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what have i got to say today? Monday, October 30, 2000 4:15 pm i just received the new york times' "campaign countdown" email and within it was a very funny statement. let me share it with you briefly from my seat here in yet another oh-so-enlightening html class. George W. Bush campaigns in California and tapes an appearance on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Jon Bon Jovi and Hadassah and Joe Lieberman join the Gores in Wisconsin for day 2 of the Great Lakes tour. You know the race is down to the wire when political heavyweights like Jon Bon Jovi and Bo Derek are being called to stump for the presidential candidates -- never underestimate the importance of the votes of Jersey mall girls and people who own a VHS copy of the movie, "10." heh heh. how scary is it that bush is leading by 9 points in some polls right now? it's really getting me worried. but, as a matter of fact, i'm actually more worried that it's almost november 7th. i mean, damn, does time fly. what the hell have i done since august? uh, what have i done since last november? i feel like i'm just floating around and watching time zoom past me. i need to set some goals. i need to get organized, man. i need to get aggressive. did i ever tell you that story about the guy in the subway wearing army fatigues and talking about black men dating slutty white women and saying how he needed to "get aggressive"? scary shit. and i don't mean it that way. i just mean, damn, what the hell am i doing with my time these days? apparently not enough. i need to work on that. i'll get back to you....first i need to waste some time sitting in this HTML class ignoring the too-slow-moving lesson plan and checking my email and reading the news and updating my pita and shit. Thursday, October 26, 2000 6:30 pm okay, you want to see a wacky page? go check out mr. winkle. i swear to you, the woman who created this site (not to mention the calendar, posters, and film) based solely on her rodent-like furball of a dog is classifiable. no doubt about that, folks. a real sicko. [be sure to say that just like seinfeld's elaine.] yeh. loony. don't miss it. also took emode's new ultimate personality test. don't know if this one is quite as good as the spark's, but it is interesting nonetheless. even if it did completely mislabel me. how am i a shark? no, i don't wear prada - to the gym or elsewhere. no, i don't laugh too loud in public places on purpose, damn it. that's just unfair. i may take it again just to figure out what the hell is going on here. okay, i just did: i'm an observer now. much more appropriate. maybe the first time around i answered too harshly. like on that one question that says, "would you kill your friends if it meant getting ahead?" i mean, who wouldn't? just kidding. there really isn't a question like that. sorry to tease you, i know you're all excited to take it and prove to everyone that you're not evil....but in that case, skip the personality test (which is rather long) and head straight to the "are you evil?" test. it's quite funny. note the final question: revenge is a dish best served: a) by me, b) not at all, or c) with an appetizer of whoop-ass. ha ha! 12:15 pm yesterday's entry: heh heh. after Wednesday's hallucination that I was just going to up and take off for a visit to colorado, I paused - and thank god because my yahoo horoscope today is very cautionary: You're in control of the situation, but you may need to take a careful look at someone you love. The promise of a new home and lifestyle could be like a carrot in front of a donkey's nose. Be sure you don't spend funds you don't have. how is it that it can be so correct? It's amazing. And then there's the freewill statement about my life this week, which is also right on, as I've been saying all too often lately that I feel my psychic abilities are becoming quite refined. Do I sound like a quack? Maybe, huh? But it's so true. I'm definitely more attuned to universal matters right now. It's quite odd. I've decided it's probably a result of a) my new practice of meditating on a tarot card each morning (today's reading: you have a vision! Don't tell anyone about it!), b) taking past instincts into consideration and analyzing why I didn't listen to them, c) trusting the instincts I now have, and d) reading too many horoscopes for my own good. It's quite fun, really. Up next: learning how to read others' tarot cards. That could be even more enjoyable, not to mention possibly lucrative. on a related note, this palm reading from dating911 is quite fun. I want one! So I entered their drawing for a free reading. Now I'm going to get lots of stupid emails from them, aren't I? he he. Why dubya is really dum. [thanks holly!] still, I'm getting more and more scared everyday that he's going to win. Everywhere I turn I see signs that he will. It's terrible. Sad sad sad. I know I'm a little late in reporting this but did you hear how the japanese runner who won the olympic marathon had apparently been drinking the stomach juice of hornets? How is that legal? Aren't all performance-enhancing substances banned? I don't get this. The article says it's allowed because it's totally natural. So if someone