Damn, it feels good to be a gangster.  

And the ADD continues..

Okay, because I'm still tired (damn Pinot Noir and all its grapey goodness), this post will also feature more than one topic, so, be advised.
1. A New York company recently conducted a study about how people react when their computers crash. Yeah, a valuable use of money, I know, but their findings and the subsequent article at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7329279/ are kind of funny. It seems that "more people commit some act of computer violence than call for help when faced with a crisis."
Is this what we've been reduced to? Don't get me wrong; I've yelled and gotten really angry with a computer before. I have a not-so-fond memory of almost losing about 15 pages of my undergraduate thesis and cursing the man who invented the computer simultaneously, but I find it very telling that there are actually studies being done to gauge this behavior.
2. Working for a temp agency sucks. I can't complain about some things because I do have a regular assignment, so I'm not at a different office every week, but people just don't treat temps very well. My supervisor was showing a new employee around this morning and before she introduced him to me, I heard her say, "Oh, our receptionist is up here; I'll introduce you, but she's with the temp agency."
What the deuce? That makes me sound like something's wrong with me. Like, "you don't really need to worry about her, because she's kind of like a second-class citizen."
And because if you work for a temp agency, people assume you can't get a job anywhere else and therefore must be stupid, they talk to you like you're stupid.
I've actually had people explain stuffing envelopes to me..Um..yeah..I have a college degree and a 150 IQ, I think I got it..the paper goes IN the envelope..genius!
3. I am homesick. I haven't seen any of my family or Mississippi friends since December, and I know that's not a particularly long time, but, what can I say, I miss them and the familiarity of home. Every time I talk to my 3-year-old niece on the phone, my heart breaks just a little because I don't get to see her growing up and all the new things she's up to. She's potty training and wearing "big girl panties," and it seems like before I know it, she'll be grown up, and I won't have seen it happen.
I chose to do what I'm doing now, and I love it, and I've met some really awesome people here, too, thank God, because they keep me sane, but I miss Sunday dinners with my parents and grandmother and sleeping in my childhood room when I visit and going out with my friends and being the "cruise director" for the weekend plans. *sigh* I'm okay; I'm excited about my life right now, just in my quieter moments, I get sad.
4. I was listening to an old tape this morning, yes, I do not have a CD player in my car; therefore, I have a huge box of cassette tapes that are about to fall apart. Anyway, it was a "mix tape" (do teenagers today even know what that is?) of Jane's Addiction and Nine Inch Nails, and I was immediately transported to feeling like I was in high school. Isn't it weird how music can do that? I can hear a song, and in my mind, I'm in high school again, wearing flannel shirts, swimming in creeks and acting like a general moron in the name of being "grungy/hippy-ish." But, geez, was I having fun.

Few more things..

a. Johnnie Cochran died, so does this mean saying "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit" or variations of that phrase in an overly theatric fashion is now in poor taste or a tribute?
b. You should not go into IKEA if you have poor decision-making skills or are easily confused. I went there for the first time over the weekend "to look around," and it culminated in a near-panic attack, me denouncing Sweden as a country and barking at a 15-year-old cashier, "Where the hell is the exit in this damn place?" He returned my friendly query by adding insult to injury and calling me ma'am at the end of his directions. Damn kids.

The post that requires Ritalin

Alright, I moved into a new apartment yesterday, having gotten about five hours of sleep before getting up to go to a job interview in New Jersey and only really got five hours of sleep last night, so this post will have shades of Adult Attention Deficit Disorder.
Random thoughts:
1. To get from Philadelphia to New Jersey, you have to pay a toll leaving Pennsylvania, but not returning. I hate to sound like a cliche, but I think people would be willing to pay a much higher price to get the hell out of New Jersey than to enter it.
2. Why would you walk into a company, request a job application, and then pick that particular time to ask what the company does? What if, when people asked me that, I said, "Oh, we're a slaughterhouse." Wouldn't that be something you would want to know before you applied there? Maybe that's just my crazy sense of convention, but I personally don't apply for jobs at companies unless I'm well aware of what they do. If you're not careful, you could end up working for a bunch of damn Republicans that way.
3. I suck at negotiating a salary for myself. After going to a job interview yesterday and knowing when I went in what I wanted to make, I put that exact amount on this application they gave me at the company. Granted, I had gotten lost and was disoriented by being in New Jersey, but I could kick myself in the ass after putting down that amount now. I have consistently, since college, found myself in the worst-paying jobs that one with a college degree can acquire, and I have never, ever deciphered the effective speech to use to get more money. I know that I'm worth more money than I'm making, I just don't know how to get it.
4. There are some truly, heinously weird people in this world. Last night, a parking issue occurred at my new apartment. Parking spaces in Philadelphia are kind of like lap dances at a strip club. There's a fair amount of teasing involved. Sometimes, you can see a space, and you think it's a space that's close and good, and then, bam, it's a handicapped space or there's a fire hydrant there, or for no good reason at all, it just says "no parking." So, a free and clear space is kind of like the Champagne Room in a strip club, since there's no sex involved with the spaces either, but you get to touch them..I digress..I think I've lost my thought..
Anyway, so there are 4 people; there are 4 spaces. Seems fairly simple, right? No, Mr. Basement-Apartment-the-Sixties-are-Over-Let-them-Go informed me, that everyone liked to park in the same place, and when I asked him what difference it made, as the parking lot is directly next to the apartment and is a matter of walking 10 feet or 35 feet, his response was, "Well, people are just weird about parking." I think he could've left off "about parking." Freak. Plus, he told me that he did some work in archaeology, and now "I'm a tree surgeon, so it all comes together." Yeah, cos' those two things are similar.
I got to use the attitude I used to aim at idiots at Mardi Gras, which was one of my favorite Mardi Gras activities--you could be a total bitch to these drunken idiots and you would never have to see them again..Although, with a neighbor, I should probably just ignore him, and he'll stop talking to me.
5. I'm becoming more conservative as I get older, and I'm not as concerned by that realization as I once thought I would be. However, for me to become more conservative is a far stretch from what most people view as conservative. In my basest estimation, it means that I don't accept the Democratic Party line without question anymore, I do think that NPR is liberally biased and sometimes, there (gulp) are some Republicans who make sense to me.
That is not to say that I will ever foreseeably vote for a Republican, anyone whose name involves the word Bush is still dead to me as a politician, but if a genuinely moderate candidate ran, maybe I would consider it more strongly than I ever have before. The problem is that, I'm not as liberal as certain arms of the Democratic Party, and I'm getting annoyed with how those outlying aspects of the party are keeping things from getting done. Maybe I'm an Independent.

Yeah, I got this on-line dating service, see, and I'm putting together mad hook-ups. 

