Time for a 3 minute blog. Justin is on the phone gloating to Kevin that he picked the winning football teams for today. I know that's really hard work, so I'm super proud.
We find out on Tuesday if Justin gets into Teach for America and if he does, where they will send us. I am up and down being excited, terrified, angry, sad- I have invoked every emotion I own in dealing with this situation. I think I hope we go to Chicago, because it is close. Then, sometimes, I hope we go to LA because so-cal is wonderful. I just can't seem to muster any consistency regarding the matter. Though, I guess that's not really a new problem of mine.
I quit American Apparel a few weeks ago and signed up for substitute teaching but haven't received any calls. As you can imagine, that has left me with too much time to clean the house, too much time alone, and too much introspection. Never good. All of this is happening so quickly. Time, as of late, has taken on a supernatural speed.. totally freaks me out. I remember this past new years, anticlimactic as it was, like it was yesterday- except it wasn't. It was ten months ago. This year has been weird, dreamlike, disorienting.. I know it's not over yet, but based on the way it's gone thus far, it will be over before I finish this paragraph.
Okay, it's still November and Justin is coming back inside. Time for more Mad Men.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Monday, May 11, 2009
California.
Justin and I are in San Diego and it's awesome. It's a perfect 80 degrees everyday. We want to move here. I'd write more but wasting time online in a place like this seems stupid.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
swine flu
I heard on NPR that the "Pork Distributors of America" are kind of pissed that this new flu virus has been coined "Swine Flu" since it really has nothing to do with pigs. It just so happens, a strand of the virus has similarities to some they have seen in pigs but it also, even more so, resembles existing strands that are more prominent among the upright. They are considering calling it "The North American Flu". They should call it "South of the Border Flu" or "Global Flu". Clearly they want to scare the crap out of us, why not call it "You can't Run, You can't Hide, You're Gonna Die Flu"? Most of my animosity towards this kind of thing is rooted in that:
1. I have never been deathly ill, nor has anyone very near and dear to me. I have no idea what it's like to watch someone you love suffer, especially with something as seemingly ridiculous and random as "swine flu". It's easy for me to say that everyone is overreacting, but I would be pushing for it to be a bigger deal if my child was lying in a hospital with a 105 degree fever. So, I apologize for my lack of empathy.
2. The government and people in general have an extreme tendency to over-state things, for the sake of interesting news casts and, if you ask me, for something unifying to talk about "over the water cooler". I remember the week before September 11th sitting in a pizza place with my dad watching the local news go on for fifteen minutes about shark attacks in Florida. They were discussing what to do in the case of a sighting, how to get away, and the likelihood (in jest I think?) of sharks swimming up the Ohio. I distinctly remember saying "Must be a slow news day" and laughing it off. Little did I know that the worst single terror attack in the history of the world was about to go down in our proverbial backyard. Part of me is thankful for the over-hyping of seemingly harmless threats because that means, at least for the moment, nothing more daunting is looming. We are always searching for that thing that will connect us to other people, whether it is sports, weather, or the presidential race. Now when you're bored in the grocery line or on the subway (that's for you Kevin!) you can say, "How about that swine-flu"?
3. I think somewhere deep down, the same principles behind small numbers of oppressors oppressing masses and masses of people can and do apply, at least on some level. We all know healthcare in this country is a freaking joke. Millions of people live painful, short lives which could be lengthened and more comfortable if only they had the adequate healthcare and medicine. Everyone acts like there is nothing we can do about it- that just "the way it is". I am not claiming to have the solution to the healthcare crisis in the United States. All I'm saying is that fear is the one of the few tools in a dictator’s arsenal. You puff one group of people up by pushing another down in fear and stand back and watch what happens- it's war, it's business, it's even high school! I haven't any logical conclusion to this bullet point, but I thought I'd throw it out. Who has what to gain by making the public paranoid? It may be a stretch, but listening to NPR too much makes me a little paranoid.
Of all the scares we've had: Sars, Anthrax, Bird-flu, WMD, or Sharks and Earthquakes in the midwest, which of them has turned to be even remotely threatening as anticipated? Pretty much none. There were seventeen valid cases of anthrax in like 5 countries and most of them were in the same spot. If someone hates you enough to comendere anthrax and mail it to you, you're pretty much doomed anyway. Come on!