injected themselves with, say, hormones extracted from a bull, that would be okay? I feel like the answer would be no. but maybe not. If it's not human or normal, than how is it natural, really? And what about things like gatorade - they're not considered natural, are they? Surely they are unnaturally colored. Whatever. Maybe I should read the rules before I start pontificating about the legality of substances in international athletic competitions. By the way, if you're reading this and your name is dan, call me, damn it. hell, if anyone's reading this, call me. I could use some good conversations today. Have you seen this site, amiHOTorNOT.com? hours of fun, really. But the thing that I found is that when you first start rating people, as you do on this site, you're very generous, particularly if they look somewhat like friends of yours. And then as you go along, you start getting more and more critical. I gave this sad, goth-looking girl a 4 (mostly out of sympathy) and then gave someone's decent-looking mom a 2 5 minutes later. I mean really, who's hotter? Maybe the mom. But as things progressed, I lost all sympathy. The idea of the site is kind of bizarre, though. I mean, no, I don't know that people actually do want to know what others think of how they look. And really, this isn't such an accurate judge, as, as I said, you just get more and more harsh the more people you judge. And when someone's walking down the street and sees you, they're not going to be that harsh, really. So, I guess what I'm saying is it's kind of out of context and thus not very dependable for translation to a real-world situation. I mean, friggin what's her face from james bond got a 7.2 average. 7.2??? she's clearly a 10. I cannot even imagine what I would be if she's a 7.2. and no, I do not plan to send in my photo so I can find out. So I have no reason to dress up for halloween right now, and that's okay, but if I did, I think I'd want to scramble together a costume so I could be the blond drummer, melody, from josie and the pussycats. I used to love that show and I wish it was still on because I'd definitely watch it. actually, I'd like to get a group of girls together willing to dress up as the whole band, plus alexandra. That would be quite fun. Email me if you're interested and feel you can really fit one of the parts. Wednesday, October 25, 2000 6:45pm today this outrageous thought hit me: why not just jump on a plane saturday morning at 6 am and head off to denver? why the hell not? come back tuesday, no problem. who's gonna miss me? what would the reasons against it be, really? take a few days off from work, have a little expedition, visit someone interesting...it would be perfect. so i'm getting all geared up to do it. finger almost poised on the "click here to purchase" button. i send an email to ker-dog for encouragement or chastisement. she encourages. i send an email to a friend to check that she definitely isn't coming out here. she responds saying she might be. plans are put on hold. i think, well, maybe i could still do it tomorrow...maybe tomorrow i'll have thought more about it...maybe tonight i should call the interesting person and find out if such a thing would be welcomed or not.... and then i remembered why i never do these things. i'm not spontaneous. there are too many plans circulating about me and my head to do anything at the last minute. plus, my grandmother's health, my cousin's premature baby, my job, the concern that such a trip would give to certain people (okay, maybe 1 person), blah blah blah. fucking hate responsibilities, man. and people. down with people! Monday, October 23, 2000 2:15 pm so, bit of a crazy weekend. Here's the rundown: Friday: Started off good, with a great day with my mom about the city. I was exhausted by the end of it, having run in the park, eaten lunch at the coffee shop bar, covered much of the brooklyn botanic garden, gotten tea at tealuxe by columbia, and then finally returned her to the bus station. Then I got a call from my sister and found out that my grandmother has to go in for surgery on Tuesday because her doctor found that she has a tumor. They don't know yet if it's cancerous, but of course everyone's worried. Found out that my lease-holding roommate is getting married to the british guy she met while traveling in europe back in june. Jumped up and down because I'd totally called it. ate a simple yet tasty dinner of rice and veggies. That night I slept like 10 hours. Saturday: got up and watched some cartoons, including this new and really great one called "teacher's pet." Hilarious and so damn cute. The voices of nathan lane and the mom from "that '70s show" star. Then went running and did a full loop around the park. Felt great. It was beautiful out. Hiked out to queens where I met up with catherine and went thrift shopping for a few hours. Found some quality stuff, including two just-below-the-knee-length wool skirts, a funky and cozy wool shrug, an orange, pink & brown wool scarf, and a pair of brown polyester pants. All fabulous. Catherine had some success late in the venture outfitting herself as waldo for halloween. I did not find a costume, but then I wasn't really focus on that anyway. Next, headed back into