Something not quite right

There is something amiss about these eHarmony commercials that I feel we're being inundated with, as of late.
You know which ones I'm talking about, the odd older gentleman, Dr. Neil Clark Warren, founder of eHarmony comes on the screen talking about the success rate of their matches and why it works. They evaluate each participant on 30 supposed dimensions of personality, so it's not based on looks or "selling yourself" like other personals sites are.
Then, they have these couples that, I'm sorry, look mismatched to me, as well as looking grossly uncomfortable talking about how, "I knew he was my soulmate when I met him. I don't have to try with him."
Okay, so basically Dr. Neil Clark Warren is a pimp, then?
I briefly tried eHarmony a few months ago, and, to be honest, it was just annoying. You take this survey on your "personality dimensions," and quite honestly, that questionnaire is not going to guarantee anything.
I remember one of the questions being about dealing with anger and the choices were, do you: a. Take some time to cool off, b. Try not to argue, or c. Fly into a blind rage.
Well, gee, unless you are a complete moron who wants to be matched with another psycho, and maybe that's your bag, I don't think you're going to opt for certain answers.
Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but I can't get behind this online dating stuff. I went out with one guy from match.com, and as God is my witness, that's the last time I'll ever do that.
He wasn't a bad guy; but he was a very needy guy who had been through the process many times before, so he kind of got a little too happy when I wasn't strange or unattractive.
We had an okay time, but I couldn't help feeling there was something artificial about the whole thing. The reason I did it is because I didn't know anyone in Philly outside of work, and I wanted to try to meet other people my age, and I realized after that experience that, for me, that's not the way to do it.
I have friends that swear by match.com and the like, and I think that's great. They've met people that they've either dated or remained friends with, and that's exactly what the point of those sites is.
But for me, I think I'll stick to meeting people the old-fashioned way, face to face, where my superficial parts can decide if I'm even attracted enough to them to give them my number.
That's the other thing, a lot of these sites and a lot of people on these sites, say "It's not about looks; it's not about being superficial." Huh?
I don't mean to sound shallow, (or maybe I do) but it sure as hell is about looks. If you don't find someone attractive, I don't care if they have the wit of Jon Stewart and mimicry of Will Ferrell, your relationship isn't going to progress much beyond a friendship, and I can speak for myself when I say that I have enough friends.
So, anyway, I'm glad those sites exist for the people that find them useful, but my profile is permanently removed from match.com, and I'm sure a population of strange men not fit for society just said, "Doh!"

Who wouldn't want to look this sexy smoking a cigarette? I try to imagine I look this way while smoking all the time. 

Smoke and mirrors

I swear that I am not about to plagiarize Denis Leary's routine about smoking except for maybe bits and pieces that I will adequately attribute to him.
I love to smoke (Leary), but only sometimes. I realized the other day that I started smoking when I was 14, but actually didn't start to inhale until I was 16, so depending how you look at it, I've either been smoking for 13 years, or 11 years, and when I put it in those terms, that's just crazy.
I'm going to sound like an after-school special, but I started smoking to fit in with my friends.
My dad smokes like a chimney, and I always sort of told myself that I didn't want to start smoking because our house always smelled of smoke, and he coughed a lot, and it didn't seem like something that would be all that fun.
But there I was, 14 years old, at a painfully awkward age, when my friend Bebe offered me a cigarette, and there was that moment of everyone staring at me to see if I would take it. I briefly considered saying no, but I was much weaker at 14 regarding peer pressure, and I caved like a West Virginia mine shaft.
But I thought if I didn't really inhale, it wouldn't matter, and I got away with that for quite a while until another instance of peer pressure occurred.
"Cool person": "You're not doing it right!"
Me: "Whaddya mean? Sure, I am."
"Cool person": No, you have to inhale. Here, I'll show you."
And it all went downhill from there.
Now, there are days when I genuinely enjoy smoking a cigarette, and there are days when I smell it on my hair or my coat or my hands, and I feel way less cooler than I did when I was smoking with my guitar-playing boyfriends in high school.
I have tried to quit twice, once for my slimeball ex-fiance, which was doomed to fail from the start, and once, last year, just for me.
The first time, the cessation lasted about four days until the headache and desire to reduce everyone in front of me into a fine powder gave way to me ripping apart my apartment for hidden cigarettes.
The second time, it lasted almost a month. I used the patch, which helped, and gum, which didn't, and I was okay until a. I had a couple of cocktails, and b. I had considerable stress introduced into my life.
I started back slowly, just one or two here and there, but pretty soon, I was back to smoking a pack a day and having to suck up the taunting from everyone I had told about quitting that I just couldn't do it.
And if you know anything about me, you know that I would rather eat broken glass that admit that I can't do something, and it really galled me to tell people who were proud of my decision that I was back on the wagon (off the wagon?), anyway, wherever the wagon of not smoking was, this chickadee wasn't on it.
So, now, I still smoke a pack a day. Since moving to Pennsylvania where cigarettes are $4.50 a pack, I've re-evaluated that at times, but at the moment, I have no plans to quit.
I no longer feel particularly cool smoking, and I know there are some people in my life who really want me to throw away my cigarettes.
If I should ever get married and have children, I will never, ever, smoke again. I don't want to subject my children to the health problems associated with growing up around second-hand smoke, but that also means that I have a few years to really have to worry about it, since neither marriage nor children are anywhere in my line of sight right now.

Keep smiling like the sleazy politician that you are. Your time is coming to an end, DeLay. I feel like I need a shower for just looking at this picture. 

More developments

Well, the Supreme Court has decided not to hear the Terri Schiavo case, and a Florida court has refused to allow the state of Florida to take guardianship of Schiavo, so barring any further unnecessary involvement of the government, it's in God's hands now.
It's really sad, and I feel for everyone, but these politicians are making me physically ill.
Tom DeLay, however, is the biggest piece of human garbage ever to hold a political office. He has taken this case as a pulpit from which to deflect his current ethics problems, and he ought to be run out on a rail, just for that.
To have had the absolute cajones to say today that the same people who want Terri Schiavo to die are the same people who want to "take him down." He's taken himself down, and if Republicans are smart, and sadly, I know that a lot of them are, they'll back as far away from the train wreck that is DeLay as possible.
What an unbelievably sleazy excuse for a human being he is.

A difficult situation

I haven't written anything about the Terri Schiavo situation in Florida because I didn't really know what I thought about it. And to be honest, I still don't completely know.
I wouldn't want to be either party in this situation, her family or her husband, because it's unbelievably sad, and what makes it more so is that each side wants what's best for her, and I just think there's a discrepancy about what that is.
Of course her parents don't want their daughter to die. She was a young woman when her heart stopped, although her heart allegedly stopped from complications from an eating disorder, so you have to wonder what her "quality of life," a phrase everyone's been bandying about, was when this first began.
No one is denying that her parents have every right to want their daughter to wake up and smile at them and understand everything that's going on around her. But all the experts that have examined her, and there have been plenty, say that's extraordinary unlikely to happen.
We've all seen the videos where she makes noises that her parents are claiming are words, but repeatedly, experts say those are involuntary sounds that have no basis in real emotion or knowledge of what's going on around her.
Her husband has remained firm that she would not have wanted to live in this state, and I don't think anyone is disputing his sincerity about that, other than her parents and some jackass politicians that never should've been involved in the first place.
I don't think it's a coincidence that George Bush signed a bill he had no business signing regarding a case that originated where his milquetoast brother is governor. The fact that politicians have tried to use this case as a cause celebre is reprehensible and nauseating.
I also find it interesting that a point of contention on this has been that this woman's husband, Michael Schiavo, is being lambasted in the media for having a girlfriend and only wanting his wife's feeding tube removed because he wants to marry his girlfriend and move on with his life.
It's been 15 years; 15 years! They were only married for five years before she went into this vegetative state, and in the years since, he's sued her doctors on her behalf and studied nursing to help with her care.
If he didn't care about his wife, he could've divorced her any number of years ago and left her care to her obviously doting parents, and he would've been absolved of any responsibility.
It's ridiculous to think that he wouldn't try to forge some semblance of a life for himself while simultaneously trying to do what's right for his wife and what she would've wanted.
I don't know what the answer is, and I don't know what will eventually happen, but I sure as hell don't know why the government called a special session to discuss this case.
It was a clear case of political grandstanding, and I'm personally at least glad this woman couldn't witness politicians speak about her with a lot of flowery rhetoric, but couldn't be bothered to assign a real understanding of what her life will actually be like, attached to a feeding tube, for the duration of it.

