feeling:
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the archive:
summer '00 & earlier
sept & oct '00
nov & dec '00
jan & feb '01
reading: in our time: memoir of a revolution by susan brownmiller
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stuff i kinda want:
at amazon
me: heh.
stuff i've written
bar reviews
betty lennox
celeb hair
brand new!
cosmetic surgery
diet do's & don'ts
fall makeup
foreign service?
gay parents
holiday gifts
letter to christina
missing kids
myths about africa
oscar beauty & fashion
sleeping kids
taj mcwilliams
past polls
offensive writer? (11.28.00)
does heart rock? (8.16.00)
orgasmic experience? (8.11.00)
joe + al? (8.9.00)
Friday, March 30, 2001
6:52 pm can we talk for a moment about hatred? Okay, that was all I wanted to say. [via catherine]. On a related note, I don't think that working as bush's EPA administrator is going to be good for christie whitman's career. I mean, under this administration, you basically have to accept the fact that your department doesn't matter whatsoever and that you're going to have to take some really stupid, anti-environment stances. So ridiculous.
of course, I'm all for protesting starbucks, but man, I do love my cheese. So how do I reconcile this movement that's anti-starbucks and anti-dairy? I mean, I do kind of support the theory that bovine growth hormones are bad for humans (no, I'm not going to say "I don't want to be part of a system that's cruel to dairy cows." Come on, people. I eat meat and grew up in prime cow-tipping country…), but would I give up cheese because it might have come from a cow that was injected with a growth hormone that could give me cancer? Probably not (after all, i do eat sweet'n'low). But, honestly, I think there's very, very little that could make me give up cheese. That stuff is practically my life's staple. People around the world count on rice, pasta, corn meal, and bread. Me, I'm all about cheese. And I don't think that's going to change any time soon, really. Unless, that is, cheese substitutes get to be better tasting. I mean, have you ever had rice cheese or veggie cheese? Both are horrendous. They're nasty, plastic-y tasting and feeling substances that seem ten times less organic and more cancer-causing simply based on texture than any bovine product could ever be. So there's my challenge to the anti-dairy movement: make me some better un-cheese and maybe I'll join you in your protest.
I want to know why conversational internet writing is given such a bad rap in this article. yes, I'm taking it personally. But really, if anything, my writing here only inspires me to do more writing on my own.
[tangent: and what's all this bullshit about "handwriting"? who friggin writes with their hands these days? only old people who are afraid of computers, damn it. no, i take that back, i do do it sometimes, but only in a journal-y, scribbling kind of way. okay, end of tangent.]
But, you'll probably never see most of that since it's actually stuff that's much more personal than what I write here, including my new thing, a thing that resembles poetry, but please don't make me call it that. And really, that's stuff that I'm totally uncomfortable showing anyone because I'm so not practiced at it and I have a serious fear that in anyone else's mind it'll seem cheesy. And it probably is. But it expresses exactly what I feel, so, hey, fine, call me cheesy.
Oh....maybe this is whom people are searching for when they type in "rachel weiss nude." that would probably make a lot more sense than searching for nude images of the rachel weiss I had mentioned who is simply an ironminds writer. yeah, those people into porn aren't such good spellers. That's funny, though.
Ah, yet another way that people use the bible for their own nasty purposes: in some people's eyes, it sanctions child abuse.
Thursday, March 29, 2001
6:15 pm man, are my triceps sore. I joined crunch the other night with dearest haggie and, though I didn't do an incredible amount, I definitely did some serious lifting of weights, which I haven't really done in a while. Despite this pain, which I actually relish, I am going to go to the gym tonight for a kickboxing class, the main reason I joined. After all, I was quickly reminded how much I detest the treadmill when I jumped on one the other night. 2 miles was all I could do and it had to be done at a very low incline at a very quick pace. I just can't stand it. I instantly get into kick-ass workout mode. There's no enjoyment or leisurely thinking involved when I'm on one of those things. Partly, I think, because there's nothing of beauty to distract me and also I feel totally out of control. I can't pick up the pace by just moving my legs faster, nor can I just slow down for a minute without having to poke at a button like a friggin microwaveable dish (what?). outside I am free as a bird. Or a gazelle, which I guess would be the more appropriate simile, even if it does sound incredibly cheesy.
I just love working with people who are constantly working against me. love that. And ya know what, I don't care if it's your goddamned birthday - if you're gonna be pissy to me 364 days out of the year, don't expect me to be nice to you just because it's the anniversary of your birth. Puh-lease.
Christina aguilera proves yet again how much better of a pop star she is than britney by signing a contract with coke - not pepsi. Duh, obvious choice there, brit. Who the hell drinks pepsi? Freak.