manhattan to have dinner with nancy and her mom at la cote basque, apparently a very well-respected french restaurant. Great dinner and fun conversation. Wonderful waiter with a cutie french accent. Booked back home so I could get ready to go out to liz, kendra, & alison's party in brooklyn. Met up with omar en route and got there by 10. Partied some. Had fun. Crashed there and then… Sunday: …got up and took the train back into the city, somehow managing to catch trains almost as soon as we stepped on the platform. Picked up a Sunday times which I knew I probably wouldn't even read. Got to my apartment and slept til 2ish. Ate eggs and toast. Chatted with some people on the phone. Showered. Vacuumed and mopped apartment. Prepared laundry to take to laundromat. Procrastinated doing laundry by talking on phone. Sprayed bedroom with insecticide stuff as I found I'd been bitten by something a few days ago and was feeling very concerned that the bugs might be back. Hauled my laundry down the stairs and to the place on the corner. Walked in and started throwing my stuff in the machines. Some guy starts circling around the room and yelling in spanish. I have no idea what he's saying. He's standing way too close to people and they're telling him to get away. The women who work there are huddled in the office room looking concerned. One gets on the phone and yells that she's calling the police. The man starts yelling out the door for the police. We all are confused. I debate whether it's better to stand there and see what goes down or leave for awhile. I realize I need to break a $20. Think that it's a decent decision to walk out. I do. The crazy man follows me. He starts circling around me. Just before I make it to the store, he grabs onto my sweatshirt. I try pushing him away and yell to some men walking by to help me. They don't. they just look. I keep pushing him and yelling at him to let go. He won't. two women from the laundromat come running out and yell at the man and are pulling and pushing at his arm so he'll let go. He doesn't. his grip actually tightens. I look at his other hand to see if he has a weapon. He's only holding a lighter and an unlit cigarette. I look at his eyes which are completely bloodshot and spacey. He's silent. We're yelling. A few men are standing around nearby, just watching. I start pinching his arm as hard as I can, which he doesn't seem to notice. Finally he lets go. I run back to the laundromat where - crying - I tell the women who work there to call the police again. Within a couple of minutes the police are there and taking the report. I still have to do my laundry. I call my roommates and they come and hang out with me til I'm done. They are chatty and supportive and cool. We all head back to the apartment. I feel weird, and start questioning what all I did to fend him off. Kentucky katie mentions that she wants to learn tae kwon do so she can defend herself if she's ever in that situation. I mention that I already know tae kwon do. Sara says that she'd be worried that he had a weapon. I mention that I was - instantly - and I felt that, in the moment, I didn't want to make too much of a fuss over it and freak him out since he clearly was not thinking straight. Did I yell enough and loud enough? Should I have kicked him? Should I have tried to wiggle out of my sweatshirt? Why didn't any men help? How cool is it that women did? I know that it only lasted about a minute but I felt like it was forever. I know that I was pushing him and hitting him and yelling stuff but when I think about it I feel as though I was paralyzed and not active enough. I talk to my mom (whom I tell), my grandmother (whom I don't tell), my dad's answering machine (not a word about it), colin (whom I tell). I feel unsure about it all and weirded out. The people who know are very concerned. I finally get myself to go to bed at midnight. Monday: I wake up feeling sick. I decide not to go running and curl back up in bed. When I finally get up I feel run-down, tired, worried. Walking to the subway I feel like I'm getting more and more threatening looks than ever before. I'm ready to yell at every single man who even slightly leers at me - but I don't. on the subway, people seem more insensitive and rude than ever. I feel violated when some guy comes and sits down too close and hits my knee with his. Gross. I get to work and know as soon as I see paula that I'm going to have to tell the story again and I'm going to start crying. I do and I do. I feel like shit but somehow, maybe for the first time in awhile, I'm glad to be at work where I'm protected and I know what to expect. Here I don't have to deal with the city. Here I just have to deal with work and assignments and the web. I kind of don't want to leave. I almost don't feel like linking to things today, but I will anyway. Briefly: alice walker on meditation Political news of interest: the times endorses hillary though william safire shows his disapproval of her; despite criticism,nader refuses to rethink campaign; IT geeks support gore, but their bosses like bush. the hand transplant guy is unhappy and wants his new limb amputated. kindergarten is serious business I guess that's really all I care to say today. now I need some