My Mississippi Camry and I had no idea what we were getting into. 

Now it makes sense

Having grown up and lived in the deep South my entire life until last August, I never really understood what real seasons were. In the South, there's hot and humid, and then there's roughly three weeks of cold weather, during which, it could still conceivably be in the 70s in the middle of January.
Then, I moved to Philadelphia, and I now understand what exactly spring fever and Seasonal Affective Disorder are all about.
In my estimation, there have been about six days since the middle of January that it's been above 45 degrees. The sad thing about that is that I've gotten so used to the cold, that when it's in the 40s, as long as the sun is out, I think it's warm. There's something wrong with that on so many levels.
Yesterday, it was sunny and 54, and I swear, I almost did a little dance. Everyone at my office looked at me like I was an alien for wearing a short-sleeved shirt, and I said, "I'm willing spring to stay. You have to be nice to it, or it will go away." Then they really looked at me like an alien, but clearly didn't take my advice to heart, because, today, it's raining and cold, and it sucks.
I have to say that autumn here was amazing. I actually got to see the leaves change; in fact, I was in Harrisburg when they really started, and it was beautiful. So, I did get to experience about two and a half months of actual fall, which I've never done before, and it made me feel good about choosing to leave in a place with seasons.
That was before winter. I understand so much now. I understand why people in Philadelphia are a little cranky and also, why they're kinda fat.
When all you can comfortably do for almost three months is hibernate in your house or local pub and eat assorted fried foods, you're gonna put on the pounds.
Of course, this doesn't explain at all why Southerners are fat and consume so much fried food, but we won't concern ourselves with that right now.
I'm no better. This summer, I was all about drinking water and finally not minding walking everywhere, and I was in better shape than I've ever been.
Umm..yeah. I haven't actually gained any weight back, but I think nothing of picking up breakfast from McDonald's just because I'm cold and cranky, and I want to eat immediately, rather than making the oatmeal that takes a whole two minutes and having a healthy breakfast.
I vow, here and now, to start going to the gym and rebelling against the Philadelphia winter blahs. For one thing, hopefully, on March 23, the winter is almost gone, but secondly, I refuse to give in to the laziness that used to consume me in Mississippi.
As God is my witness, I will never wear a size 14 again. But I still may have to enjoy the occasional contraband Philly cheesesteak. I'm not a machine, for God's sake.

I believe the question was, "What's two plus two?" A real thinker. 

Favorite movies--quantified

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Ode to karaoke

I love karaoke. In fact, I really think I have an unhealthy appreciation for it, but since it makes me very happy, I tend not to notice that.
When I lived in Mississippi, my friends and I were karaoke "regulars," meaning we were at the karaoke place every Saturday night, and if they canceled it for some reason, we were completely devastated.
I can remember after a weekend of serious karaoke actually imagining my song list for the next weekend..on a Monday..
I can't completely describe why I love it so much. I do crave a little bit of attention, but I don't think that's it completely.
Perhaps this explains it. When I was little, my mom made me enter talent shows. I was horrible. It's not that I couldn't sing, but the songs that she and my voice teacher made me sing were completely wrong for my voice. But who would listen to a 7-year-old?
So, they continued to make me sing "Tomorrow" from Annie, "My Favorite Things" from the Sound of Music, and my personal humiliating favorite, "Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead" from the Wizard of Oz..oh, the shame.
Now, while I'm not at all likely to receive a recording contract anytime soon, I think I do alright in the realm of bar karaoke, so maybe I'm redeeming myself for those earlier crimes against song.
Plus, I just think karaoke is a great social activity. You bring a group of friends to do karaoke, and you are cheaply entertained for an entire evening. Even if some people don't sing, they get to enjoy their friends making giant asses of themselves, and what could be better than that?
My favorite karaoke experiences in no particular order:
1. Fitz Moles singing "Blister in the Sun" by the Violent Femmes. This must be fueled by much alcohol to maximize the humor, but it's entirely worth it.
2. Fitz Moles and me singing "Making Love out of Nothing at all" by Air Supply. It's cheesy and lame, and we rock the house at it.
3. A guy named Adam singing "Bust a Move" by Young MC and a guy named Warren singing "Rebel Yell" by Billy Idol. There's rapping and dancing by white guys with no rhythm involved. Classic.
4. Ellen and me singing "Love Shack." She prefers "Take it on the Run," by REO Speedwagon, but I like all the yelling in "Love Shack." Imagine that.
5. Valerie and Adam's rendition of "Midnight Train to Georgia." It was awesome and funny, enough said.
6. The one time Simon and I actually pulled off "Tomorrow." It was the right combination of beer and late-night enthusiasm or something, but we did it really, really well once. That has not stopped us from continuing to try to sing it.
7. Betsy and I doing the damn Macarena while Fitz sang the song, which is the longest song in the history of the world.
I could go on and on and on. I have all of these awesome karaoke memories, some of which I've mentioned before and so I'm not mentioning here, but it is one activity that brings me pure, unadulterated joy, and there's not one thing wrong with that.

Seriously, this is where I'm going to wind up living. 

In the name of hearth and home

Looking for an apartment is one exhausting endeavor. I have now been doing it for almost a month, and sadly, I am not that much closer to having a place to live than I was when I began.
That's not entirely true; right now, I'm at the mercy of yet another landlord to check our applications, and I will consider it an official act of God if we get this place, not because we're not nice people, but because this process is ridiculous.
That's what I've become, like someone on a dating show. "Please pick me; I'm nice. You won't regret it, I swear."
While waiting on the landlord last night, the current tenants said, "Yeah, he's pretty picky. A ton of people have seen the place, and he hasn't really liked any of them."
I really kind of wish they hadn't told me that, because I then turned into a nervous wreck when he got there, laughing at every bad joke he made and batting my eyelashes when it seemed appropriate.
Did he like us? I have no idea. I assume so, since he urged us to give him our applications that night, before he went out of town, so it's really not in my hands anymore.
Maybe I'm naive here, but what happened to the days of seeing an available apartment listed, going to see it, and saying, "Yes, I'd like to live here. Here's my deposit."
I have lived in about six different apartments in my adult life, and I have never, ever had this much trouble literally convincing people to let me pay them rent.
And that's the thing, we're paying them. It's gotten to the point where I feel like I'm asking them for a free service.
Philadelphia landlords have the luxury of doing this, because real estate is a high commodity. There are so many people moving here and living here, that a landlord can be overly picky, and I don't fault them for that. I understand they want the best situation for themselves, too, I just don't think I've felt this out of my element since the first few weeks after I moved here.
But my friend and I are soldiering on, hopeful that someone will take pity on us, even though we're not a married couple (this isn't Massachusetts), because, apparently, married couples are the most favorable people to rent to.
So, not only do we have to deal with the House of Horrors that is sometimes the life of a single girl, we get shafted for apartments for the same reason.
When I used to say, "That's not fair" when I was little, my dad would invariably reply, "Life's not fair," and never has that seemed more maddeningly true.

