the welfare system.
welfare-to-work was a disastrous plan that has failed miserably. no, i take that back. it has been somewhat effective because the goal of the program was horrendous to begin with. the point wasn't to keep people from becoming impoverished, to help them out of poverty when they got in it, to help the children of these families to get a proper childhood or upbringing or nutrition or supervision. no, the goal was to get people off the program. what a circular goal. to get people who got on, off. but that was the point. and to force people into "traditional" families and "traditional" lifestyles. the majority of people on welfare are not men who are too lazy to get a job (as most people assume), or women who want the government to pay them to raise their children, or any other vision to that effect. the majority of people on welfare are women who cannot juggle an infant, a job, and the extreme expense of childcare. many of these women have a high school education or less, thus often qualifying them for minimum wage jobs. simply to make rent on an apartment, people must now earn 3 times the minimum wage. then you add in that childcare is several hundred if not a couple thousand dollars a month and there is no fucking way.
for those who think that these women try to get more money by having more children, let me set the record straight. if they get pregnant while on welfare, they cannot receive further funds. they only get an extra $20 maybe for an additional child. that may feed the kid a couple meals of formula that month, but doesn't even cover the cost of putting a diaper on the kid's ass to catch the shit that comes out after it eats. i know that's blunt, but that's the reality.
what else... the program also (now) requires women to identify paternity. yes, this is so that the men are actually held responsible. for the life of me i can't understand why the man who argued with me tried to make them out to be poor martyrs, but whatever. of course, it is also more of the value-laden politics that we've dealt with for at least all of my lifetime.
and the women are currently required to find a job, job training, or be receiving an education within 2 months of entering the program. in other words, the baby has to enter day care at 2 months old. i realize that women have had to make that sacrifice to keep their career for quite a while now since our maternal leave time is next-to-nothing, but that doesn't make it any better. not to mention, that day care for a newborn is outrageous, and if these women cannot afford it they are faced with straining family relations by forcing relatives to donate child care or with neglecting their child. and that is detrimental to the child obviously, to the woman, and to the employer even.
as for the "research" that has been unearthed that has proven that it is better for a newborn to be in daycare than to be raised by his/her own mother, i would love to know what insane scientists made that discovery.
i'm also curious if you realize that the government does not subsidize couches or condos, and that the average wait for section 8 housing is now measured by years, not months. and just how many of these poor poor fathers that are suffering under this program are paying their child support? you really think they're all walking their paycheck over to the nearest check 'n' go so they can do their share to take care of their child? hell no.
as for some valid research, before welfare-to-work and TANF (i realize TANF came after reagan but i'm using my current knowledge and not going into archives from the 80s for the original legislation) there were very few people who stayed on welfare for longer than 5 years of their life. being on any kind of government assistance is extremely dehumanizing. most people are ashamed that they cannot take care of themselves without help. they try to get off as soon as it is humanly possible. however, the welfare-to-work program has created a terrible catch 22. people have to be below the poverty line to receive welfare assistance. welfare keeps people way waaaaay below the poverty line. people have to have a job within 2 months of getting on welfare. once you have a job, even a minimum wage job, you make more than the threshold. you get kicked off welfare and are in even greater poverty. you can't afford rent. you can't afford the childcare to watch the baby while you're working. you can't afford to work, but you can't afford not to work while on welfare. you're screwed either way. your child is screwed either way because childcare, food, clothing, shelter... everything is scarce.
any other misconceptions you'd like me to correct??
to the guy who challenged this... you know what? thank you. thank you for giving me an opportunity to step up on my damn soap box and set the record straight. thank you for reminding me why i am strongly considering devoting the majority of my adult life to advocating for the impoverished and homeless. it's because there have been too many people out there making up lies and deceiving the public and villainizing these people who are less fortunate than them. i'm fucking sick of it. and i'm going to make a difference. give me an audience and a microphone or a computer or any other means, and i'll talk until i'm so hoarse that you can't hear me anymore, or type until my wrists swell and my fingers fall off. i won't sit idly by letting these people be misunderstood and misrepresented. fuck that. thanks. getting off my soap box now and getting on with life.