food. Thursday, October 19, 2000 6:15 pm i love this weather! nyc looks so awesome right now and it's just getting better. it even smells good if you can believe it. (i barely can.) and i'm so psyched because i'm taking tomorrow off to hang out with my mom (so no, don't expect an update--i know, try not to cry...) and we may even go to the brooklyn botanic gardens or do other fun stuff like this. yay! i love new york in autumn. okay, i just love autumn. but it definitely makes ny better. (ker, i admitted it, see?) the female kicker involved in that legal battle with duke over title ix is awesome for sticking it out. And she's particularly interesting because she's played the media thing very intelligently, avoiding doing most interviews until she graduated so as to not get the whole team rallying against her. Instead she just laid low and did her thing and practiced hard and acted cool. What's more: she couldn't be more right: "Men are straight out. Nothing festers; they say what they think. If two guys room together and one of them is a slob, leaves dishes in the sink, the other one will say so flat out. If it was two women, she'd grit her teeth and wait it out." Why is that? Why do we do that? It's so annoying. And if you do say something, you're considered "bitchy." But if a guy says it - and I'd venture saying to a guy or a girl - it's all good. on a related note, why is it that we actually expect girls to be cleaner than boys? This makes no sense. Everyone should be clean, damn it. I don't care what your gender: dirty is dirty is friggin dirty. Clean your shit up, man. and that goes for both my roommates and kerry's. this times piece about how they found the origin of the ebola virus outbreak is scary. the thing is that they think it started with this one woman in uganda dying from it and then all her relatives came and spent two days in the same hut as her body as part of their funeral rituals. Then a bunch of them came down with the virus since it's so highly contagious and they died. But the weird thing for me is that I've actually done that very kind of thing before - I mean, sat in on those kinds of rituals. It's freaky to think that when I was in zim in '97, there was the remote possibility that I could have sat in on an ebola-infected person's funeral! Anyway, the funeral I was at was traumatic enough, as I got yelled at in shona for being a foreigner. Basically, the entire family's sadness came pouring out on to me. Well, yes, it was one of the tougher nights of my life but hey, I've got a great story to tell now about all the singing and dancing and crying that takes place in these african funeral rituals, right? Right…. this geekcorps thing sounds awesome. Sign me up! Wednesday, October 18, 2000 5:40 pm looking to figure out how to be friends with an ex? Oh, you too? Then read this. I don't know why everyone gets so friggin idiotic when it comes to the vagina monologues. I can't stand that they say they're "racy"-sure, just like rape is about sex. Duh. I mean, it's about bodies and violence and orgasms and pleasure and lots of stuff. Racy? Bah. So who cares if guiliani's soon-to-be ex is in them? I don't. she's nobody to me anyway. a comic book about wartime experiences in bosnia? Bit of an oxymoron don't ya think? yeah, really good job by those harvard experts up there in cambridge. After all, this piece about how dreams are symbolic says practically nothing. I love science and how it spends lots of time figuring out nothing. hmm…sounding all disgruntled today, but really I'm not. I'm actually scarily happy. I say scarily because, well, I know this feeling, and it makes me worry about what I've gotten myself into without even realizing it would happen. Am I being vague? Sure. But if you know me, you also know how obsessive I can get over things, and oh dear, I think that's where we're headed. And I feel like I could get hugely disappointed. Ugh. I hate that. I really. Really. Really. Hate. That. Really. Really. Why am I such a fool sometimes? It's amazing. Tuesday, October 17, 2000 11:50 am how funny! Yesterday when I was searching for things on the web that would be appropriate presents for an audrey hepburn fan (actually a work assignment), I came across this web site that had some wallpaper images you could download. Well, I didn't download them or anything, but now I have the "breakfast at tiffany's" poster as wallpaper on my monitor. How odd is that? Cute and funny and totally unintentional. Huh. some time back in like the spring or something, I was watching tv and there was a story on some news program about this woman who had invested some money in some foreign lottery scheme and then, after not hearing about it for a while, forgot about it. Then, months later, she suddenly had thousands and thousands of dollars in her bank account. She said she had thought that it was from the lottery thing, because there was no other reason she could come up with that this would have happened to her. Anyway, she was in pretty dire straits before this happened and then afterward, she started her own neighborhood business and was doing really well for herself and her local Brooklyn community. Well, it turns out that her account number was very similar to some account number