Fallen idols

On my drive into work today, I heard a morning radio show do yet another Michael Jackson parody based on the fact that his court case is causing him financial hardship, and the DJs were imagining him getting a job at Jack in the Box. haha get it?
First of all, that's stupid, not funny, but it occurred to me how it's just become commonplace for anyone who's in the media to ridicule Jackson, and no one thinks anything about it. And I'm not arguing whether that's right or wrong, I just think it's quite something, that a man who could've written his own media ticket 20 years ago, is simply the butt of all humor, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.
What the hell happened to him is what I want to know. Maybe it's because I was young when he was at his most famous, but I just don't remember him being so friggin' weird.
He still looked like a man, not some bleached fish, and he kicked ass as a musician. I think he's been given latitude until recently because he was such a force to be reckoned with in the '80s, and people didn't want to let that image go, but it's gone, and it does not appear to be coming back soon.
This brings me to a way more disturbing set of scandals that involve Bill Cosby.
Say it ain't so and just hawk some Jello.
Cosby has been accused by at least two women in the past month of groping them and displaying "inappropriate" sexual behavior toward them. And this is not the first time he's been accused of it; these are just the most recent charges.
What makes this even more ironic is that he's recently drawn some attention over speaking out against the state of the black community, urging parents to set better examples for their children, citing that as the main reason things are the way they are.
Meanwhile, where there's smoke, there's fire. I don't know that it sets all that great an example when a man that millions look up to is involved in so many sex scandals.
I, for one, am disappointed. I love Bill Cosby, or I did. I can remember watching his stand-up when I was younger, because he was one of the few comedians I was actually allowed to watch.
There was very little bad language, and it was, and still is, hilarious.
The Cosby Show was an awesome show that really changed the face of television, and I still watch it occasionally on Nick at Nite (yea, I'm a dork), so it makes it that much sadder when someone like Bill Cosby falls off that pedestal on which we placed him.
I guess it goes to show that you should never really put anyone up there.

I see him there, no, back there, no, he's in the tree 

What the f@#$

Yesterday, Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf said that Pakistani forces had been "close" to catching Osama bin Laden somewhere between eight and 10 months ago, but that the "dragnet" closed, and he got away.
Well, clearly it wasn't so much a dragnet, as a net with a hole in it.
There are so many troubling things about this, I don't know where to begin.
First of all, why are we just now finding out about this? Does this mean that US intelligence that we keep throwing money at, had no idea that this had occurred?
We can't give health care to people in this country, but in the name of homeland security, which, believe me, I wholeheartedly agree is important, we literally hemorrhage money into the budget.
If we're not using the money to a good end, what is the damn point?
And our fearless leader, upon hearing the news, said, "We're keepin' him in hidin'. He's scared, and that's cause we made him scared." Whatever.
He's still in hiding because our intelligence seems to be the security equivalent of the Keystone Cops.
Porter Goss, the newly appointed director of the CIA, recently said,"It's a massive workload. I mean, it's almost too much for one person to do."
Yeah, I feel safe now. It's reminiscent of Bush's "It's hard work" rhetoric during the debates.
No shit, it's hard work, morons. Is it so much for the American people to expect that those at the upper echalons of our national security not bitch about the workload? I don't think so.
Now, according to U.S. military forces in Afghanistan, they have a "rough idea" of where bin Laden might be hiding.
First of all, there's a novel notion, that our own forces would actually be involved in the effort. It's my understanding that we could've caught him years ago, not all that long after Sept. 11, but the U.S. used Afghan fighters that formerly had allegiances to the Taliban, and it didn't work for not-so-obvious reasons. Doh!
I'm not in the military; I've never been in the military, and unless we really do institute a draft in which they need clearly unskilled and let's face it, whiny, soldiers, I will never be in the military, but I DO NOT UNDERSTAND.
Why the hell has a 70-something-year-old man who I thought was attached to a dialysis machine eluded the military across the board.
He simply can't be that crafty, so I'm of the mind that we are trusting the wrong people in other countries to handle this, and when we actually handle it, our intelligence is so shoddy, that we may as well use a Magic 8 Ball to see what to do.

Evolving and revolving at nine hundred miles an hour

Before I begin this, I feel I should mention that coffee just literally shot out of my mouth for some reason, and I just coughed enough to the point that I probably sound like Yoda now. But, I digress.
It's funny that I used that as the title to today's post, because until about a year or so ago, I was adamantly against watching anything having to do with "Monty Python." It had been my experience that annoying boys tended to quote the same passages from the various movies over and over to the point that I assumed only really nerdy men could find it amusing, and therefore, it wasn't worth my time. Nothing is sadder than listening to a guy doing a John Cleese impression while simultaneously playing Magic:The Gathering, and it has happened in my presence more often than I care to count.
Then, I watched "Monty Python and the Meaning of Life," and "The Galaxy Song" was just brilliant.
I'm getting ahead of myself, though.
Yesterday, in the midst of a particularly stressful afternoon, I asked a friend, "Do you ever feel like life is just a series of frustrating incidents"?
And he said, "Sometimes, but that kind of thinking is not really productive, so I tend not to dwell on it."
And I thought, "Wow; that sounds easy. Why can't I do that"?
As things presently stand, I have about two weeks to find an apartment, the reasons for the rush I'll not get into, I desperately need to find a job that raises me above the poverty line (the City of Brotherly Love is nice, but it ain't cheap), and I need to replace this aimless feeling of merely drawing a paltry paycheck and simply existing in my apartment with a feeling of at least mild stability and accomplishment.
I moved here knowing that things would be uncertain, and that has been the best part, in retrospect.
I came to a new city, a new area of the country, started a new job in a new field and experienced more amazing things than I can count.
But that job ended over four months ago, and what I did not plan on when I decided to plant myself "up north" for a bit, was feeling like a nomad and living literally paycheck to paycheck to continue this experience.
It's true that I tend to put a fair amount of pressure on myself, but that pressure is what finally got me out of a career situation that was making me miserable to this angry northern city full of traffic, and I've honestly never been happier.
That being said, I'm ready for something to change.
I'm doing my part, going on interviews, looking at apartments; I'm not merely letting life happen to me, but the point of "The Galaxy Song" is fairly simple.
There's very little you have control over in the grand scheme of the universe, and the best you can hope for is a small sliver of salvation.
The last line: "So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth."

To all the jobs I've had before..