I know I'm a bit slow to raise these points but steve martin had some really good jokes at the oscars, including:
"I saw the trailer to Dude, Where's My Car? and it ruined it for me. Maybe that's not fair, because I had read the book."
and
"Maybe critics are right; maybe Hollywood movies are too violent. I took a 9-year-old kid to see Gladiator, and he cried through the entire film. Now, maybe that's because he didn't know who I was."
Oh, ha ha. I also really loved when steve martin said that they had found out who was behind the whole russell crowe kidnapping plot and that tom hanks should be ashamed - and then tom looked all sheepish. So cute.
Last night, while out with holly, catherine, vanessa, and staci at xth (which, it turns out, is actually a gay bar, though we've been going there once in a while for about a year and had no idea until citysearch made us aware of the fact yesterday), a very interesting discussion came about as the result of Friday's posting here on linnea's pita. the most interesting and, of course, highly disputable bit of argument came from catherine who claimed, rather rudely if I don't say so myself, that I will never be famous. Well. But, anyway, the conversation became much more intellectually stimulating when some of those present began insisting that being a celebrity is completely different from being famous. And that being someone who does something big that a lot of people know about is not to be famous but to be "a leader." Right. So, in order to show everyone how crazy this theory is, I was going to post a little poll, a feature I have not had in a while, as you'll see from the archived ones to the left. but, silly internationalvoting.com is apparently having problems and every time I try to create a poll it gives me error messages. Well, damn you all. I know who's right.
Tuesday, March 27, 2001
5:50 pm ha: i am psychic, i know it. okay, no, i'm not but sometimes i just know exactly what should happen and then sometimes it does. for instance, i was listening to the old 97s' "big brown eyes" and thinking, god, woe is fucking me, this is so my life, wah wah wah. and then the phone rang. and if you know the song, you know the line i'm talking about. yeah, so, the woe is me feeling has expired.
i'm sorry i've been so damn lame about news linkage lately. i think it partly has to do with my outright annoyance and resultant apathy towards the current administration. i think also it has to do with the lack of interesting news. i mean, i could sit here and link to school shooting articles every week but hey, then we'd all be seriously depressed.
on that topic, this past sunday i went for a really long run in prospect park and i had a little meeting with myself. i raised the point that it's very interesting how times have really changed for adolescents in a number of ways, but specifically in the way that they express their angst. i mean, i grew up in the era of 'heathers,' when the ultimate in teen self-expression was suicide. [serious sidebar: what??? there's a 'heathers 2' coming out this year???] and, no doubt, if you saw last night's episode of 'boston public,' [my first time, thanks -- not bad] it's still a big issue and (if their stats are correct) the third leading cause of teen death. but now the bigger thing is homicide, and in numbers. (it gives me chills to hear the phrase "in this age of columbine" uttered.) and i refuse to believe that it's simply because guns have become more accessible, because i really don't think that's true. the other i asked myself, "but what has changed in the american adolescent mentality that makes it more satisfying to kill others than to kill oneself?" i agreed with myself that, of course, this is a very long conversation with plenty of points and sidebars, but the meeting continued nonetheless, over the 12 miles that i covered, pondering the growing outwardly-focused anger and hostility of the country's youth -- and, really, when it comes down to it, entire population -- and wondering where it was all going to end up, when people were going to calm their shit down, tend to their ailing spoiled children's psyches, and stop all the madness. not that i really have any solutions but i'll work on it. and that's basically how the meeting ended. oh, no, i take that back, the meeting ended when a very disgusting bike-rider thought it would be fun to start soliciting me for sex from the side of road as i ran along. and then i yelled at him and he swore at me and followed me for a very fast-paced and scary two minutes and by the time i got home, i had looked behind myself about 10 times and my heart was racing and not just because i'd been running for an hour and a half.
on a happier note, i wish i actually followed women's college ball, because, well, i argue a pretty good case for why it rocks. but, no, i don't watch. i'm just lazy, i guess. but, uh, go uconn.
jen, hurry back from dallas, baby! i miss you.