1. I have never been deathly ill, nor has anyone very near and dear to me. I have no idea what it's like to watch someone you love suffer, especially with something as seemingly ridiculous and random as "swine flu". It's easy for me to say that everyone is overreacting, but I would be pushing for it to be a bigger deal if my child was lying in a hospital with a 105 degree fever. So, I apologize for my lack of empathy.
2. The government and people in general have an extreme tendency to over-state things, for the sake of interesting news casts and, if you ask me, for something unifying to talk about "over the water cooler". I remember the week before September 11th sitting in a pizza place with my dad watching the local news go on for fifteen minutes about shark attacks in Florida. They were discussing what to do in the case of a sighting, how to get away, and the likelihood (in jest I think?) of sharks swimming up the Ohio. I distinctly remember saying "Must be a slow news day" and laughing it off. Little did I know that the worst single terror attack in the history of the world was about to go down in our proverbial backyard. Part of me is thankful for the over-hyping of seemingly harmless threats because that means, at least for the moment, nothing more daunting is looming. We are always searching for that thing that will connect us to other people, whether it is sports, weather, or the presidential race. Now when you're bored in the grocery line or on the subway (that's for you Kevin!) you can say, "How about that swine-flu"?
3. I think somewhere deep down, the same principles behind small numbers of oppressors oppressing masses and masses of people can and do apply, at least on some level. We all know healthcare in this country is a freaking joke. Millions of people live painful, short lives which could be lengthened and more comfortable if only they had the adequate healthcare and medicine. Everyone acts like there is nothing we can do about it- that just "the way it is". I am not claiming to have the solution to the healthcare crisis in the United States. All I'm saying is that fear is the one of the few tools in a dictator’s arsenal. You puff one group of people up by pushing another down in fear and stand back and watch what happens- it's war, it's business, it's even high school! I haven't any logical conclusion to this bullet point, but I thought I'd throw it out. Who has what to gain by making the public paranoid? It may be a stretch, but listening to NPR too much makes me a little paranoid.
Of all the scares we've had: Sars, Anthrax, Bird-flu, WMD, or Sharks and Earthquakes in the midwest, which of them has turned to be even remotely threatening as anticipated? Pretty much none. There were seventeen valid cases of anthrax in like 5 countries and most of them were in the same spot. If someone hates you enough to comendere anthrax and mail it to you, you're pretty much doomed anyway. Come on!
Monday, March 16, 2009
parental reform
It's time for my quarterly entry.
I really do try to write blogs sometimes but there are way too many fragmented thoughts/concepts floating in and out of my mind to ever weave even the smallest, cohesive morsel of a blog. So i decided to go with it and just let my hyperactivity take me where it may.
I've been musing about parenting for a while, so we'll start there. Lately I've seen some simultaneously sad and hilarious portrayals of what parenting should and should not look like. I haven't yet warmed up to the idea of having kids of my own just yet. I am enjoying the freedom of going where I want, when I want, as late as I want and from what i understand of motherhood, the privilege being able to sleep, at all. I'm not ready to give all that up just yet. But my antennas are up, observing, learning, watching, and inevitably judging the parents around me.
Yesterday I went out shopping for bulk baking supplies at sams. As I was attempting to maneuver my cart piled with 25lb bags of flour and sugar amidst about six-thousand other people and somehow I got gridlocked in the produce aisle. It turned out the disturbance was due to a squat, loud woman with children littered in and around her cart trying to get her toddler children to eat their hot dogs and pastries while walking around this carnival of a store. Finally, after she had yelled "Move!" "Walk! Just walk, it's not that hard!" "What's wrong with you?" about 10x all while shoving greasy snacks into her giant mouth, she snapped and stole her son's hot dog and ate the entire thing in one fell swoop and chased it with his pop tartesque treat. He freaks out and I just stand there with my mouth hanging open in astonishment and disgust at this gluttonous display of abuse.