Let's face it; working is sometimes not so much fun. There are the jobs we tolerate as we get older, but I think the ones we had throughout high school and college tend to be the hellish ones that stick with us a little more profoundly.
As I'm embarking on a real job search these days and hoping to get myself above the poverty line, I've been thinking about the jobs I had in my teens, and man, did they suck.
Horrible Job #1: Working as a salesclerk at a store in Macon, Mississippi, called Fun Fashions for a woman who was the biggest bitch I had met to date. Not only were the clothes reprehensible..I believe our big seller was a line of plain white t-shirts that you could hitch up with a decorative "t-shirt clip," and the shirts had various designs painted on them, flowers, etc...
Then, you would pair these victimized t-shirts with a variety of knit pants that came in 3 or 4 designs..OY. I was 17 when I worked there, and I remember the height of that summer was when I came in wearing a sundress that I thought I looked quite fetching in and the turkey-necked, not-so-attractive trogladyte that was my boss freaked out and told me to either go home and change into something appropriate, or put one of her t-shirts on. Never mind the fact it was the dead of summer in Mississippi and aforementioned dress was perfectly appropriate, I went home to change because I think my body would've broken out in hives had I ever actually worn any of her clothes.
Horrible Job #2: Working in the shoe department at Sears. This was a short-lived endeavor, two weeks to be exact, but it was really creepy. I don't know if you've ever worked for a corporation store like that, but it's very weird. First, they "orient" you for a week, making you watch propaganda about the store and its genesis. You actually have to take a test on how much you know about the history of the store. When does that come in handy when shoving oversized feet into shoes too small for them?
I can't say in my illustrious career there that I ever said, "But, did you know that the ad campaign 'The Softer Side of Sears' revitalized our revenue'?"
I trained for a week, worked the floor for a week, and at the end of that week, I told my co-worker I was going on a break, and I drove away. I gotta say, I didn't really feel that badly about it either. I was a little embarrassed to go retrieve my single paycheck, but I soldiered through it.
Horrible Job #3: In true fashion, I've saved the best for last. Part of the summer before my sophomore year in college and into the year, I worked as a yogurt monkey at TCBY. Oh, my God, how much did I hate this job.
First of all, I was working with high school students; that's always a reaffirming aspect of a job, when you're four to five years older than everyone you work with, and you're suddenly "the weird, old girl" at 19.
There were no real redeeming qualities to this job. They scheduled our shifts just so there was no way we could ever take a lunch break. I don't know if this was legal or not, I just know there were many nights when I ate cookie dough for a meal because I was so hungry.
Also, our shirts were green polyester, which is always hot, but it didn't really matter because I wouldn't have wanted a nicer shirt. I came home every night, sticky and smelling like milk. I couldn't look at yogurt for about 3 years after that.
I was not a good yogurt monkey. Every time I had to make anything that involved blending, I got the stupid sleeve stuck, and yogurt would go everywhere, hence the stickiness and smelling like milk.
I once had a 15-year-old give me a lecture about doing my job better and basically decided after that, that my limit had been discovered...and reached, and I quit.
The best thing out of that job was on my last day, I gave free stuff away to all my friends and filled up quart and pint containers of our favorite yogurt and took them home.
Stealing? Perhaps. Justified? Oh, definitely.
I like to think when I'm a famous author or politician or whatever fabulous thing I turn out to be, they'll ask me, "What's the worst job you ever had"? And I really won't even have to think about it.
Of course, I'm completely ignoring a job in Mississippi that sucked my soul for almost four years, but I feel it wouldn't be prudent to discuss that at this juncture.

Blasted technology

Okay, not that I have a whole wealth of people trying to post, but for some reason, people are temporarily unable to comment. It should be resolved soon, and I strongly encourage you to be patient..because I said so..

I would dance like that too if I had such a cool theme song...but I wouldn't wear those pants. 

The soundtrack of my life

Wouldn't it be great to have your own theme music? I've given this a lot of thought, which is probably a little scary, but seriously. Who doesn't want a song to swell, reminiscent of John Travolta walking down the street in "Saturday Night Fever"?
But, you would have to choose the song very, very carefully, as this would be the music to follow you around forever, so it's really quite an important decision.
I've thought about maybe "Black Magic Woman" by Santana, but it denotes a certain quality I don't think I possess. Anyone can dispute me on this, but I don't think I'm particularly evil, so that's out.
Another possibility is "Girls Just Want to Have Fun," but I feel like it's a little too lighthearted to convey my personality. But God love Cyndi Lauper.
There's always a typical female anthem like "I Will Survive," but since that song is all about getting over a messy break-up, I choose not to have my theme song be about men and what they have or have not done to me.
Basically, I've narrowed it down to a few choices:
1. Ani DiFranco's "I Am Not a Pretty Girl"--The lyrics are "I am not a pretty girl. That is not what I do. I ain't no damsel in distress, and I don't need to be rescued, so put me down, punk. I am not a maiden fair. Isn't there a kitten stuck up a tree somewhere?" How empowering is that? The drawback to having this as my theme song is that it's fairly slow, and while, granted, I'm not a particularly high-energy person, I feel my anthem needs to be a bit more upbeat.
2. The Black Crowes' "Hard to Handle"--Now, this song is obviously written and sung by men, but if you ignore that fact, it goes "Hey, little thing let me light your candle (some words I don't know...) I'm hard to handle now." Now, I like the idea of being hard to handle, because, in actuality, I kind of am. However, the fact that it's originally sung by men puts it slightly down in the running.
3. I don't know who sings it, and I should be shot for that, but "Brick House." Hee, hee. Now, I don't really know that I'm "mighty, mighty, just letting it all hang out," but that would be a truly kick-ass theme song to have. It's right up there with having "Let's Get It On" as your theme song, but, really, no one can pull that off, nor should they try.
4. Frank Sinatra's "My Way." Now, until I completely uprooted my life from Mississippi to Pennsylvania, I never in a million years would've thought of this song. But, I was recently listening to it, and I thought, you know what, I did do it my way. One portion of the song, "Regrets, I've had a few, but then again, too few to mention." Another section, "Yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew, when I bit off more than I could chew, but through it all, when there was doubt, I ate it up and spit it out, I faced it all and I stood tall and did it my way." Hell, yeah. Enough said.
However, after giving it way too much thought, I've decided if I got to have a song follow me around, it would be Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians "What I Am."
It's got a funky little beat befitting someone as hip(yea,right) as myself, and the lyrics are awesome.
"I'm not aware of too many things; I know what I know if you know what I mean. What I am is what I am. Are you what you are - or what? Don't let me get too deep."
I think, without being too wordy or pretentious, that sort of sums up what I feel like sometimes.
But, I do secretly have "Brick House" to fall back on.