for a united nations fund. She was investigated and now it turns out she was found guilty of bank fraud and larceny! I feel kind of bad for her. I mean, sure, she was stupid not to try to find out where the hell the money was coming from and to verify it all and everything - it's like finding someone's wallet: you know it's not good to keep it but who do you go to and somehow you just feel like since you found it, you must deserve it. it must be really weird to have your dead twin's arm. I wonder if this girl is going to have problems in the future. have I mentioned how much I hate verizon? I really, really do and that's why I really, really don't care if they get slaughtered in the market. After all, they're already robbing me and everyone else in nyc blind. Not only do they overcharge me for my cellular service but they also overcharge everyone for land line connections and they never even show up when they're supposed to come and install the stupid things! Tomorrow morning, I will be sitting at home yet again waiting for the idiots to show up. I dare them not to. Then they'll be sorry!!!!! Or something. this morning was quite a crappy one in the park, but it was mostly good. I say crappy because it was all gray and chilly, but really, I liked it anyway because it's just so autumnal. Plus, the running population has been slimmed down to just the die-hards which is quite pleasant, as now everyone smiles at everyone else (and mostly stays to the right - how exciting!). It's pretty cool and the perfect antidote to the idiot cab drivers who have to honk at every single red light they run into as they try to zoom down park road west. They really suck. I mean, they'll get to a red light and if it doesn't turn green instantly and there are a few cars in front of them, they'll just lay on their horns until those cars run the red light or, seconds later, the light turns green and the traffic moves on. There are few things I find more obnoxious in this city. it's very exciting to be able to do the times crossword online, but it sucks that you can't save your progress and go back to it later. Can't they do something about that? I think green magazine must have a very, very low budget as they seem to enjoy this one image a lot. It's pretty much the only one they use and really, it makes no sense at all. Cute, yes, but universal, no. So I'm reading a heartbreaking work of staggering genius and getting very intrigued by might magazine. So here's some stuff about it: how they spoofed tributes to dead celebs, its rise and fall, a cool photo from it, illustrations from it. also, an amusing and highly critical review of the book - well, I guess more of dave himself. Then there's this semi-review, which is mostly annoying but I like it simply because it reveals that eggers did the same damn thing at every reading. Oh, how funny he is. Yes, we're so amused. Blah. Okay, this is getting old. not unlike his kitschy little book. oh well. i'm almost done with it. then on to better, less self-conscious and more thought-out presentations of creativity, thanks. Monday, October 16, 2000 6:10 pm so, I'm now obsessed with moby. It all happened so suddenly, it's quite odd. See, I had this gift certificate card to borders that my grandmother gave me last christmas. It was for $25 and somehow I just never got around to getting to the damn store and finding stuff I wanted until yesterday. So of course I get there and out of nowhere, I want like everything. So here's what I bought: the "Almost Famous" CD moby: play moby: mobysongs: the best of moby 1993-1998 aimee mann: ultimate collection waiting by ha jin zagat's 2000 guide to nyc restaurants what a great weekend I had! Went to my first adult wedding, as I believe I mentioned, and met someone very, very interesting who of course lives very, very far away. I suppose that's the kind of thing that's supposed to happen at these weddings but it's all just very odd since I do know his entire family very well and have for a number of years now - but I just never met him. Funny stuff. But anyway, a great, great time. Fun people, beautiful weather, and the wedding was really perfectly suited to the couple. this piece about cell phones being "unnatural" is rather amusing. And no, I wouldn't do that. Sheesh. Camping is for the noise of crickets and other wildlife only, damn it. could it really be true that gail collins' contract is on shaky ground? No! the losers at the new york times really suck if they let her go. Kick maureen dowd out of there before they kick gail! I may have to quit reading the times altogether if they let her go. Well, I probably wouldn't. okay, I definitely wouldn't but they still shouldn't just give her the boot. She has done a great job and everyone loves her. Don't you? speaking of the times, I know it's cheesy but I like the metropolitan diary sometimes. Like today. The first item ("give me a gore") is kind of funny. does anybody else think hezbollah sounds more like a disease than a militant islamic guerilla group? and now I give you insight into the email exchange that is the Peanut Gallery. Today's topics: tim to wed nancy: who will then receive the #1 spot on the "firsts" list? Omar starts his new job as kerry ends hers. also, gore