"Growing Up" Sucks

You know what stunk? Graduation.

Syracuse class of 2003 - I miss you guys. A lot.



[stupid back-to-back episodes of Felicity]

Silver Bells...

It's 8:05am and there's showtunes coming out of one of the offices behind me. It just flashed me back to the winter of 2003, when I was working at Lifetime TV. There was this woman in the cubicle next to mine who turned on her Christmas music station the day after Thanksgiving and played it every day until December 25th. By the end of the month, I was ready to stick my head in an oven.

Just a reminder of how much I'm NOT looking forward to the holidays...

Who Am I? (you get 3 guesses)

The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his
own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for
his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause. A man
is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding.
When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless
affairs by minding other people's business.
--Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)

Test of the Emergency Broadcast System

While Bush is doing his Address to the Nation, I think I'll write my Address to W.

Hey, Mr. "President" guy - could you do me a favor? If you're going to continue killing everyone, fucking up the world, the environment, the nation, the economy, the lives of my friends and my own life, could you do me a favor? Could you NOT fuck up my tv-watching schedule? Just go back to doing what you do best (otherwise known as 'vacationing') and please get your illiterate face off of my television screen. You're interrupting my regularly-scheduled programming, and I was really looking forward to tonight's episode of Reunion.

It's a relief that the man isn't articulate or intelligent enough to speak on live television for more than a half hour. Karl Rove's butt probably gets tired with the dummy on his lap and his hand up its ass for over 25 minutes. Maybe if I'm lucky, I'll catch something worth watching at 9:30.

Cosmetic Surgery

Daze End got a facelift today!


I've been trying to change the 'comment' link to say something amusing, but I'm giving up. Who am I kidding? I don't know shit about html coding. I give up!

PS - check out the links - I may have added some new ones.

So Much To Do...

Some of my coworkers make me want to stick a pen in my eye. Or theirs. Or make me wish I were deaf as a doornail. And blind.

I have 5 chapters to read for my class tomorrow night. Guess how many chapters are in the book? 7. Guess how many chapters I've already read? Getting back into this school thing is harder than I thought it would be.

THIS is where I'll be tonight... instead of reading my 5 chapters. Sometimes, you just have to weigh your priorities.

To All The Wanderers

Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what
makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what
the world needs is people who have come alive.
--Harold Whitman

Notes

I'm pretty sure THIS is the guy we elected president...

Ladies, Ladies, Ladies...

I am continually astounded by my fellow women... and men.

[This isn't going where you think it is - I'm taking a break from my political ranting.]

The number of interesting, brilliant, talent women who get hung up on men who are total wastes of oxygen is simply DUMBFOUNDING to me. It's horrifying - what cool women allow men to say and do to them under the heading of 'being in love'. Absolutely repulsive. Granted, I am no exception to this rule; you're reading the blog of a girl whose boyfriend cheated on her, then proceeded to tell her he wasn't in love with her, yet she continued to stay with him for another 6 months.

What we let them get away with - and what they think is acceptable behavior - is absolutely amazing. I was channel hopping last night... and I happened upon a really, really stupid reality show with C-list celebrities. It was this show on VH-1 called 'My Fair Brady', following around Christopher Knight from the Brady Bunch(who is so C-list I had to look his name up, and was surprised he's still alive) and Adrienne, "America's Next Top Model" in relationship-land. She's like, 22, and he's like, 47. He was the biggest gigantic asshole to her, and she just followed him around. The man doesn't seem to have all that much going for him - aside from being rich. Average looking, not particularly smart, acts like a 15-year old. He talked to her like she was a child - which, at 22 to his 47, she IS - and basically just continued to treat her like she was worthless. And she was just like, "but I love you so much, wah wah wah." UNBELIEVABLE. And that girl is kind of a tough chick.

While celebrities don't always 'count', I've seen the same thing over and over. I saw it with my college roommates, I've seen it happen to my best friends, I've listened to the way my male friends treat THIER girlfriends, and I've been guilty of it myself. What is it about our society that has conditioned women to let men treat us this way, and why is it socially acceptable for them to do so? Are we so desperate to be loved, or to believe that we're loved, that we are okay with continually abasing and degrading ourselves? Are women that paralyzed with fear over being alone that being in a crappy relationship that is better than being single?

This is my message: Ladies, knock it off. Stop being stupid. You're WOMEN, for God's sake! Studies show we're smarter, stronger, and tougher than them. We live longer, we go through childbirth. We multi-task better, we're better commuicators, we know how to dress ourselves, and we're more compassionate human beings. We are now the majority on most college campuses in the United States. New research shows that our brains are more densly packed with neurons. We need to stop letting these useless men treat us like crap. Maybe if we strengthen our backbones, men will learn that their abasement of women is NOT acceptable.