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Thin walls...
uh oh. so i knew the apartment walls were kind of thin because i used to hear my former roommate yelling/talking to her boyfriend on the phone all the way into my room. i just assumed that it was because she didn't talk, but yell-talked. you know what i'm talking about. they scream "nuh uuuuuuuhh!" and so forth. wellllll... i realized last night that the walls were a whole lot thinner than i previously thought. apparently the guy who used to be my wall-mate just never talked, coughed, sneezed, nothing while he lived there. he would blast music at times, but that was it. so last night, the new wall-mate coughed. not a huge, loud, hacking cough, just a "clear this crap out of my throat" kind of cough. i could hear it, clear as a bell. oh no. so two men i've never met know all the personal details of my everyday life. and all the crazy stuff i've done because i just don't care all that much. i guess it's that "ignorance is bliss" argument. i realized they might be able to hear something, but didn't know for sure. now i do, and i don't feel so great about that. oh well... the damage has been done. take it in stride.
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Growing pains...
ok, up to what age can you still be growing and having growth spurts? for the past couple days i feel like i'm back in high school going through that. i've been hungry constantly, which was the hallmark of my puberty growth spurts. i'm pretty sure that by now it's just hunger because i think growth spurts end by the 20s, but i guess you never know. well, time for bed now. i'm tired, so that's all i've got.
oh, and i'm trying to decide if having a blog IM name would be a good idea or a horribly bad one. i think it would definitely have the possibility for both. but if i'm hardly on my regular one to talk to my real life friends, would it be worth it? hi, i'm vortexia, and when i'm tired i just ramble on about whatever i'm thinking to people who don't care.
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Tuesday, June 08, 2004
SEX!...
our fascination with sex has always interested me. it's so personal yet so public, so hidden yet so blatantly everywhere. sex in the general sense... sex, sex appeal, sexual innuendos, the whole bit. "our" meaning human beings in general. if you think about it, probably 90% of our lives revolve around sex in some way or another. cultural and societal customs, traditions, etc. here, nearly everything we buy is sold using sex. i love how abercrombie used to sell their clothes by having their models naked. it's so absurd, yet it worked wonders. one of my friends got an A on a debate because i told her about that. in countries where anything sexual is forbidden, their lives are still driven by sex. for fear of conjuring up sexual thoughts in the men, the women must cover head to toe. we also gauge the passing eras by the sexual overtones and the promiscuity. the 50s, prim and proper. the 60s and 70s, sexual revolution and the free love. the 80s, conservativism at its prime coupled with the AIDS scare. all kids in puberty can think about is sex. churches discuss sex, lecture children to wait. schools discuss sex. what they do when they talk about it varies widely by state. some say abstinence is the only choice, your sex organs don't even work until you're married when the padlock is removed. some say if you must have sex, at least practice putting a condom on this banana. i could go on forever with this, but i have to get ready to go to school. but remember, these are my thoughts. if i ever go for a Ph,D. you very well may find me writing a dissertation on this... or if i ever get my act together enough to be able to write a book, you better believe that this is in the top 3 for topics. i just may have to get that Ph,D. in sociology, write the dissertation and the book about sex, and become an expert in it so i can teach classrooms full of young minds that we're all obsessed with sex. the fetish of sex. ok, off to class before i give away all the tricks i have up my sleeve.
but i want responses on this one! so comment away por favor...
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Monday, June 07, 2004
Long day...
still feeling overwhelmed with all the stuff i have to do. slowly drowning in post-it notes and to-do lists. on the plus side, we corrected that damn paper and resubmitted it. if we don't get an A this time, i'm gonna have to throw down. i may be in a tiny little body, but i pack a mean punch.