In some sort of masochistic fog, I decided after I left Sams to go wonder around Super Wal Mart. I do this periodically, I like to slowly and carefully comb through every aisle. I don't buy any thing, I just really like to watch people and to document of the painfully low prices on towels and tank tops afforded to us buy all those five-year-old kids in china. Wal Mart is just a terrible place to begin with, no one looks you in the eye when they pass or bump into you. The experience, for me, is equivalent to being at King's Island when it's 107 degrees, on Hannah Montana day, foolishly wearing a wool sweater and long underwear and trying to find a bathroom while mosquitoes bite my face and fingers. It wasn't all that bad, I just really got carried away there. Anyway, as I was leaving out the garden center some man shoves past me with his son while loud whispering, "run!". It wasn't your run-of-the-mill Wal Mart rudeness so I sped up to see what the deal was. This man in a white t-shirt and unbuttoned flannel had a car battery not so covertly tucked in his shirt and he and his son took off to the far end of the parking lot, threw the battery into the back of their Lexus SUV and peeled out. I made it very apparent that I was staring at him, with that same mouth-gaping expression and watched them get away.
Finally, yesterday was pretty much the best weather day of the year. After I got home from shopping, I was gardening into the late afternoon, Justin was pretending to work on the truck, calvin and neil were fighting in the front yard and we could hear the neighborhood kids having a birthday party. I looked over in the side yard at the houses on the next street and I saw what appeared to be a yeti. To my disappointment, it was not a yeti but rather a man dressed in a gorilla costume crouching on the side of one of the houses.
this was pretty much it
As Justin and I watched this bizarre scene unfold , so many thoughts were running through my head. I thought for a moment he was an armed robber who was suddenly going to spin around and shoot at me. He ended up lunging out in front of the house with a loud raaaaaaaaaawr and thirty-seven four year old kids let out shrill shrieks of terror. I hopped the fence to peak around the corner because the screaming didn't seem to cease. I saw parents holding their terrified children up to eye level with the monster while he continued to bellow out growls and jump around. Granted, I have a low fear tolerance, but if this gorilla man showed up to my birthday I would probably faint.
Good Lord, writing blogs takes forever.
I really do try to write blogs sometimes but there are way too many fragmented thoughts/concepts floating in and out of my mind to ever weave even the smallest, cohesive morsel of a blog. So i decided to go with it and just let my hyperactivity take me where it may.
I've been musing about parenting for a while, so we'll start there. Lately I've seen some simultaneously sad and hilarious portrayals of what parenting should and should not look like. I haven't yet warmed up to the idea of having kids of my own just yet. I am enjoying the freedom of going where I want, when I want, as late as I want and from what i understand of motherhood, the privilege being able to sleep, at all. I'm not ready to give all that up just yet. But my antennas are up, observing, learning, watching, and inevitably judging the parents around me.
Yesterday I went out shopping for bulk baking supplies at sams. As I was attempting to maneuver my cart piled with 25lb bags of flour and sugar amidst about six-thousand other people and somehow I got gridlocked in the produce aisle. It turned out the disturbance was due to a squat, loud woman with children littered in and around her cart trying to get her toddler children to eat their hot dogs and pastries while walking around this carnival of a store. Finally, after she had yelled "Move!" "Walk! Just walk, it's not that hard!" "What's wrong with you?" about 10x all while shoving greasy snacks into her giant mouth, she snapped and stole her son's hot dog and ate the entire thing in one fell swoop and chased it with his pop tartesque treat. He freaks out and I just stand there with my mouth hanging open in astonishment and disgust at this gluttonous display of abuse.
In some sort of masochistic fog, I decided after I left Sams to go wonder around Super Wal Mart. I do this periodically, I like to slowly and carefully comb through every aisle. I don't buy any thing, I just really like to watch people and to document of the painfully low prices on towels and tank tops afforded to us buy all those five-year-old kids in china. Wal Mart is just a terrible place to begin with, no one looks you in the eye when they pass or bump into you. The experience, for me, is equivalent to being at King's Island when it's 107 degrees, on Hannah Montana day, foolishly wearing a wool sweater and long underwear and trying to find a bathroom while mosquitoes bite my face and fingers. It wasn't all that bad, I just really got carried away there. Anyway, as I was leaving out the garden center some man shoves past me with his son while loud whispering, "run!". It wasn't your run-of-the-mill Wal Mart rudeness so I sped up to see what the deal was. This man in a white t-shirt and unbuttoned flannel had a car battery not so covertly tucked in his shirt and he and his son took off to the far end of the parking lot, threw the battery into the back of their Lexus SUV and peeled out. I made it very apparent that I was staring at him, with that same mouth-gaping expression and watched them get away.