Until that happens... find a hobby. Men are fun, but having one doesn't necessarily fix your problems. Trust me on that one. You're much better off taking a painting class.

Calling A Spade A Spade

The day after the Presidential election last year, The Ex called me from work. I was crying and inconsolable after he informed me that Kerry had conceeded and that W. had, at least by actual votes this second time (rigged voting booths in Ohio notwithstanding) won the race. In my head, I wasn't surprised, but in my heart I'd kept hope alive that if we tried hard enough, we could beat the Republican Machine. Anyway, Ex called, and I was a mess. Just the idea of the disasters that would befall us in the next 4 years was horrific. This administration had already run us into the ground in the last 4 years - what was to happen next? I distinctly remember his response. He kept saying, "Look, Beck, it'll be okay. Everything is going to be okay." I got really angry at this - the entire reason for my distress was that it WASN'T going to be okay, and I told him exactly that. Naturally, he poo-poohed me off as an over-emotional, irrational female.

This weekend - and after the passing of Chief Justice Rhenquist Saturday, leaving yet another Supreme Court seat for W. to fill with his incompetent cronies - I've had an almost irrepresible urge to send him an email saying simply, "I told you so".

Clarification

Let me rephrase.

Hurricane Katrina was NOT W.'s fault. A natural disaster is no one's fault... unless, of course, you consider the fact that global warming is NOT a load of crap; it's a scientific reality and is in fact a direct result of the poor environmentalism us humans have shown throughout our existence - politics notwithstanding. [If you 'don't believe in' the greenhouse effect, then you're also probably one of my favorite people who doesn't 'believe in' the science of evolution and is in support of teaching creationism. You also probably drive an SUV or Hummer that gets 9 miles to the gallon and burps toxic waste into the air.] The state government of Louisiana (and Mississippi) AS WELL AS the Federal Government have all completely failed the hurricane victims. W. himself just happens to be spectacularly ineffective at making any sort of effective decision to galvanize the rescue mission. Of course, maybe if he'd bothered to cut his vacation short BEFORE the hurricane hit instead of 3 days afterward, there would have been more for him to do...

Bullshit

Sidebar -

As I was republishing my post, I heard the non-descript sound of the tv chattering away from the other room, and then I heard a very clear and distinct "Bullshit. Bullshit! Bull SHIT!" in my mother's voice. From this, I can decisively conclude that she's watching the news, and that W. is (once again) attempting and failing at effectively using the English language in front of a microphone to spin our latest catastrophe into something that isn't his fault.

Spitting Venom

It's so nice to know that the spam world has been reduced to posting advertisements in the comments section of blog sites. At least here, I have the small satisfaction of knowing that only about 10 people even bother reading my blog, and of the 10 of you, hopefully only about 2 or 3 are bored or gullible enough to bother clicking through to the website.

If you haven't read Maureen Dowd's syndicated column today, copy and paste this link and get to it.

http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=395115&category=OPINION&newsdate=9/3/2005

Kill Your TV

I've been attached to the news since I got home tonight. Here are a few places I've been to tonight that you should consider it your responsibility to visit as well.

www.cnn.com

www.redcross.org

www.newsweek.com

http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/
(this is a live blog being posted from the heart of New Orleans)

www.workingforchange.com

and one more slightly-unrelated by also useful link...

http://www.venganza.org/

Left My Heart at the Big Easy...

Early September is one of my favorite times of year in upstate NY. The weather is calm; warm, but not too warm... everything is green... the sun still lingers until 7pm, the sunsets are full of color. It's beautiful.

Today I came home from work and walked out to the mailbox as the sun began to drop behind the top of the hill. The birds continued their mellow chirping, and I could hear the sound of a sprinkler from the neighbor's yard. There was a little bit of a breeze, and the smell of someone's backyard grill floated along on it. I looked around at my gentle, serene neighborhood, my home for over 20 years. Then I closed my eyes and tried to imagine it under 15 feet of water, the roofs of our homes caved in, bodies floating down the street, people looting and dying of hunger at every turn. Then I came inside and cried for the poor, poor people suffering in New Orleans. What could that possibly be like?

To see a city of such heritage and history - a blindingly proud city despite its rather ignoble reputation - brought to its knees so thoroughly and humiliatingly is painful to watch. My heart bleeds as I watch the people of Louisiana tear each other apart in a desperate attempt to survive. Just as painful to watch is the overwhelming homogeneity of the people who are suffering. Americans have become accostomed to pretending that racism 'no longer exists' in America, that we're 'above' all of that... but take a look at CNN. The people who did not make it out of Katrina's path were the poor and the infirmed - they HAD no way out. Almost every single hurricane 'refugee' you see on the news today is black. What does that say about America? New Orleans is the 9th poorest city in our country, and 2/3 of its population is African American. Are we really doing anything more than preaching equality in this country, while at the same time funneling our 'undesireables' somewhere we consider to be out of sight and out of mind?