classes were crazy today. i got registered with only a minor screw up. got it all fixed before noon. both my classes today were with the same prof. not a good thing in general. i'm in both classes with 2 of my friends, and another one joins us for the night class. it was weird... the prof noticed right away during the break in the first class that the 3 of us were always together. he didn't seem happy. we told him that he'd see us again that night... definitely did not seem happy at all. what gives? well whatever. oh, and we have a group project in the morning class, so we're all in the same group, and a partner project in the evening class, so we partnered off the 4 of us. wonder how he feels about that (not that i really care). it's good to have friends. so anyway, we get into the first class and he starts spewing something out at us. we all look around at each other like deer caught in headlights, desperately trying to figure out what the heck we're supposed to do and how. later, he slowed down and went through it at a more humane pace, but i still need to sit down with the syllabus and a pen and very very slowly read what we're supposed to do EXACTLY. sheesh. never a good sign. the evening class was similar but at least we were a little more prepared to be overwhelmed.
sadly, we spent the entire break between classes fixing that stupid paper and printing out ream after ream of readings and lecture notes for both classes. sadly, we still need a couple hours tomorrow to get the rest done. if i get lost in the class, the prof will always keep my attention. there's a certain resemblance to milton from office space, and his style of asking questions is similar to the teacher on ferris bueller. anyone? anyone? blah. we're allowed approximately 2 seconds to respond before he accuses us of not knowing anything. yeah buddy. i almost started laughing at one point in the class because of this combo. oh, and the one guy in our class very emphatically nods his head in agreement with the prof like a gigantic bobble head... or like an ostrich that's bobbing wildly up and down before it attacks. it's kind of hypnotic in a funny way. ah yes, i'm in such a kind mood tonight. glad to see i'm back to my tales of grad school miscreance? well sorry for the lack of daytime reading, but i had to get up at 7 and didn't get home till around 8:30. oh well... i trust you all coped well enough.
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Sunday, June 06, 2004
Figuring it all out...
plans are a pain. planning for the move, to have furniture, to have electricity in the new apartment, and internet connected, and who to go with, and how far in advance to notify the current companies to cut it off and the new companies to turn it on. planning for the upcoming week and the week after that, and classes, and nights out with friends, and doctor appointments, and friends' birthdays, and a long weekend away with the family. planning to get to a friend's wedding, to get memory cards for my digital camera before they're discontinued, to get a baby gift for a friend. blech. and i cringe at the realization that this is just normal life. how miserable is it going to be to make major plans? to plan a big move, to get married, and all those other "grown up" things. yeeesh. what a headache. but we all do it, so i will, too.
quick question: for anybody who's had both, is DSL comparable (speed and reliability wise) to cable internet? it should save some serious dinero over time, but apparently there's some startup cost involved? please educate me! i've had dial up, t1, and cable, but never DSL. thanks for the help!
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Saturday, June 05, 2004
Now where have i heard that before...
i know you all must be sick of hearing this, but i have the greatest friends in the world. i realized today that i might not be able to be a bridesmaid for one of my close friends because i can't afford to get there. after working on the logistics all day with my stomach churning and shedding many tears, i pulled myself together, came up with a game plan, and called her to break the bad news. i knew she needed to know as soon as i did so she could fix all the stuff i just screwed up by backing out. so i took a deep breath, dialed, and then held that breath. i told her i had bad news, and proceeded to explain. she just kind of laughed and said don't worry about it. we'd take a couple weeks to figure something out because she really wanted me there. she was more concerned about making sure i was ok and hadn't gotten too upset by this. she totally understood the expense issue and is determined we'll figure it all out. i can't believe i have such amazing friends. it just leaves me speechless sometimes... and she literally left me speechless for a moment tonight (after which i profusely thanked her for being so understanding). so thank you, thank you, thank you, and thank you again to all of my friends... you're incredible and i'm grateful for all of you.
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Phone...
phew. i have pretty much been on the phone continuously from 11:15 this morning until now (3:15ish). close friend in crisis, mom, J, another friend to get me out of crisis. breakups, bills, weddings, affording the trip to the wedding... all needed to be dealt with. it's surprising how much you can multi-task when you have to. i figured out travel details and expenses while fixing and eating lunch and checking my bank account. after those calls, though, my poor phone decided it couldn't take it anymore. i hung up and it beeped at me, pleading to give it a rest. "low battery," it cried. so i gave it a little sad look and thought, "you poor thing," and put it on the charger. i could wait to make the next call until after i wrote this, took a shower, and let my ear return to its usual self. i hate being poor. i know i've mentioned that many times before, but it really isn't fun. now i can't remember what else i was going to say and i think anything else will just sound sad and pitiful. maybe if i take a shower the pitiful-ness will wash away with the soap.
