In Case You're Ready to Go...

How to Leave the Planet

1. Phone NASA. Their phone number is (713) 483-3111. Explain that it's very important that you get away as soon as possible.
2. If they do not cooperate, phone any friend you may have in the White House - (202) 456-1414 - to have a word on your behalf with the guy at NASA.
3. If you don't have any friends in the White House, phone the Kremlin (ask the oversease operator for 0107-095-295-9051). They don't have any friends there either (at least none to speak of), but they do seem to have a little influence, so you may as well try.
4. If that also fails, phone the Pope for guidance. His telephone number is 011-39-6-6982, and I gather his switchboard is infallible.
5. If all these attempts fail, flag down a passing flying saucer and explain that it's vitally important you get away before your phone bill arrives.

~Douglas Adams, Intro to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Of A Revolution

..and I said 'Johnny whatcha doing tonight?'
he looked at me with a face full of fright
and I said 'how about a revolution?'
and he said 'right'...

Don't mind me, I went to an OAR show last night. Definitely felt old - don't these college kids today know that OAR is my generation, not theirs? Casey and I agreed that OAR beats Phish and Trey Anastasio, hands down, any day. I'll take 17 year olds acting stupid over cokeheads asking to borrow my car keys to bump lines any day of the week...

A Healthy Dose of Feminism

If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it.
--Margaret Fuller, Feminist and poet

Cautious, careful people always casting about to preserve
their reputation or social standards never can bring about
reform. Those who are really in earnest are willing to be
anything or nothing in the world's estimation, and publicly
and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathies
with despised ideas and their advocates, and bear the
consequences.
--Susan B. Anthony, Abolitionist, Suffragist

Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations.
I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their
beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.
--Louisa May Alcott, Author of "Little Women"

Pre-Coffee Musings

1 - Why is there so much more traffifc on Thursday mornings than the rest of the week?

2 - Why is Matthew McConaughey the sexiest man alive? I'm sorry, but I do not agree. I can pick 5 right of the top of my head that beat him out, hands down. 5 non-Texan, non-Republican sexier men...

Link Myself

Is it obnoxious to link to my own posts? Because there's this one and this one that I just found today while reading (yes, I am so bored that I'm reading my own blog) that are really kind of funny...

Sidebar: Could it please stop raining for 10 minutes so that I can get to my car without getting DRENCHED?

Milestones...

Today is my 1-year anniversary of freedom. Singlehood. Dumped-ness. Whatever you want to call it. The point is, a year ago today was the day I thought my life is over. [Drama queen, I know.] I don't really feel like re-living the humiliation while providing a play-by-play (and considering my penchant for self-flaggelation, I'm going to take this as a positive improvement over my previous state) but suffice it to say that it was bad. The good news is, it's finally starting to feel like that night was a really bad dream... one of those dreams that just takes a while to shake off. In my case, it apparently took the better part of a year... but hey, who's counting?

We'll All Float On...

For the record, I know I haven't been doing much actual writing lately... it's been a lot of quotes and whatnot. Rest assured that my brain hasn't shut off - I've still got lots and lots of ideas swimming around in my head (especially right now, fresh from an almost-3-mile run) that I'd like to talk about, I'm just having trouble capturing and tacking them down on paper when I actually have the time to do so.

I will stop a moment and say this (but bear with me, because I don't know if I'll articulate it in a way that makes much sense): Lately I've been feeling... alive again. In the last few months, the parts of me that felt alternately crushed, sad, dead, and numb seem to have come back with that feeling of pins and needles, like when your foot falls asleep and then wakes back up. I feel like this huge weight that I've been lugging around that I didn't know how to get rid of seems to have evaporated, and I'm feeling much lighter. The only phrase that comes to mind when I try to describe what I've been experiencing is the name of a book by Milan Kundera - The Unbearable Lightness of Being...

Another Song to Live By

Maybe I've been the problem,
maybe I'm the one to blame
But even when I turn it off and play myself,
the outcome feels the same
I've been thinkin maybe I've been partly cloudy,
maybe I'm the chance of rain
Maybe I'm overcast,
and maybe all my luck's washed down the drain

I've been thinking 'bout everyone,
everyone you look so lonely

But when I look at the stars,
when I look at the stars,
when I look at the stars I see someone else

When I look at the stars,
the stars, I feel like myself

Stars lookin' at our planet watching entropy and pain
And maybe start to wonder
how the chaos in our lives could pass as sane
I've been thinking bout the meaning of resistance,
of a hope beyond my own
And suddenly the infinite and penitent
begin to look like home.

I've been thinking bout everyone,
everyone you look so empty

But when I look at the stars,
when I look at the stars,
when I look at the stars I see someone else

When I look at the stars,
the stars, I feel like myself

everyone, everyone you feel so lonely
everyone, yeah everyone you feel so empty

When I look at the stars,
when I look at the stars,
when I look at the stars I feel like myself

When I look at the stars, the stars
I see someone...

~ Switchfoot, Stars

What Is It Good For?

Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the
most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the
germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these
proceed debts and taxes...known instruments for bringing
the many under the domination of the few. . . No nation
could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual
warfare.
--James Madison, Political Observations, 1795