And please do NOT get me started on the appaling way that the residents of the city have reacted to this tragedy. When the World Trade Centers were demolished, not one New Yorker looted. Not one New Yorker attacked or killed another in an attempt to get to safety or shelter. They helped each other, died to SAVE each other. As the cameras roll, people being housed in the Superdome are raping and murdering each other over blankets. I watch the news and I feel like I'm watching a scene from the movie version of Lord of the Flies (a book that made me throw up, incidentally).

This awful tragedy and the nation's reprehensible reaction to it refreshes and strengthens my fear of the future. I really wonder sometimes if the apocolypse isn't pending... if it's already arrived and is just taking it's time finishing what's been started.

Felicity

I've been watching old episodes of Felicity on one of the chick cable channels recently.

[WE, actually, but don't tell my former co-workers at Lifetime that I've been contributing to the competition.]

I always been attracted to the show... something about the character has always drawn me in. Maybe it's her hair - she has hair just like mine (but she's got a better stylist on set), and I've conviced myself I might (in my own little delusional world) look a little bit like her. But it's more than that. Something about the character's personality... her complete inability to be cool or say the right thing... or salvage herself from any and every embarassing situation. She's smart and articulate, but she still seems to manage to fuck up all the time. The way she reacts to situations in her life seem to be the exact same way I would react... even as I cringe to watch. Maybe that's why I cringe. She wears her heart on her sleeve and everything is an excuse to overanalyze and overemote to an exhausting degree. She's an idealist and an romantic and wants it all, even though she doesn't necessarily know what 'it all' is. Part of me HATES that I'm like her. She's fictional... and she's kind of pathetic. There's this one line from this one episode that, for some reason, has stuck with me since it first aired when I was in college. Sean says to Ben (about Felicity), "She's the kind of girl you marry, not the kind of girl you date." The first time I heard it, I thought they were talking about me, not some curly-haired fictional college student.

In the end, Felicity went off to medical school, married Ben, and lived happily ever after. She always stayed true to herself and was all about not compromising her beliefs. Leave it to J.J. Abrams. Maybe if I ask nicely, he'll write my script too.

But her hair is really JUST like mine. And I really loved the episode where she cut it all off.

I Found This on a Tea Box...

The Wisdom of Daily Life

1. Watch a sunrise at least once a year.

2. Plant flowers every spring.

3. Look people in the eye.

4. Compliment three people every day.

5.Live beneath your means.

6. Choose your life's mate carefully. From this one decision will come ninety percent of all your happiness or misery.

7. Live so that when your children think of fairness, caring, and integrity, they think of you.

8. Don't postpone joy.

~H. Jackson Brown, Jr., from Life's Little Instruction Book

Indy 500

I have a confession to make;

Sometimes, I drive like a real asshole. I know it's obnoxious, but I can't help it - my new car is just better than all the others on the road. And no one drives fast enough.





[I know this is a stupid post. I think up all of these articulate and insightful things to write about as I'm falling asleep at night... but then, when I get to my computer in the morning, it's all gone. I'm going to have to figure out how to fix this problem.]

... Johnny Depp?...

Last night I had a dream about pirates.





[I just felt like a post was needed]

No Phone

I have had the most heinous last 2 weeks at work. The phone has literally not stopped ringing, from the moment I turn it on at 8:30am until... well, about noon today. It's gotten so bad that about a week ago, the phone rang at home and I answered it saying, "Good morning, College of XYZ". My mother was completely caught off-guard and laughed hysterically. [Never mind that it was 7pm.] Since then, I have mounted a strike; I flat-out refuse to pick up the phone anywhere but at my desk. I'm sorry, but if I spend 8 hours a day with a plastic receiver attached to my head, there's no way in hell I'm going to think it's a fun thing to do in my free time. I spend so much time getting yelled at over the phone that I really think I should be able to hook the thing to the earring studs on my left lobe. Then, at least, I wouldn't have this horrible (and possibly permanent) crick in my neck.

The good thing about this whole stupid string of business is that I've learned a lot, and I've had an opportunity to really help out some students that may have been overlooked otherwise. I'm not saving the world or anything, but at least I can sleep at night knowing that I'm trying to fight the good fight.

But I'm still off phones until further notice. If you need me, light up the bat signal.