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Friday, June 04, 2004
Chick-chick-chickeeeeeeeeen!
i love chicken, but hate having to cook it. first, i think cold chicken is one of the most numbing things you can touch. as i was pulling off the fat and cleaning the chicken breasts, i could feel the cold move all the way up into my shoulder blades. youch. then everything that you touch has to be bleached down and cleaned up.
but anyway, all of that is behind me now and i have a fun little summery dish. chicken breast with apples, avocado, and raisins. and it was cooked in applejuice with a tiny bit of lemon juice so it's still juicy without being all greasy (and the apple and avocado won't yellow as fast). yummmm. just thought i'd share.
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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A lesson...
one quick lesson for all the oblivious people of the world. sometimes it's not what you say but how you say it that matters. why was i so upset today? i was just generally treated pretty shitty by people (an IM conversation with a friend was the exception), and my family's oldest cat passed away unexpectedly. i remember begging for her when we first moved to this area, my family finally broke my dad down enough to get her, and he ended up being the one who loved her the most. it was really sad, and hit me pretty hard because i was already emotional today. with something like this, i get kind of weird about who i want to talk to about it because i don't know how you just broach that topic with friends. you call them up and start blubbering "hi, she just died" and hope they aren't in a meeting or something? J's about the only person who i'll call like that. so i did, he was stuck in traffic, trying to drive a stick and hold the phone at the same time, and didn't act very well. hurt feelings. calls back later and gets defensive and pissy as he's apologizing. not the answer, buddy. as we get through a painfully long and mishap laden conversation, i was trying to figure out why i didn't call my friend K who is a huge animal lover and totally would have related. or a best friend from home who knew the cat for many of the years we had her. not that J didn't, but she would have known how to react with compassion. so anyway, this is a twisted fumbly mess, but the point is to freaking pay attention to HOW you're saying something and what attitude or feeling it conveys. like the passive-aggressive teenage angst "fine, i'm sorry" attitude never fooled your mother, a half-assed apology won't fool your girlfriend.
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Thursday, June 03, 2004
Apathy...
i feel like people have stopped caring. that's never a good feeling to have. i could go into details, but then i'll undoubtedly just end up hurting more feelings. and that's another thing i don't want to do.
i have more to share, but i'm just not up to it right now.
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Politics...
here's the segue from the previous post to this one: stupidity. ok, here we go...
tony threw down a challenge for the republicans. i'm joining him. this is what he asked of you:
"please tell me why you think President Bush, [not] pictured, deserves four more years.
tell me what he has accomplished over the last four years, especially since all i see are bad things (3 trillion deficit, highest gas prices ever, a billion dollar a day iraq habit, no wmd, no obl, etc).
tell me what you think he will accomplish in the next four years.
tell me what you see in him that im missing.
tell me how he will help not only the USA but the world.
tell me how he will improve jobs in the usa.
tell me how his so-called Christianity will influence the nation in a positive way.
tell me how he will work with the fcc to benefit free speech and choice on the airwaves.
tell me how he will improve healthcare.
tell me how he will make america a safer place, and not just from terrorists, but from normal criminals.
and/or tell me how he will help the country via education.
tell me how George Bush will do any of these or all of these or some of these and i will listen and it will be here in the comments, for the record for all to see."
i'm adding a question that is important to me:
tell me how anything he is doing will help the poor and disadvantaged.
thank you.
in the mean time, i will tell of his further antics. in july of 2003, a very important act was introduced. it was called the Bringing America Home Act. it was meant to end homelessness within the next 10 years. it was the most comprehensive initiative to end homelessness thus far, and made people like me very hopeful for the wellbeing of the nation's homeless. approximately 3.5 million people experience homelessness each year, and about 40% of these are children. sadly, this act has made very little progress in the past year. it has a few more sponsors, but that's about it. it has been benched, and is unlikely to pass with such apathy. it makes me sad, and makes me wonder if it would have moved forward if we weren't throwing all our money into a sinkhole in iraq.
i know this is a little late in coming, but oh well. we are temporarily part of OPEC since we took over governing iraq. cartels are illegal according to US law, but we don't really care. why are we raising our OWN gas prices? hmm, good question. wish i knew.