Friday, March 23, 2001
6:50 pm this debate about what to do with old journals is so new to me. after all, burning my journals has never crossed my mind. I mean, what's to hide? What have these women done that is so embarrassing and awful that they would never, ever want anyone to know about it much less read it years later? Did they kill someone? sleep with their sister's husband? Embezzle money from their company? I mean, god, if you're willing to do that stuff, wouldn't you just keep it locked up inside? I mean, denial is a fine tool. But, for me, I haven't committed anything I find particularly heinous, or even that I wouldn't tell anyone about. I suppose that's why I keep this thing.
but the larger point here is that, not only do i not not want people to read my journals someday, but i actually on occasion entertain the notion that they will read them with such heightened interest and concentrated analysis, since, after all, i will be famous, that entire books will be written and hours-long lectures will be given that strive to dissect the intricate details of my life, actions, words, relationships, and blogs. ah, yes, now we're talking delusions. but you know what i mean, right? sure you do. who hasn't firmly believed at some point in their life that they were going to be famous?
but really, here's my concern: the day will come when i must finally give up the belief that i ever will be famous. what do you do when that happens? and when am i likely to hit that point? i honestly believe that i will hold out hope for this til the day i die. but still, even then, as i pass on into the next plane, i think i'll be pretty damn sure that my earthly fame will come posthumously. you think i'm joking? oh no. call me egotistical but these are real beliefs, man. and you can't tell me that you don't think that it could happen to you -- that you could be the next big thing -- with just a blink of the eye, even if you have no interest whatsoever in being a celebrity. really. aren't we all worthy of a little exposure? of course. if you didn't believe that you were cool enough for lots of people to know about you then what the hell is the point of living?
2:10 pm so, I still have not gotten the new dave matthews album. and, ironically, this interesting though extremely negative review of it makes me want it more. Simply to dissect and ponder and critique. I wish, though, that this writer would explain his views on britney and how she does what she does so well. I think that would be some good food for thought.
Thursday, March 22, 2001
5:50 pm yeah, so bit of a redesign. I think I like it better this way even if it's kind of lopsided. I mean, look at all that good stuff, so appropriately divided now. And even a photo of me, hidden, well, kind of.
woo hoo! Here's news for someone who never checks my site but who should hear about this stuff because he'll laugh: 1) Journey to tour with frampton! Try not to be too sad but they will be without the illustrious steve perry. 2) sammy hagar to write his autobiography!
yeah, agreed: down with cell phones on the subway!
call me a big dork but I really, really love it when new but very, very old human bones are found that suddenly throw the archaeology and anthropology worlds for a spin. I just love that stuff. Just when they think that they have some definitive theory of where we all came from, how we all migrated, how the different species competed or toppled each other or whatever - wah bam - some other bone fragment/skull/skeleton/evidence of civilization/whatever is found and they're back to the friggin drawing board. And it's funny that this has happened today because just yesterday I was thinking about how much I miss anthropology and all those studies and investigations into the cultures of different communities. Maybe, holly, this is my new career that will allow me to travel the world. I should look into that. (yeah, I do remember saying I was definitely going to go back to school for media studies just a few months ago, yeah, I remember.)
had a great run in the mist this morning in central park. Yay. Oh, CP, how I've missed you. Prospect park is just not the same. It just has a darker and drier feeling, even if it too has bodies of water. Central park is just moist and green and lush, even in winter. It's so refreshing. And it's nice to see all the runners out there with me, even if I did bitch a lot about the overwhelming number of people in the park a while back. in PP, it's a much smaller and much less serious-seeming group. But there are so many dogs there, too, which is a nice and different touch. Anyway, I'm looking forward to more running in both parks as I'm finally completely injury free (okay, I do feel a twinge now and then, but only when I run, as opposed to before when it hurt even while I was laying down) and am trying to sign up for more races and get more people to run with me and maybe even work up to training for a marathon somewhere good. (nyc dissed me last year, I have no loyalty now, damn it!)
Wednesday, March 21, 2001
1:10 pm it's too bad that this article about why girls and boys cling to gender roles when they're little isn't longer. First of all because I love talking and thinking about this stuff, but second of all because the end is where her real argument is, as opposed to the beginning and middle where, it seems, just for the sheer controversy of it, the editor has decided to place the focus on her thought that it makes sense that girls and boys would act differently because of some kind of cave-man-instinctiveness. And that's both annoying and not actually what she's saying.
I've been withholding the announcement, but here we go: I'm completely enmeshed in the wonder of The Sopranos. The two-hour season premiere got me hooked, but I thought I could take a step back, no problem. And so I did - totally missed the next week's episode. But when I watched it this past Sunday, whoa. Yeah, I'm so there. By which I mean VCR allegiance - something I have not had since the early years of The Real World - not even for Survivor, man, though I was tempted. Oh, poor dr. melfi. That was traumatic tv-viewing. All too real. God, that guy was so much bigger than she. She was so helpless-looking. I felt violated. Anyway, because of my interest, and because of my psychology background, I'm so enjoying this (though highly jargon-y) exchange between real-life therapists about tony and dr. melfi.
Wonderful: roman catholic priests are raping nuns around the world. What hell on earth. Great quote: "celibacy in the African context means a priest does not get married, but does not mean he does not have children."