Measure of an anchorman

Dan Rather, the host of the CBS Evening News for 24 years, signed off last night using a word that demonstrates what his career was about, "courage."
Apparently, he had used that word to sign off in the '80s and because he was ribbed a little for doing it, he stopped.
I find Rather's resignation to be bittersweet, to say the least, because of the circumstances surrounding why he's stepping down.
He anchored a 60 Minutes report in September criticizing President Bush's National Guard service. The report was based on documents that later turned out to be false, and while that hasn't been the official reason he's issued his resignation, that seems to be the consensus, and I think it's more than a damn shame.
I'm not defending his use of questionable documents; he, of all people, should've known better and should've done his research thoroughly so that there could be no question of authenticity or credibility.
It pisses me off further because that happened about two months shy of the presidential campaign, and when I was trying to pull the swing/moderate voters to my side by occasionally discounting liberal bias in the media, that didn't exactly lend to the cause.
Which begs the question, should Rather be judged by this incident or by his previous 24-year record that spanned the civil rights movement and something like eight presidential elections, and that doesn't count what he covered just at CBS; that's only while he was the anchor.
I remember when he went on David Letterman for the first show after Sept. 11. He was subdued and angry simultaneously, and he started to choke up when talking to David Letterman, and I was really touched by that.
Journalists sometimes don't have the luxury of reacting to the news, but the nation needed to know then that it was okay to be upset, and it was okay to cry if necessary. And his genuine, heartfelt reaction was exactly what was called for.
I grew up watching Dan Rather anchor the news, and I found him to be capable, soothing and watching him was a source of comfort for me.
I will miss his voice, and his tenacity and his obvious love for America.
I hope that people will choose to remember him for what he brought into their homes for over 20 years and not focus on an unfortunate incident that occurred in the twilight of his career.
He admitted his part in the incident and has taken the brunt of the criticism for it.
Courage, indeed.

Slammed doors

The title of the post refers to the book I plan to write about my days as a door-to-door fundraiser for the John Kerry campaign.
I've noticed a trend recently, maybe it's been going on for much longer, but it seems that everyone is writing a book about everything they've ever done.
I saw a woman on "The Daily Show" last night who is a former CIA operative, and she's written a book about the CIA between the time of the Iran-Contra affair and Sept. 11. (Not their greatest years, by the way)
When Jon Stewart asked her certain questions, she very glibly responded,"Well, I could answer that, but I'd have to kill you," and then giggled like a schoolgirl. Apparently, there are parts of the book that were vetted by the CIA and blacked out, and she kept the blackened passages in the book.
I guess I don't understand if she can't write anything that reveals new information or is at all helpful, what is the point of the book?
And even if she could write previously covert information, I wouldn't really want her to reveal anything, because it could conceivably endanger national security.
Maybe it's just me, but it's my understanding that if you're in the CIA, you really shouldn't be in the business of writing a tell-all book about it.
When did everyone who's ever done anything obtain a book deal?
Ari Fleischer, former Bush press secretary has written a book called "Taking the Heat." Now, I fully understand that being a White House press secretary is a tough job. I could not imagine standing in front of some of the best reporters in the country being peppered with question after question when your administration leaves as much to be desired as the Bush administration does.
However, do we really need to read about Fleischer's experiences? He was only the press secretary from 2001 to 2003, I believe. It's not as though he served under FDR. He served three years. What of interest could he possibly have to contribute?
I've been listening to him plugging his book on NPR, and trust me, folks, he's not saying anything shocking. He still defends Bush, so it's not as though the book will reveal that he had an attack of conscience for working for a soulless administration, and that's why he quit.
Nope; it's just a book about some schmoe who was on TV in front of the seal of the President for three years and has faded back into semi-obscurity.
I don't mean to be cranky about this; books are awesome, as long as they serve some useful purpose.
It just seems to me that merely doing your job well is no longer enough. People have to say,"Hey! Look what I did. I can't really talk about it much in any educational or entertaining fashion, but now you know who I am, and I get to do the talk shows."
Of course, all this being said, I'm still writing a book some day about...ME.
So, what do I know?

Wait a minute, Pilgrim, did you just say you had a spa appointment? Why, I oughta slap your face. 

John Wayne would NOT approve

Yesterday, I was watching TV, as I am wont to do, and I saw something that made me think.
It was a commercial making fun of men who get pedicures and facials, etc.., and I started to think about the new "metrosexual" man and how truly annoying it is.
Everything I'm about to say is going to be a bit hypocritical, having claimed to be a feminist in the past, but it's my blog, and I don't care. Maturity prevails..
Okay, sensitive, girly men suck. If it takes a man longer to get ready than it takes me, that's not good.
If a man has more product in his hair than I do, that's not good.
If a man can give a compelling argument on the difference between eggshell, off-white and beige, that's really not good.
That being said, perhaps I spoke too soon when I said sensitive men are bad. Sensitive is sometimes good. And by sensitive, I mean, will listen when you are upset, can acknowledge when he is upset and understands that everything is not black and white and sometimes talking is what is required.
I do NOT mean taking every injustice that happens personally and bitching about it incessantly, crying, unless circumstances really, really call for it and ever using baby talk to have a conversation EVER.
Here's a breakdown:
Caring about the cleanliness of your living space = good
Trying to become a male Martha Stewart = bad
Taking pains with your appearance = good
Taking over 40 minutes to get ready = bad
Good cologne = oh, so good
Any exfoliating product or facial cream = very bad, double bad if it smells like fruit of any kind
Now, I realize these new times are a bit confusing for men. Most of my male friends tend to be atypical men who are not "macho" in certain regards, but they are not effeminate by any stretch of the imagination, so I look to these guys a little for examples of men who have struck a good balance.
You don't have to watch sports to be accepted as a man, although it's awfully cute when guys get all into a game (my own little thing..sorry), you certainly don't have to be controlling toward women to assert your masculinity (in fact, you try that with me, and you've pretty much had it), and you don't have to act like a stone figure with no emotions to prove that you're a real man.
If any of you have any questions on what's acceptable, I'll be happy to help out. I think women deserve the best you guys can be..kind of like the Army, but with sex.

Me and my big mouth

I've always had a big mouth. When I was about five years old, we had a visiting preacher over to our house for lunch. When he asked my parents how they met, I said, "They met in a bar."
My mom audibly gasped and said, "We did NOT. We met in college," but the damage was done.
My parents did not meet in a bar. I said this because the lady who took care of me watched a lot of soap operas, and therefore, so did I, and even though I knew it wasn't true, I said it just to see what would happen. In retrospect, it's one of those funny stories from my childhood that my parents find endearing now, but, trust me, at the time, my mother was not amused.
This is perhaps the first instance I can remember of my mouth bordering on getting me into trouble.
I was considering all the different times my mouth has gotten out of control recently when I challenged someone to a game of Trivial Pursuit, trash talked about how badly I would beat them and then was pretty soundly defeated, therefore having to just silently accept it. These things happen, but it seems like they happen a little more often to me because I never know when to shut up.
The trashiest incident I've ever been involved was pretty much spurred on because I should've just shut up.
A really scary large girl that is probably the only person on this planet I can say that I truly hate was looking to start a "rumble" or something with me in a bar. She came up to me after I had seen her once already and made a pretty big show of just wanting to avoid her. The interaction went something like this:
Her: "You don't have to be that way, Emily."
Me: "What way am I being?"
Her: "Well, anyway, I just wanted to thank you for....(something that I don't want to go into here, but it involved a friend of mine who is no longer with us that I blame her for)"
Me: "You know what? I don't like you, you don't like me. You can go over there, and I can stay here, and we don't have to talk, and that's fine. Not a big deal; we're just not friends, and that's fine. And I don't want or need your gratitude for anything. Okay?"
This angered her.
Her: "Bitch, I can kill you."
Here's where I ran into trouble.
Me: "Ummm..yeah. Aren't you on probation or parole or something. See, I'm not white trash, so I don't have a criminal record. So, if you think you need to do something, I think the one of us with no criminal record will pretty much come out on top there."
I never saw her fist coming, but, boy, did I feel it.
Now, I won't go into the ensuing hullabaloo that followed this, because the actual incident is the example of my big mouth. I knew what a psycho she was, but I refused to have her intimidate me or have the last word, just because I can't. And trust me when I say, she could have reduced me to a fine powder had she wanted to.
I also told a group of friends when I was about 10 that I had spit up on Elvis Presley when I was a baby. My dad was from Memphis and had actually met him, but since he died exactly a week after I was born, that would've been fairly impossible.
Nonetheless, I had to retract the story soon after parents of friends came to believe that my dad had been drinking buddies with the King of Rock 'n' Roll and actually asked him about it.
Even the aforementioned broken ankle incident was predicated on my having to have the last word to one of my friends still in the bar and not paying any attention to the handicapped ramp that I so gracefully tripped over.
I don't know; I'm not going to apologize or make excuses for being a "mouthy broad," because I don't know any other way to be, and I wouldn't like myself if I suddenly became meek.
However, there may be a delicate balance to be struck between speaking one's mind appropriately and doing what I do that has given me a swollen cheek, a broken ankle and a stern lecture from my mother about how soap operas are not real.