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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High school...
so i just read somebody's memories from high school prom time. reminds me of our prom through graduation blitz. we were kind of a strange high school. the smart kids were the popular kids for the most part, and the really high achievers were in classes that were harder than AP classes. they also had bitch hard internationally regulated tests. so at the end of our senior year we had a blur of tests we had to take, but we somehow managed to squeeze in a ton of parties. it was an interesting mix. the one i remember the best was held by one of the less popular guys, but his parents were out of town, so of course he suddenly became very popular. he didn't plan too well, though, because within the first hour or so the alcohol was running out. but he did plan well enough to have his older brother on hand to make another run. i remember one of the pretty-boy popular guys suddenly became verrry friendly and was inviting me and a couple other girls to come by his place when his parents were out of town. that's ok buddy... (oh, wondering where J was? he didn't go to our high school, so i went to all of these parties with a group of girlfriends. he was/is a brave and trusting man.)
during our pre-graduation breakfast together, my roomie asked me what the stupidest thing i did in college was... like what i regretted. now i can think of some of those... but i think high school was one of my stupider times. like when my friends just decided i wouldn't drink so i would be their eternal DD bitch. they didn't realize that back then if you screwed me over like that, i'd fuck with you a little. so they pulled that on me for this party, i was pissed as hell, but ended up driving anyway because if i did i could ditch the rest of them to hang with other friends at the party and they wouldn't all be breathing down my neck measuring how much i was drinking. i had some classy friends back then. but anyway, we got there, i found other friends and went my own way. i drank at the beginning to get a little buzz and then just walked around holding a glass so they'd think i kept drinking the whole time. as much as they wanted to be bad asses, they were still worry warts. (and i don't blame them: i am in no way condoning drunk driving and made sure i was in fact sober.) so anyway, they were freaking out. passive aggressive, i know, but i was young and stupid. i do remember near the beginning, i grabbed a bottle of boone's from a guy, asked sweetly if i could try it, he said ok and kept talking to a friend. he looked back to get his bottle back, and saw me chugging. after the shock wore off that i was doing that, he quickly tried to get it back since there was just a little left at that point. that still cracks me up.
just as we were about to leave, all hell broke loose. one of the girls i drove there (girl A) stole the guy that another girl i drove there (girl B) was talking to. girl A decided that since girl B kept talking about how she wasn't sure she wanted to date him, she would take the boy for herself. well, she did so at the party, girl B found out, got pissed, and most of the party came to a stand still. i tried to avoid the tension and fighting, so i hung with some people who could care less what happened, then one of my best friends and i went for a little walk around the block. she wasn't sure where she had parked, and we both had to reassure ourselves that we had sobered up by that time. i was stone cold sober by that point, but she needed to stay a little longer before she left. so i returned to the party, collected girl B and another friend, and cringed as i discovered that girl B had told girl A that she wasn't getting a ride home from me. aren't i supposed to make that kind of decision? but whatever.
anyway, i still thought it was a good party. but i'm also very glad i'm out of high school and don't have to revisit those times. thank goodness (most) people mature!!!
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Wednesday, June 02, 2004
Rolling back...
it's weird to watch the comments on my 100 things you may not know about me page (and previous posts) go backward. even though the numbers are disappearing, the comments are still there. anyone know why that happens? feel free to share.
i wish i had something profound to say. but i don't. i wish i had something fun to do. but i don't really have that either. so... here's to a boring post. hopefully we can all come back to this page soon to see something much more interesting.