Finally, yesterday was pretty much the best weather day of the year. After I got home from shopping, I was gardening into the late afternoon, Justin was pretending to work on the truck, calvin and neil were fighting in the front yard and we could hear the neighborhood kids having a birthday party. I looked over in the side yard at the houses on the next street and I saw what appeared to be a yeti. To my disappointment, it was not a yeti but rather a man dressed in a gorilla costume crouching on the side of one of the houses.
this was pretty much itAs Justin and I watched this bizarre scene unfold , so many thoughts were running through my head. I thought for a moment he was an armed robber who was suddenly going to spin around and shoot at me. He ended up lunging out in front of the house with a loud raaaaaaaaaawr and thirty-seven four year old kids let out shrill shrieks of terror. I hopped the fence to peak around the corner because the screaming didn't seem to cease. I saw parents holding their terrified children up to eye level with the monster while he continued to bellow out growls and jump around. Granted, I have a low fear tolerance, but if this gorilla man showed up to my birthday I would probably faint.
Good Lord, writing blogs takes forever.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
wheel of idiots
When I was in the basement at American Apparel today preparing the paperwork for close, I caught the last 5 minutes of Wheel of Fortune. At the end of the show Pat and Vanna always stand there side by side and make some sort of banterish small talk (you can tell they have never had an affair because they have absolutely no chemistry). Anyway, Pat sets Vanna up to tell her story about some "big" discovery she made today. She said that she can never remember what side of the car her gas tank is on and she realized that the gas light on the car has the nozzle hanging on the same side of the pump that the tank is on your car. Well, it's not. But, Vanna White pumps her own gas. Funny, I wonder if when people run into her at the gas station or at the grocery store, if they can ever think of anything to say to her other than, "Hey will you go like this?":
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Finishing Well
My (half) marathon in Philly was this morning. I had no idea what to expect, but it was amazing. My parents and Mike (Kirsten's husband) dropped us off somewhere downtown at 5 am. They were going to try and park but had no idea where but we saw some runners wandering around so we jumped out and followed them. It's true what they say about the adrenaline of the day. I got four hours of sleep and was wandering around in the darkness of a strange city in 25 degree weather and I felt like high-fiving everyone! There was an announcer, the mayor, and a bunch of other "famous" people that I had no idea who they were up on a stage trying to pump everyone up, singing the national anthem, playing random pump-you-up songs like U2's "Beautiful Day" (sorry Justin, I like that song) and various other multi-generational friendly tunes. My personal favorite was, each time they let a wave of people go, they played the Rocky theme song during the countdown- totally pumped me up.
We started running and I soon realized that my pace was considerably faster than that of my 5'2 sister, but it was still awesome- a bonding moment if you will. Of course, I immediately had to go to the bathroom, so on like mile three we stopped and the line was like 15 deep. (Side note, there were only 3 bathrooms every 2 miles for 18,000 runners. What the heck man?). So we waited in line and we for some stupid reason decided that since I was faster than her that she should run ahead and I would just catch up. She agreed to stay to the left side of the road and I would be along shortly. Wrong. I waited for 15 minutes for the bathroom, becoming increasingly worried that I wasn't going to be able to make up the distance that was now between us. So after I went, I tore out of there full speed ahead. Seriously passing everyone. I jumped up on the sidewalk and just took off. Finally when I got to about mile 9 I asked a police man if I could use his cell phone so I could see where the heck she was. She didn't answer (later I found out that was because she thought I was a client).