Also depressing: new AIDS stats for south africa. Sure, 4.7 million infected isn't even close to an epidemic. Sure.
So, yeah, no drinking for me for awhile. The hiatus is now in effect. We'll see how it goes. I have a feeling it will somewhat hurt my social schedule - which, to be honest, could use a break - but will definitely help my health. But somehow I'm actually feeling worse for it already. Or maybe that's just my general feeling today. I had a terrible run this morning. Just felt awful. I can't remember the last time that happened to me. and I started feeling crappy even before I thought I saw my crazy jersey city roommate, which kind of just made me laugh because the woman looked like such an incredible wacko. Anyway, these feelings of displeasure, especially when doing my most favorite activity in the world, are highly suspicious.
This poor woman: will her international saga never end? I swear though, I could see something similar happening to me someday. Ugh. Knock on wood that it won't.
Monday, March 19, 2001
4:45 pm i have no motivation to work today. it's really bad. it's just so nice out, all i can do is fuck around and do stuff like create my wishlist on amazon, write emails, listen to the old 97s, and try to plan which road races i'm going to do in the next two months. but it's okay because my boss is out today....
i've decided that my former roommate -- the lease-holding one, that is, although probably the other one too -- put a curse on me. or at least on the stuff she gave/sold to me when she left for london. not that i deserve any more grief from this girl regardless of anything i could ever say or do (please consider the whole bug catastrophe and urgency to move issue).
case in point #1: the stereo i bought off of her, which was a mere 4 months old, stopped working after kidnapping and swallowing my salt-n-pepa's "very necessary" CD. granted, it could have been a more karmic form of punishment for giving into my urges to hear "whatta man" and "shoop" (which will forever remind me of playing basketball in high school), but i prefer to lay blame elsewhere, e.g. on her.
case in point #2: friday night i hosted a little gathering of friends (it was supposed to have been bigger but that's what happens when some people back out at the last minute -- not that i'm bitter). i was all excited because i had recently acquired a fondue pot from the former roommate. i made the fondue. we were eating it. it was yummy, if i don't say so myself. we (ker, omar, jen, me) were chatting. suddenly there was this cracking sound. we all looked at the ceramic pot holding the fondue over the little sterno can'o'heat (it's really called that). it had cracked right in half, but remained intact only because the burnt cheese on the bottom was acting as a kind of glue patch. later, despite kerry's insistence that i could probably fix it with crazy glue (?!), i had to throw it out. i was bummed.
case in point #3: okay, so this is not such a strong example, but she gave me two sets of brand-new white mugs and a set of brand-new tumblers. when i opened the tumblers, there were only 2 in there instead of 4. what the hell? now we have 2 glasses total in my apartment (not counting the 8 margarita glasses). and there are 3 people who live there. this being directly contrasting with mike's apartment, where there are at least 16 glasses and just 1 person who always uses the same 1 glass. anyway, looks like i'll be drinking out of margarita glasses for awhile. yeah, that's cute. clearly she was hoping to make me look like an alcoholic. and to quote "clue," one very, very fine movie which was just on yesterday, "i don't need any help from you!"
12:50 pm ever freak out because you suddenly realized that you left a candle burning or you left the iron or the coffee maker on or something like that? Thank god I have a roommate who leaves after I do and it was burning in a common space because I think the former is true. Eek. That scares me.
Friday, March 16, 2001
6:20 pm yay for all the amazing people I've become close to in the past few months. And no, that doesn't include the shitty leering losers jen, hagar, and I came across last night. Ugh. I won't get into it, but, apparently unlike betsy, I actually seem to think that I am a big hulking person who can kick the shit out of any big hulking irishman who thinks it's funny to remind women that you don't have a choice about whether or not you want to have sex if a forceful man is on top of you (yeah, that would be called rape). Anyway, I can run my mouth of with the best of them. I seriously almost stepped to this guy but fortunately I hadn't had that much to drink at that point.
speaking of drinking, I'm thinking that after st. patrick's day, it's about time I take a hiatus from my liquor-loving ways. I'm thinking maybe for like a month. I wonder if I can pull that off. Or maybe it'd be more reasonable to limit my intake to one night a week. Or just two. Hmm. Clearly need to really think about this.
bush ain't no kenny rogers by a long shot, but yep, he sure does know when to fold 'em, especially when it comes to campaign promises made concerning environmental issues. gail collins just rocks. So cynical. Love it.
so I went to the knicks game last night. Yes, they're good. Okay. but I find it very interesting that the crowd is not nearly as into it as the liberty crowds always are. And that's why I'm getting a bunch of tickets - just as soon as I get around to it….