v. bush: who will win and why? Maybe the latter sounds rather mundane, but then marco contributes his two cents plus: Americans are idiots. Everyone knows Italy shall rule the world. And I shall be the lizard king, when the light appears, boy. When the light appears. I would like to admit to the fact that I voted Democrat across the board, despite my free-market, pro-big company, anti-poor-person views (!). The reason for this crossing of theoretical party lines is twofold. One, Gore is pretty close to the center in terms of his views, and is pro-trade and pro-environment, and sensible about the US financial agenda. Gore, however, is neither a leader nor an erudite academic. He's a nullity, a sort of middle-of-the-road mediocrity who, try as I might, I can't picture at a table trying to stop Ehud and Yasser from pointing guns into each others' temples. Shit, he probably can't even sit with Blair and Jospin, forget about presiding over any of the 400 third-world shithole powderkegs waiting to erupt. He's a dork, and not even a genius dork like, say, Tamim. Just a mediocre one, like, say, Joy Mazur. On the other hand, Bush doesn't even know who Ehud and Yasser are. And if he did, he'd call 'em Ay-Jewed and poke fun of the fact that that Yasser sounds a lot like Yessir, which people say 'awl thuh tahm' in West Texas. I don't think he's stupid (although I don't think he's smart), I think he's much worse: I think he's provincial. If he runs the country, we're in serious trouble. The Republicans deserve the fucking guy, though, for all their backbiting and niggling. Frickin' morons. And a choice like this after a president like Clinton. The most articulate president ever, the most charming ever, one of the smartest...anyway, like him or don't like him, blowjob or no blowjob, he's at least a leader, and an intelligent one. The choice is dismal: it's cowboah versus dork. I take dork. Thank you for that explanation, marco. Well said, despite your evil economist-centric views. Friday, October 13, 2000 6:10 pm I think freewill astrology is making fun of me. could any more bad world stuff happen all in 24 hours? I hope not. the uss cole is the victim of terrorist boaters violence rages in israel the british embassy in yemen is bombed jews are attacked in chicago and maybe worst of all: bush pulls ahead in public opinion if you're feeling bad after all that news, now I'll list some happy things: gay couple donates $2 million for U. Penn gay & lesbian center chinese-born writer wins nobel for literature u.s. & yugoslavia to renew diplomatic ties jimi's in the times this is also cute: the 15-year-old founder of goosehead.com (who has 30 employees, thank you) just signed a contract with MGM and Disney to do her own tv show. Huh. Yep. Feeling damn successful today. And young as heck. Think I've missed my boat or something at a whopping 23-years-old. interesting that the nytimes found "the contender" to be better than I did. Yes, maybe gary oldman was good, but hello, he acts via his food the entire movie. I'm not kidding! In almost every single scene he is chowing down on something. Every one. It's really weird. And it gets so common you expect him to bust open a bag of goldfish while he questions the VP candidate in front of the evaluation committee. i almost expect his steak to win an oscar for best supporting actor. And as for joan allen, sure she was good, but hell, her character and dialogue were both pretty lame and shallow. For a movie claiming to be so hard-hitting and confrontational about the whole d.c. sex scandal stuff, it definitely pulled some punches and got tripped up on its own message. By the end you're like, who's the hero here? The obnoxious, always-food-ordering president? That's not right! It's bizarre. I don't recommend it really. But I suppose it is an interesting look at politics and sex today. And how the two are often so intertwined today. Thursday, October 12, 2000 3:50 pm I bought you some cheese! well, I didn't, but that's my new email subject line whenever I can't think of something more truthfully and/or straightforward to say. I found it quite interesting - and surely you won't be surprised to hear, rather upsetting - that male voices giving directions are felt to be more accurate than female voices. Isn't that odd? Maybe you don't think so. But I do. Obviously. Uh-oh. Like an idiot, I didn't read my yahoo horoscope today, and then I went out at lunch and bought this top-pish thing from banana republicfor this wedding reception I'm going to on Saturday. But apparently I'm supposed to be being frugal. Well, I suppose it's fortunate then that I didn't by the CD and picture frame or photo album I wanted to find but couldn't because I ran out of time. On a related note, I have no one to bring with me to this reception thing, even though I was permitted a "guest." That kind of sucks. I've never really gone to something like this without my family. Now that I think of it, I've never gone to a friend's wedding. Or have I? No, I haven't. it's always been familial. But alas, I've entered the world of adulthood, when friends start getting married left and right. Well, no worries, guys. My very own nuptials are very far away. Sucks for all you guys who thought I'd be the