I never gave up hope that I would find her and continued to run at full capacity. Luckily I had some power gel and gatorade "refill stations" or I would have seriously passed out. deducting my 15 minutes in line for the bathroom, I ran the 13.1 in 1:45. I sped up at the end like I had something to prove and crossed the finish line just as the first marathoners were crossing. It turned out that my sister stopped and waited for me not to far from the bathrooms and also stopped 2 more times for fifteen minutes to see if she could find me. All the while I'm running 8 miles an hour away from her. So that was kind of a bummer, but I did get to run at full capacity which was really nice to see what I really had in me. Now I have a sweet mesh shirt and a metal to commemorate the occasion and have "the bug" as Justin calls it. I want to run races all the time. Aside from the dozens of people puking on the sides of the road that people pass by like their homeless, it's pretty communal and uplifting and I highly reccommend it.
We started running and I soon realized that my pace was considerably faster than that of my 5'2 sister, but it was still awesome- a bonding moment if you will. Of course, I immediately had to go to the bathroom, so on like mile three we stopped and the line was like 15 deep. (Side note, there were only 3 bathrooms every 2 miles for 18,000 runners. What the heck man?). So we waited in line and we for some stupid reason decided that since I was faster than her that she should run ahead and I would just catch up. She agreed to stay to the left side of the road and I would be along shortly. Wrong. I waited for 15 minutes for the bathroom, becoming increasingly worried that I wasn't going to be able to make up the distance that was now between us. So after I went, I tore out of there full speed ahead. Seriously passing everyone. I jumped up on the sidewalk and just took off. Finally when I got to about mile 9 I asked a police man if I could use his cell phone so I could see where the heck she was. She didn't answer (later I found out that was because she thought I was a client).
I never gave up hope that I would find her and continued to run at full capacity. Luckily I had some power gel and gatorade "refill stations" or I would have seriously passed out. deducting my 15 minutes in line for the bathroom, I ran the 13.1 in 1:45. I sped up at the end like I had something to prove and crossed the finish line just as the first marathoners were crossing. It turned out that my sister stopped and waited for me not to far from the bathrooms and also stopped 2 more times for fifteen minutes to see if she could find me. All the while I'm running 8 miles an hour away from her. So that was kind of a bummer, but I did get to run at full capacity which was really nice to see what I really had in me. Now I have a sweet mesh shirt and a metal to commemorate the occasion and have "the bug" as Justin calls it. I want to run races all the time. Aside from the dozens of people puking on the sides of the road that people pass by like their homeless, it's pretty communal and uplifting and I highly reccommend it.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
I love words
glory hole
"a drawer or place where things are heaped together in a disorderly manner," 1825, the first element probably a variant of Scot. glaur "to make muddy" (c.1450), perhaps from O.N. leir "mud."
I can stay on the etymology dictionary website for hours and hours. Words which have their roots in words which have absolutely nothing in common with the initial one. Idioms that people spout off that they have no idea that, contextually, what they are saying doesn't make any sense at all. Like, "what's good for the goose is good for the gander", originally some sort of proverb about the equality of men and women. I have never heard anyone use it in a way that makes any sense. Then there are the very appropriate ones like your everyday "six of one...", "to the tune of", and so on and so forth (hey there's another!). It makes nerdily excited. Like "bedlem" was originally a mental hospsital in London which they shortened to just Bethleham, then Bethlam, which the British with their mumbling ways pronounced bedlam. This is all I have to offer from my degree, but it makes me pretty darn excited. Oh the glory hole that is the English Language.
"a drawer or place where things are heaped together in a disorderly manner," 1825, the first element probably a variant of Scot. glaur "to make muddy" (c.1450), perhaps from O.N. leir "mud."
I can stay on the etymology dictionary website for hours and hours. Words which have their roots in words which have absolutely nothing in common with the initial one. Idioms that people spout off that they have no idea that, contextually, what they are saying doesn't make any sense at all. Like, "what's good for the goose is good for the gander", originally some sort of proverb about the equality of men and women. I have never heard anyone use it in a way that makes any sense. Then there are the very appropriate ones like your everyday "six of one...", "to the tune of", and so on and so forth (hey there's another!). It makes nerdily excited. Like "bedlem" was originally a mental hospsital in London which they shortened to just Bethleham, then Bethlam, which the British with their mumbling ways pronounced bedlam. This is all I have to offer from my degree, but it makes me pretty darn excited. Oh the glory hole that is the English Language.
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