Thursday, March 15, 2001
4:50 pm okay, everyone is fucking crazy today. and it's not even a full moon, kids. Everyone's all running around, being hyper, jumping, yelling, expounding, whatever. Catherine's linking to chainsaw-included eminem dolls and recommending a kim doll with slashed wrists. I'm writing fake dream decoder definitions as they relate to lifetime themes and talking about psychotic travel experiences. My mom is all hyper and spazzy on the phone. mike's blowing off a knicks game - with me no less. What? Kooks. All of us. one thing's for sure: if yesterday was a dylan day, today is so a classic heart day. but i think that correlation probably makes no sense to anyone but me.
fortunately, dan called me to tell me about his "life-changing" trip to asia. That calmed me down for a bit. I'm so glad he had such a good time. he sounds so peaceful and zen. And yay, he'll be bringing that energy my way in 8 days! Woo hoo!
how damn funny is betsy's little brother andy? Love his "fun with possible captions" feature! Check out his journal too. Having never even met him, I still find it all very laugh-worthy. I have a strong appreciation for people who make statements such as "you can't blame those lovable scamps, by which I mean fucking assholes" and "They didn't bring me back any presents, so I'm afraid I can no longer consider them friends, but am reluctantly forced to demote them to mere hanger-ons."
speaking of bush, "concerned" my ass. He has no clue what the hell is going on. He just doesn't want people to think it's his fault. Besides, he's looking forward to that big tax cut of his.
kempa makes me laugh out loud and smile tons with his pee-wee herman obsession. Also, love that fan email like no other I have ever read - and I've read too many here at my job (can you say goldengirls4ever?). reminded me of how I used to watch pee-wee's playhouse fanatically when I was younger - it was absolutely my favorite show, hands down. Ah, the word of the day. I need to bring that to my life. Tell friends what it is. Tell coworkers. Have everyone yell whenever it was said, no matter where you were. Now that, that would be excellent. And all those great, totally everyday-applicable quotes from "pee-wee's big adventure"? "I don't make monkeys, i just train 'em" … "I'm a loner dottie, a rebel..." … "Its not for sale FRANCES!!!" … "yeah, but..." "Let's talk about your big but...Simone." ah. I really need to watch that movie soon. "the stars at night, are big and bright!" sing it.
well, I warned you I was being a wacko today.
I don't believe that all people work and study less well when music is playing in the background. I definitely work better. Some people don't. I just happen to be a multi-tasker when it comes to sensory stimulation, thanks.
Moby says he wishes his contemporaries would take more risks with their music but also that he thinks his album doing well is just a fluke. Is that the tinkling of laughter I hear somewhere out there? Oh stop. Give the guy a chance.
I don't see how not declaring AIDS a national epidemic will help south africa. If mbeki would, then they'd get a shitload of drugs. But he says that they needn't make such a declaration because the overwhelming infection rate - 20 percent of all adults - speaks for itself. What? Is he saying that other countries should naturally be sending discounted and generic drugs to south africa because the situation is so bad? Okay. True. But they're not. So ya do something about it. such as declare AIDS a national epidemic. But he won't. because the numbers speak for themselves. there's some faulty logic in there somewhere.
I didn't really know that south africa was going through the same issues with farmland as zimbabwe and dealing with protests as the white farmers are forced to sell their land to the government so it can be redistributed to those it was taken from pre-apartheid. Huh. So interesting. I really need to go there. Takers? Jen???
Wednesday, March 14, 2001
2:45 pm Also enough to make me cry: our quarterly meeting, which I just got back from. My god. Can we talk about tear-jerking movie and tv clips as well as emotional outpourings about helping women, stopping violence, making a difference, blah blah blah? I guess that's what you get when you work at the network for women.
12:15 pm and on that note, i ponder this verse:
You lose yourself, you reappear
you suddenly find you've got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
when a trembling distant voice unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
somebody thinks they really found you
--bob dylan, "it's all right ma (i'm only bleeding)"
nearly enough to make me cry today.
11:40 am I've been that girl in the past - the girl with so many issues - troubles - that just needs some sorting out and protecting and saving - even more than loving. I don't want to be that girl again. I'm just not her now. Sure, I've got problems, but I no longer think that someone else can make them all okay. I've come to realize that I'm the solver of my own issues. I have to be. Lovers can make you feel better and at home in the world, but they shouldn't patch things up for you or else the problems will persist. It's not that I don't trust anyone else with my problems or my secrets - quite the opposite. I just know that I need to take charge of my life or the inner turmoil will remain, I will continue to dwell, there will be no real closure. I know I've disappointed people in the past by not being able to hand off my problems to them so they can save the day, but there's nothing I can do about it now. I'm just not that girl.