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Tuesday, June 01, 2004
More good news...
i almost forgot to share the other good news of the day! well first, old roommate called and asked if she could drop by to give me the check for the cable bill she forgot to pay. i said, but of course you can pay me! so she came over and gave me the check. yay... one more thing taken care of.
now do you remember my seething rant about the BS grade i received in one of my classes? the 4 of us in our group got a B for solid A work. so we went to school early to pick up our paper and review her comments before we talked to her. first, we got a B+ on the paper, which should still average out to an A when combined with 2 other grades of A. but anyway... to keep it brief before the next storm hits and i have to turn off the computer again... she didn't really assign grades based on the criteria in the syllabus, but whatever we got on the paper was then what we got in the class. so a B+ not on a +/- system is a B. but she said that if we were willing to make the corrections she suggested in the paper and resubmit it, then she would be happy to change our grade. she said that it was more important to her that we learned in the class and were satisfied with the grade, than to fight about the grade. so yay... we'll make a few basic changes next week during our break and resubmit it to her. then we'll finally get the grade we deserve. not completely a fair deal, but close enough that it works for us. and it resolves the issue much faster than if we went above her to rat her out for not grading according to her syllabus. also saves our butts if we happen to have her again for another class.
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Back to my roots...
I was taken back to my roots earlier tonight. ah yes, getting to move life into the bathroom to wait out a tornado warning. good times. why is that reminding me of my roots? i have many vivid memories of my mom frantically shooing our whole family into the bathroom or a closet (or at one point a basement) to protect us from the tornado warnings. thankfully we've never been hit with one. however, this was not a fun ritual. for some reason, it always had to happen in the middle of the night as i was thoroughly enjoying a deep sleep, undoubtedly on a week night so i would have to get up again in the morning for school. she used to be really bad about it, so we would have to huddle for hours during tornado watches and severe thunderstorm warnings. i see those as events that can be slept through. i guess she eventually decided so as well. anyway, tonight she called to tell me that i was under a tornado warning and needed to get off the phone and seek cover immediately. i hadn't entirely decided if i should do anything or not, but heard the howling wind and then a tornado siren very nearby, so decided to be safer than sorrier. it only lasted 10 minutes max, so no biggie. anyway, just figured i'd share.
fabulous news! J called me during the storm and said that he had just finished helping a friend haul all of his stuff into a moving van. he said it was torrential rain as they were moving, but of course it let up as soon as they had finished moving the last load. but anyway... the guy offered up his couch to J for free if he wanted it. J doesn't need it at the moment, but said he'd take it anyway since i'll need it. turns out it's about 6' long and a sleeper sofa! he said it was good quality, still in good condition, and heavy as hell. it smells like smoke, but can be febreezed. so as long as we can get it out of that apartment and over to my parents' house to be stored somewhere for the next 2 months, i just got a free couch! sweeeeeet.
oh yeah, and tonight was the first night of class. only the first of three classes, but this one doesn't seem too bad. we only have 2 papers, and combining them we'll get out of the class writing fewer than 20 pages worth of material. unfortunately, the prof kind of mumble-rambles, so the hour fifteen that she kept us felt like an eternity. but i've lived through that several times before and i'm sure i can do it again. ok, well i'm tired and hungry, but not in that order. so i'll be back again tomorrow. hopefully with a surge protector to protect my nice new TV from... surges. there's some solid logic for ya.
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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Longing...
suddenly i'm longing for things i can't have. odd things. comforting things. like a cool, rainy afternoon where i don't have to do anything. a warm summer day road tripping with J... open road, nothing in particular to do other than talk, listen to good music, drive, and feel the love. a winter night up north with blankets, hot chocolate, J, my beloved relatives, cuddling up in my aunt's living room watching the fire and catching up on each others' lives. a sunny day by the pool with high school friends playing around like we're kids, talking about boys and racing on floats. a summer day on the lake with one of my best friends and her family in their boat (RIP little boat). reading in a coffee shop with my mom. a movie night with any good friends and any good movies. any fun happy college nights spent with friends laughing and having fun. running around campus stealing toilet paper to make a large TP fort with my suitemate simply because we didn't feel like writing the papers that were due the next day yet. hanging out with my other favorite suitemate at a trendy coffee/tea/bar locale. soooooo many happy memories. i think it's time to relive some of them. i wonder how possible that is in reality. thankfully i appreciated them in the moment at least. feel that love!
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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There's more to it...