Happy to be me... 

Comfortable in my own skin (mostly)

When I was in high school and really until I hit my junior year in college, I had a pretty kick-ass body. I was skinny, through no effort of my own, and I had some particular physical endowments that kinda made the boys like me.
However, I was riddled with self-consciousness, a terrible body image and general loathing of looking at mirrors most of the time. I have no explanation for this, except for the stupidity of adolescence and if you're a girl, you're sort of programmed to think that you're inherently unattractive. I even went so far as to develop an eating disorder of sorts, just so I wouldn't go above 100 pounds, which is so ridiculous when I think about it now.
Then, toward the end of college, I started to gain weight, mainly because I abhor any form of exercise that doesn't involved a tennis racket or yoga positions, and I have always eaten like a 16-year-old boy trying to gain weight for the wrestling team.
Much to my chagrin, I basically went from a size 6 to a size 14 in the span of about three years, and it sucked. My ex-fiance, may he burn in hell someday, made comments about it. I believe the compassionate phrasing was, "Why do all girls I get involved with pork up"? Yeah, anyone who wants to take on a contract killing position can get in touch with me.
Anyway, I didn't need him to point it out; I already knew. But, except for his toxic presence in my life, I was actually happy. I was at a new college, making awesome friends and being academically challenged, and although I would get frustrated picking out clothes and such, it really kind of became a peripheral issue to me.
So, after that relationship inevitably fell apart, and I moved back home, it did start to bother me more, mainly because the other areas of my life obviously weren't giving me the same satisfaction.
What ended up happening is really quite funny. About a year and half ago, as I mentioned in a previous post, I broke my ankle. Well, I think most people who break bones that hinder their walking ability probably gain weight. Not me.
Because I had exercised so little, the physical act of hoisting myself around on crutches acted as some sort of catalyst for the weight loss that was soon to follow. Plus, since this was in the middle of the Mississippi summer, I was so hot and exhausted all the time, I hardly felt like eating.
So, I lost about 10 pounds doing that and actually had arm muscles for a little while, which I'm sad to say have returned to their jiggly state, but it was nice for a while.
But, the real change occurred when I moved to Pennsylvania. I began walking for my job five days a week, five hours a night, not to mention just the miscellaneous walking I was doing because you can't park right where you want to go in the city, and I lost a whopping 20 pounds, not to mention firming body parts that I thought were just naturally kind of squishy.
And what's really funny about all of that is, that even if I weighed the most that I did when I was with my ex and being berated about it, I don't think I would care right now. Granted, I feel better because I look better, but I am so much happier with myself these days, that my physical appearance has little to do with my frame of mind.
I honestly think there's a point in every woman's life where she has to accept that. You can't trade on your looks your entire life, and you shouldn't want to anyway, and you just have to realize that if you're not happy with yourself and your personality and chutzpah doesn't come through at all times, people are ultimately not going to like you anyway.
So, it's not like I don't still take a fair amount of care with my appearance, but I would be much more offended if someone said I was stupid or boring than if they said I wasn't pretty.
But they still shouldn't say that..I am considering purchasing that taser gun.

Oh, to be imbibing a Bloody Mary on this beach right now...*sigh* 

Random musings..

Wow; it's been a less-than-perfect day here in Yellow Dog Land. Nothing too major, but it was one of those mornings and early afternoon days where you have absolutely no time to catch your breath or think before you're immersed in a mindless task and contemplating your student loan debt on an education clearly being utilized to its fullest worth.
However, as part of my new "stay positive" strategy, I shall not dwell on it and be cranky for the rest of the day.
I will say these things about it, and then, in the immortal words of that poet laureate Forrest Gump, I will say, "And that's all I have to say about that."
First of all, there is a woman I work with who sings and hums ALL FUCKING DAY long. We've all had some experience with these kinds of people, I know. And it's not as though she's particularly cheery; in fact, most of the time, she's dropping curse words about what seems to be the overwhelming task of her job.
Whatever; I don't even really know what she does, so I'll not make a value judgment about that. But, as much as her streaming concert annoys me, who sits quite a bit away from her, if I sat next to her, I would most definitely employ a taser gun that I was intrigued to hear about on NPR today.
Second of all, I have been the brunt of some disproportionately sleazy behavior from older men in the last few months, and quite frankly, I'm growing tired of it. I mean, I'm an attractive girl, fun at parties, and a wicked speller, but I tend to think it has way less to do with me than with them.
Earlier today, when I was mired in the murky depths of a crappy morning, an older male co-worker had an entire conversation with my breasts.
What accounts for this decidedly unsavory turn of events in my life?
I honestly can't answer that, but I tell you this now, I'm putting people on notice. I'm tired of it, and if I get that taser gun, I'm gonna start shocking the hell out of some sad, old men who need to get their shit together.
And that's all I have to say about that.
This morning, when the bracing Pennsylvania wind blew under my skirt, I began to imagine being at the beach.
I love the beach, as my family went to Gulf Shores, Alabama, every year from the time I was five until the time I was 14.
So, when I was thinking about the beach, I thought about the last time we all went together.
It was not one of my prouder moments, this I can tell you.
My friend, Bebe, who was the single worst influence in my life until we ceased to be friends at 17, had joined us on vacation. She and I met some boys who were either 18 or 19, so, naturally, we told them we were 16. I looked older then than I do now, well, older than my age. I wish I looked 18..anyway, I digress.
So, we met up with aforementioned oblivious pedophiles at the beach after having dinner with my parents. I proceeded to drink about five screwdrivers, not really noticing that the time we were supposed to walk back upstairs had come and gone two hours previously.
So, in the midst of being drunk out of my mind, I see my sister through the Taaka Vodka haze, and she doesn't look happy.
She and my brother-in-law yanked us off the beach, and we went up to the condo. Meanwhile, I can barely stand up and really would like to vomit, but I'm trying to act sober..ha. You can imagine how swimmingly that went.
We get inside, and my sister, God love her, yells,"Are you DRUNK"? People seven floors down heard her, let alone my parents and grandparents, so I got into a bit of trouble for that.
Actually, that's an understatement. Because of that little vacation incident, I was, um..encouraged strongly to transfer from the private school I had been attending my whole life to a public school where my mom was going to be the guidance counselor, so she "could keep an eye on me."
The irony is that even with my mom there, I met more "bad kids" who introduced me to things I could never have dreamed of at my private school.
Ha.
So, the moral of the story is, if I were to travel to the wonderful,warm beach, I would stay away from cheap vodka and the men who try to ply me with it.