Maybe that's why I kind of feel innately that I'll always stand alone. Because so many people just want to be the solution, the key, the savior. I don't want that. I just want someone to hold my hand who loves me and trusts that I'm going to tackle the problems in my life, I just need them by my side, just supporting me. How is that more to ask than anything else? I don't know. But I think it is.
On the screw bush front: 1) Too many stupid people in this country make for a 60 percent approval rating despite 54 percent thinking our country is going in the wrong direction. 2) Surprise, surprise: bush reverses his campaign position on decreasing power plant emissions. 3) and, from slate, reasons why the north should secede from the union - namely, "although Texas Gov. George W. Bush lost the U.S. popular vote by 500,000, he won the old Confederacy by a resounding 3.1 million votes." right.
wow. Maybe coca cola executives do have a soul. This is kind of a cool article about how they're changing their school campaigns since soda does cause obesity and tooth decay and is much worse for kids than juice. Huh. Sometimes big businesses surprise me. not often, but just now, yes.
Tuesday, March 13, 2001
1:45 pm okay, who's willing to admit that they love "popstars" just as much as jen and I do? Hmm? Of course, this is not to say that I am actually a fan of eden's crush, but I'm totally entranced by the show and find myself getting that stupid "get over yourself" song in my head way too often. And no, I will not buy their album. but it's great entertainment, that show.
it would be so funny and appropriate if bill clinton became nyc's mayor. i yearn for the day.
on the other hand, it would be just plain stupid and ridiculous if arnold schwarzenegger decided to run for governor of california. And I'm not just saying that because he's a scarily conservative republican who should not be consulted about anything other than the "terminator" film series. Can't you hear it now? He gets defeated and as he walks away he laments, "aaahhhll be baaahhhk." Ugh. so cliche.
how friggin idiotic does that accidental bombing by our military of our own soldiers in kuwait make the u.s. look? Extremely. How sad.
hey, jack tripper lets it all out - and apparently he has been since "three's company" originally aired. Great stuff. My only thing is, who the hell is the guy who's sitting around recording and replaying in slow-mo every episode of "three's company"? hey, bored guy. what's up?
Monday, March 12, 2001
6:20 pm oh, I could do this for hours: plug in your last name and find out the distribution of people with that surname within the 50 United States. Apparently my family's name is more common in utah and nebraska than anywhere else in the u.s. huh. But woo hoo, if you look closely you'll see that my family provides a stronghold in nj, as do my cousins in ohio and some other people that I'm sure I'd love if I met in massachusetts and rhode island. [via jejune]
1:30 pm what the hell? No holly and no hagar at work today = no fun for me. this sucks. What the hell am I supposed to do? Work? What?
i'm so psyched to finally have some furniture in my apartment. my parents were so kind as to drive in yesterday and deposit all this stuff i had somehow suddenly collected and now, instead of just a couch and a tv, we have a dark wood table, 6 matching chairs, an amazing platform rocker with red-on-yellow upholstery, a coffee table, two end tables, two tall lamps, and a big tv. plus other great stuff too. i can't believe i own all this. who knew? especially perfect to impress the soon-to-be new roommate who moves in at the end of the month. my fabulous other roommate, jen (welcome to the pita, jen dear), and i are quite psyched because she seems very together and yet also quite cool and laid-back. just what we need.
new city rocks. Today there's this very interesting article on native americans who were used as "code talkers" in various wars. Plus, some other intriguing articles on how bongs are illegal and shakespeare probably did a lot of drugs.
apparently, the new old 97s album will come with a six-song bonus disc including 5 live tracks (namely, "Barrier Reef," "Valentine," "Nineteen," "Victoria," and "Timebomb") and 1 never-before-released studio track ("Singular Girl"). How bout that.
I haven't yet read the harry potter series, but I heard about these little additional books this morning on the today show and they sound so cute. Maybe I'll just read them. After all, it's all for charity and I am kind of half-heartedly resisting this harry craze.