Thought i'd share a couple anecdotes. but for some reason i woke up really sore this morning. my back and neck hurt and i'm not sure why. but in better news... this weekend was one of the best i've had in a long time. thursday night was fun and cuddly. friday we got all packed up and took care of a couple quick errands. dropped J off at his house and flipped through some baby pictures with his mom. he was a cute baby, and surprisingly you could tell it was him from a young age. most babies have that typical "baby" look to them, but he already had some of those features that distinguished him as J. cute, cute. then that night was just a relaxing kind of evening. we were supposed to go out with friends but it was too up in the air if J would be free or not. so we postponed till sunday. saturday morning i had to take my car in for an expensive maintenance check. they didn't find anything wrong with it, so hopefully that means that the little quirks are nothing serious. they did confirm that my driver side door leaks, though, as they ran it through the carwash. yes, i tried to tell you guys that earlier. but it's almost $100 for them to just diagnose what's wrong and then determine if it's under warranty or not. then we were off to a friend's grad party on saturday night. fun to see old friends, weird to see others, fun to meet new people.
sunday was pretty lazy. family stuff for some of the day, then J and i went over to our friends' apartment to watch movies. it's kind of nice when both couples are broke because there's no expectation to have to spend money. we watched a movie, then talked for quite a while. talked about their upcoming wedding, bachelor/bachelorette parties, plans in general... it was cute to see how we connected in various ways. the other girl and i have been friends for 4 years now, so that's no problem. we knew the boys would get along great once we started talking about them. we've double dated a few times now, and are always like "yep, we knew it!" get them started on cars, computers, movies, and other boy stuff and it's like they were never strangers. then as couples, we both had that little unconscious pull toward each other. it made me smile.
oh! but i forgot the funniest/worst part of the night. they live in a rich part of town, so their apartment had a gate AND an arm barricade across the entrance. i dialed them at the call box and they let me in, but there was a guy in front of me just waiting to be let in by somebody else. i'm used to that at my complex, so i figured oh well, no big deal. well, the arm barricade is truly set just long enough to let one car in, and apparently is motion sensored, but the call box is too far away to be picked up as 2 cars needing to get in. so the guy in front of me gets in without a problem. i hurry in past him, and just as my windshield is at the barricade, it comes down KARATE CHOP! right onto my windshield and scrapes all the way along my car. freaking crap, i now hate the stupid punk in front of me. thankfully the barricades are plastic and not wood, so i don't have a smashed windshield, car damage that another car wash and scrubbing won't take care of, and no bill coming in the mail for breaking a barricade.
monday may have been my personal favorite though. my fam had dinner at lunchtime so that i could leave whenever i needed to. i spend a good little while organizing, throwing away, and just generally getting started on the enormous headache that i'll face in a couple months when i have to move. this apartment came furnished, so i didn't have to worry about cleaning out the old crap that i've been accumulating at home in all of my furniture. it's kind of like my way station/storage room. well, no more. most of the furniture will have to be cleaned out and moved to the new apartment, the stuff taken out of it will have to be just a small organized box or two, and i will have to get rid of a whole heck of a lot of stuff. not fun. but anyway, i made a small start on that during the day, then headed over to J's. they were doing a big memorial day dinner with all the typical cookout foods. his grandmother was happy to see me (she's still in town) and the rest of his family seemed to be as well. we took a little walk into the back yard because he wanted to show me the plants he put in, but i had to piggy back because they have poison ivy all over the place. after we came back in, we alternated between watching a taped braves game with his grandmother, helping in the kitchen, and sneaking away on our own. the food was great. we helped clean up after dinner, which made his mom very happy. i was then allowed upstairs (doesn't happen very often), so we watched tv, laughed, kissed, and cuddled. fun times. unfortunately i had to leave early because it's a long drive back to the apartment from his place, and i had some heavy bags to cart upstairs to the apartment. i didn't know what the place would be like with the new moves that happened over the weekend, so i didn't want to take chances. i felt so loved and loving last night that i was giddy and had a hard time falling asleep. i think that about brings us up to date. i'm sure there's more to say, but i have stuff to do before class tonight.
P.S. Keep them in your prayers.
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The official stuff...
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