My unquiet mind

I worry all the time. I come from a long line of worriers, so it makes perfect sense, but lately the amount of worrying I do has started to worry me.
My grandmother is the absolute authority on worrying about things you have little to no control over. I remember an incident, when I was about 8 years old, she and I were driving home from having our hair cut, and it was foggy outside. She said to me, "Do ever think you'll just drop off into nothing, especially when it's foggy outside like this?"
I was confused; what did she mean, drop off into nothing? How is that possible? So, I asked her, "How could that happen?"
She said, "People disappear all the time, and no one can explain it. Maybe they just dropped off into nothing."
Well, needless to say, the worry torch was sufficiently passed along after that conversation, and I think I'm doing an excellent job of keeping it lit.
In high school, I would worry about anything and everything, including, but not limited to: My friends, my boyfriends, my appearance, what I would do that weekend, whether or not I could get into a good college and what I would do with the rest of my life, what I would be doing when I was 30 (which seemed massively far away), what would happen when my parents died, would I have enough money to take care of myself...you get the picture.
That stuff kept me awake frequently and still does, but now is when it's really started to bug me.
I have mild insomnia anyway, so when my mind won't just shut up, I lie awake and twist and turn 5,000 scenarios around in my head and still invariably get about 5 hours of sleep a night.
Granted, since I've moved to Philadelphia, my worries are a little more profound, but the funny thing is, before I moved, I wasn't nearly as plagued with doubt and stress as I've been since I moved.
I think I had the added benefit of having to do so many things in such a small amount of time in order to wrap up my life in Mississippi that, quite frankly, I didn't have time to worry.
Perhaps I should take up kickboxing or interpretive dance, because when I have more than a little down time, I find myself really torn up about things like will the Democrats find a good candidate in 2008, will friends that I worry about (JC) be okay, how do I get that spaghetti stain out of my carpet, will my children be delinquents, or worse, ugly, which prefaces that other HUGE question, will I ever get married and have children and will I ever find a job that monkeys wouldn't be more appropriate having?
I'll leave you with another gem from my grandmother. As long as I live, I will check the backseat of my car every time I get inside of it at night. I don't care if it's parked in Macon, Mississippi, or Center City Philadelphia. Every time I left my grandparents' house with my sister driving, and later, me, she would either tell us or yell out of the front door, "Check the backseat and make sure there's no one waiting to get you. Somebody could be waiting to hit you in the head and kidnap you."
And people wonder why I'm neurotic.

Why? Just because I love this man... 

Livin' on a prayer

I've mentioned in bits and pieces about working for the John Kerry campaign. It's what brought me to "the North," and the swing state that is Pennsylvania, but I've never really talked much about what it was actually like working for the campaign.
Perhaps that's because it's only recently that I've been able to not want to rip people's heads off simply for mentioning the November loss that I felt more deeply than almost anything else in my life.
Nonetheless.
My job was to go door to door in some of the swankier neighborhoods in Pennsylvania and parts of New Jersey (yes, there are swanky neighborhoods in Jersey) and, after delivering a small speech about why people should support John Kerry, ask for money.
I don't know if anyone reading this has ever had a job that required them to go door to door, but it is quite simply the hardest thing you can do.
It was an awesome way for me to get quickly familiar with parts of Philly that I wouldn't have normally seen, but it was also at the top of a very long list of strange and difficult things that I did after moving from Mississippi, and quite frankly, that list continues today.
I can't say that I ever had a door actually slammed in my face; most people were surprisingly polite, more so than I would be if a Bush supporter came to my house asking for money, but I did have a fair share of interesting experiences.
Dogs became the enemy. While most people in the suburbs prefer to keep their Rottweilers locked up inside, so that terror fills any unsuspecting idealist waiting on their front porch, invisible fencing is big here. So, you think you're safe, and all of a sudden, a dog that rivals Cujo, completely untethered, starts to barrel toward you, and you think, "You know what, John Kerry, screw you. I'm not getting ravaged by Spike, the Smith family bodyguard for you. I don't even have health care working for you."
So, past the dogs, sometimes the people did absolutely suck. I realize that it's annoying to have people knock on your door, but sometimes I tried to put it in perspective for them.
In our office, counting door to door people and those people on the street that accosted everyone in the state with "Wanna beat Bush?" we had roughly 70 people, mostly between the ages of 18 and 30 (actually mostly between 18 and 24, but I'm a little older than that, and this is my blog, so bite me) involved, really involved in politics, and this job was hard.
We went door to door from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. in the stifling heat, rain, and way underlit streets. I have two words for people: house numbers. How hard is it to have it somewhat clear as to what your address is? Sorry, off on a tangent.
My two favorite experiences, although there were many, were as follows:
1. I knocked on a door in a town called Churchville. We had little to no luck in Churchville; I don't know if the name made it a foregone conclusion for Bush, but we soldiered on, since it was late in the campaign, and it was an area that we hadn't been to before.
A woman answered the door with the yappiest dog I've ever seen jumping up and down, trying to play with me. I love dogs, not dogs like that, but I indulged the dog and made little cooing noises. The woman seemed to like this, and she also seemed to not notice that I was covered in Kerry/Edwards regalia.
When I began my speech, "Hi, my name is Emily, and I'm with the Democratic National Committee. We're in the neighborhood today talking to people about John Kerry." Well, that made it clear what I wanted, finally, and she narrowed her eyes, glared at me, and said, "Ech, John Kerry! I don't want to hear what you have to say. You should be ashamed to be out talking about him."
And, THEN, she spit at me. That's right, a woman who looked to be a little older than my mother, spit at me. I looked at her in total disbelief and asked, "Did you just spit at me"? She slammed the door without a word. Then, if that weren't enough, when I went across the street to her neighbor's, she came outside with her husband and yelled, "She's not home, and she doesn't want to hear what you have to say either. We all think the same around here." WOW.
After I got about $50 in that neighborhood, I wanted to go back to her house and wave it in her face, but I refrained, because she gave me a great story.
Story #2: I forget where this happened, but it was toward the end of the campaign when we were concentrating on getting out the vote and no longer fundraising. I knocked on someone's door, and she said, "Who is it"? When I told her, "I'm Emily with PA Victory '04, and I want to talk about John Kerry," she said, "Emily, I'm busy right now."
I turned to leave and she said, "Wait, do you play the flute?" I HATED talking to people through closed doors, because you can't hear them sometimes, and I thought, surely, I had not heard her correctly.
"I'm sorry?"
"Do you play the flute?"
"Ummm..no?"
"Okay, then, bye."
I don't know how many times I've wished I said yes, so that I could see what the hell was going on inside her house. But, alas.
If I wrote every day for a month, I don't think I'd be able to touch upon all of the awesome, unique things that I saw and did while working for the Democratic Party,honestly. As hard as it was and as much as I hated the result of the election, I wouldn't trade that for anything.