Oh my god. How messed up is this PETA commercial that features cats getting it on? I'm bummed I haven't seen this on TV. Rob walker at slate finds it offensive and wonders who the heck this commercial is aimed at ("Who will find the ad funny? Mostly teen-agers? And are they likely to get their cats fixed as a result?") but I think it accomplishes some things for me: it made me giggle, it made me think about cats procreating like rabbits, it made me turned off by that image, and it made me realize that those PETA folks - shocking as it may sound - may actually have a sense of humor. Whoa. No doubt they're all still kooks though, if not more so than I'd previously thought.
so weird that i would randomly run into amherst folk at what jen and i have dubbed our bar [side note: the woman who wrote this review is clearly not of my vibe. "When is the last time you left the house hoping you'd get to hear an entire side of Led Zeppelin IV at some point in the evening?" she asks. very recently, actually. what's your point?] first of all, i only rarely see people from amherst, which is not something you'll find me crying about. but then there they were, walking into our bar in our neighborhood with this big crowd. fortunately they were pretty benign individuals, but i cringed to think of other potential park slope dwellers that i went to school with who aren't nearly as harmless and who i haven't yet run into. good thing jen and i made friends with the sunday-monday-thursday bar tender, who is one of the straightest looking gay guys i've ever met.
Friday, March 9, 2001
6:30 pm I find this thread on metafilter about "elite unit headgear" very amusing, even if it's not really breaking news.
Yes, it's all happy-happy news on the pita today. (ker, turn away.)
You may have thought that pennsylvania was backward before today, but now you know: the aryan nation settles there in a resurrection of the "last outpost" commune, formerly safely distanced from all of us normal folk way out in idaho. According to the article, "the racists are more centrally located to eliminate targets they see as potential threats"-specifically, now they can be in buffalo or nyc in six hours. Oh good.
Damn. Remember that kid that was in court for killing that 6-year-old girl by putting pro-wrestling-type moves on her? Well, he's 14 and he just got life in prison. shall I say it again? Yes, I shall. florida is one fucked-up state.
I wonder how the hell you even go about trying to account for a mistress on your tax forms. Also, I'd like to think that I too could "live modestly" on $430,000 a year; after all, I practically spend my entire salary as it is, so keeping it that way would mean that I wouldn't even spend 10 percent of that, so I think I'd be all good. Yep.
I have really big issues with christina hoff sommers. namely,
1) Quite the opposite from what she says in this salon article, susan harter did find gender differences in self-esteem between pre- and early-teen boys and girls when compared with their childhood counterparts. That's why she has a gender esteem test named after her.
2) She says of carol gilligan, "She claims that girls suffer a precipitous loss of self-esteem in adolescence, but no one has been able to corroborate this." what do you mean, no one? You go to any junior high and you talk to girls and you listen to how, for way too many of them, one second they're outspoken and sassy and into math and science and the next they're bashful and giggly and can't kick a ball or solve an equation to save their lives. How is field data not evidence?
3) Not to say that boys aren't failing in our schools either - they definitely are getting left behind. But do not discredit what girls go through, man. what happens to them comes earlier, hits hard (not to say harder necessarily though), and is socially and academically crippling. I've seen it in action and I've seen its casualties. (Not to mention the fact that I wrote a 120 page thesis related to the topic, but hey.)
4) and I have no idea how she can say that gender research would be "anti-male," since gender, by definition, is not exclusive to femaleness. If she has any awareness about the pattern of collegiate studies in this field now, she would know that male studies is an area that's building strength. No doubt she's contributing to that, which is great, but why need she bash the other side of the effort? So stupid.
5) I find it amusing that she would say that the women she comes in contact with are all outspoken and brassy. Right. Because she teaches friggin women's studies at the college level, so a) anyone going into women's studies already has a tremendous awareness of gender self-esteem and the women's movement and b) hello, anyone making it to college has already overcome the barriers associated with pre-teen academic and social struggling.
6) how can she be so idiotic as to compare gilligan's research and reasoning to astrology? Come on.
7) you want to talk about over-generalizing, as she accuses gilligan of doing? sommers claims that college men are facing an incredible and harmful onslaught of male-bashing women's studies rhetoric -- though "Most girls do not accept this gender warrior ideology, but a few do." right. to say that it's this huge movement then would be a totally false overgeneralization if only "a few" do it. right.
okay, whatever, man. while I agree that we needn't grind into girls the idea that they will become weak and stupid at the dawn of age 13 - like friggin cinderella at the stroke of midnight - we also needn't discount girls' experiences of this really happening. You can argue against talking about gender issues from the shrinking girl's perspective all you want, but you're just in denial. Period.
then again, maybe she's right. Maybe teen girls today aren't suffering from lack of self-esteem at all. Actually, they're so confident that they feel the need to shoot girls who won't be their friends. yep, that one in PA sounds really sassy (you know, despondent, a loner, made fun of, etc.).
mbeki, the pres of south africa, may be a little wacky with all his AIDs theories, but at least he's not mugabe. Maybe he'll talk some sense into the man. but I wonder how all that works out. After all, mbeki is mfengu and of basotho heritage, which is to say that he's more associated with the ndebele people - whom mugabe's party takes great pleasure in diverting resources from in zimbabwe - than he is with the shona - which mugabe is. Hmm. maybe they'll let me sit in on the meeting. rachel swarns, where are you when i need your press pass?
are the spice girls really still together? I had no idea. And now of course to hear that they are as I find out that mel c (aka sporty spice) is leaving the group is just so sad. (fortunately, she assures us, she'll "always be a spice girl." yeah, baby, me, too.) Did you know she's actually playing at irving plaza soon? Get yer tix, kids.
Thursday, March 8, 2001
1:20 pm Okay, okay: dave matthews is getting chubby and unattractive, maybe even cherubic. In the elevator today, a not-so-un-collegiate-looking guy was listening excessively loudly to what was obviously dmb. I asked him which album it was and he said inexplicably that it was the stuff that didn't end up on the most recent album but that I should "totally" get the new album because it was "awesome." Mmmm-kay…. Anyway, some people may be slightly more interested in hearing the new album when they hear that its tunes are apparently "all over the musical map." I think I have to give in and just buy it out of curiosity's sake, even if this review, quite contradictory to the previous run-down, says that it "reeks of expectedness - but the kind of expectedness of a favorite restaurant that's always worth revisiting." Hmm. Yes and no. I withhold judgement for now. But please email me if you've heard the whole album and either love or hate it. and no, it doesn't count if you've only heard one track and already told me that you hated it. thanks.
great: girls enter the school shooting arena. of course, what they mean is that this is the first white suburban girl school shooting, right? Isn't that what they always mean when this topic comes up?
Tuesday, March 6, 2001
7:30 pm even though i really don't have time for a full update, i just wanted to check in with ya, see how you're doing. you okay? ya sure? good, good. me, too busy. too much work. too much thinking about work. yes, already, i know it's only tuesday. get over it, right? right.
true stories:
i chopped my hair on saturday and then bought the coolest chair ever seen by human eyes.
while in prospect park on sunday, i saw a man running (i mean, a runner) while holding an umbrella.
i am about to meet the woman whom i swear to be the future wife of my dearest guy friend in all of nyc.
i just wrote a 264 word email to someone who i've known for exactly 60 days. he responded with 14 words.
i've bought 22 cds in the past four or five weeks--definitely a record for me.
Thursday, March 1, 2001
11:40 am oh, fabulous. Just what we need in this country - more people.
camille paglia apparently despises eve ensler and her confiscating of valentine's day for v-day and the vagina monologues. I wonder, has she ever been to a VM show, really? if so, she'd know that it's not all about old women finally noticing they have vaginas. Maybe she sees it as "supposedly naughty" because she's got more of a european mindset, but hello, people don't' talk about that stuff, at least not in the puritanical america I grew up in. I've had conversations with women about how, instead of actually finding out and thinking about what was down there, they'd always pictured a piece of furniture at that place on their body. I found the VM skit that focused on this very idea laughable until I heard this very view from a friend of mine who'd never even seen the show. I mean, I just can't imagine that and just not knowing. But maybe I'm just a natural born explorer….
anyway, the point of eve's confiscating of valentine's day to bring up violence against women is not to make "the one holiday celebrating romantic harmony between the sexes, into a grisly memento mori of violence against women," as paglia says, but rather to start talking about what women really want and what they really need - and it's not fucking chocolates and flowers, darling.
on that note, a very interesting article on the word "pussy" from salon [thanks, chris]. I've actually been noticing the use of this word around me more and more since seeing "the vagina monologues," and I've been feeling the very same way as the author: Why is it used to mean wimp? As jane fonda says, "You can't talk about vaginas and not talk about this remarkable ability they have to give birth. It's awesome." Right? Pussies do amazingly difficult things. Also, if you've ever been in the, um, presence of one, you'd know that they're very strong and not wimpy whatsoever. Sure, the word is meant to mean something along the lines of "take off the skirt, you wuss," but, man, don't put down the pussy. It'll kick your ass. Maybe I too will start using it as a compliment: "great job! You're such a pussy!"
did anyone watch bush's speech to congress the other night? Oh, make me gag. I could only stomach a few seconds of it because whenever I did tune in, he was getting a standing ovation which he (isn't it obvious to these people?) didn't deserve. I swear, so little is expected of this man because he's such a friggin imbecile that when he manages to get out a few words in carefully scripted speeches without fucking them up tremendously, republicans and idiots (sorry, that's redundant…) scream their praise. God, so sick. And all he could do was nod and smile. Clinton at least was a great speaker. This man is not. Shut up and politely clap but cut the crap. His plan is bad for this country and so is he. Read: no more standing ovations, people.
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