first to go! (um, that would be just about the entire PG.) Ha ha. It's all yau. so today's been rather uneventful. But honestly, it's been a harsh week or so, so I think that's good. Right now I'm drinking boylan ginger ale, but it tastes more like ginger beer which kind of sucks. Do you know the difference? Ginger ale is generally very soothing and rather sweet, whereas ginger beer is almost spicy or something - definitely has more of a genuine ginger flavor. But this isn't as bad as some I've had. But the first swig you take does taste kind of like a cleaning product of some sort. Wednesday, October 11, 2000 5:40 pm yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're all assuming I've died or something, right? Well, no. but as it turns out, my boss has been spying on this page. I find it rather amusing actually, but heck, do I love my job!!!!!! anyway, let's get down to the stuff that this page is actually about, because, really, as you all know, it's not typically about bitching about my job. That just pops up every now and then, just like it does for anyone talking about their job to anyone else. No one can love their job always. In fact, studies show that most people hate their jobs usually. Well, I just made that up but I think it could be true. Something that is true: job stress is the biggest cause of mental illness. See? Job happiness is quite important and I think everyone should be devoted to making the work space happier, not angrier or sadder or anything bad-der. I'm all for the peaceful work atmosphere. And actually I'd prefer that over the unhappy work atmosphere. And actually I'd love to love my job always. But sometimes things suck. And everyone should know that. And that's all I have to say about that. (I guess it's better that way though since it must be excruciatingly boring to hear me talk about all the stuff you probably deal with on a regular basis anyway.) so that stuff that this page is all about? My other issues and all the fun news stuff I'd actually like to share with lots of people, who in my imagination are reading this. First off, an update on the ex: we're speaking again. Okay, more than speaking, we're hanging out. Call it a betrayal of all you who were so on my side, but he's apologized his ass off (not enough, yet, though, of course) and has been very cool. Nothing solid here at all but now he's held more in a positive light than he has been for the past 2 ½ months. He still deserves berating for all the shit that I've whined about here previously, and he's getting it, but let's be a bit more open to good vibes coming from that direction, okay? Or just write me and tell me that I'm friggin crazy. If I get enough emails I may come to my senses. My sister's already written one. Holly's given me multiple warnings. Kerry is suspicious. Nancy thinks there's no point since "he's clearly not the one." Yes, and they're all totally right for saying so. And yet there's something to be said for someone who you have fun with. He's on a serious probational period, during which time he'll have to perform lots of community service and give orations on demand about the wrongs of dumping me so cruelly and telling me I'm not his type when he doesn't even know me. And just being a jerk. And making me feel like shit. And lying. And cheating. And what the hell am I thinking?????? Like I said, email me. Hopefully I'll come to my senses. on to other things: zim's in the american news, believe it or not!!! Of course the news is terrible. You want rioting? Go to zimbabwe. You want political turmoil and the arresting of the opposition. Again, zim's got it all. But how much would I give to be rachel swarns reporting from harare? A lot. can you believe the outrageous comments about rape in this article? I cannot. Quite upsetting. how do I love the almost famous soundtrack? Let me count the ways. 1) tiny dancer (track #12) rules. it's funny how I never really thought about it until seeing this movie. But it's so true. 2) yay for yes. yes (track #4) is soooo underappreciated it's amazing. They're so talented and yet no one seems to notice. Except me and my family and our close associates. 3) rod stewart rocks. rod stewart (track #7), not unlike heart (nancy wilson, track #13), was once a serious rocker with seriously good tunes. But then things got a little questionable - purists would argue downright "cheesy" - and everyone seems to have lost respect for him. But he's cool. "every picture tells a story" is quality. 4) simon & garfunkel and cat stevens with cool tunes. I usually have a great distaste for both of these bands (tracks #1 and #15, respectively) - due to post-traumatic stress that resulting from a serious and involuntary grinding of the two into my ears during my sophomore year of high school by my then boyfriend - but I highly appreciate their tunes on this CD. 5) discovering the unnamable song & singer. I never knew what the song "something in the air" (track #17) was called, nor did I know whom it was by (thunderclap newman). Now I do. and see, that only took me 15 minutes! that's not much in the scheme of the whole work day, huh? wow. now, i'm off to do some more work. lots of work. super productive work. okay, i think i'm being obnoxious now. Friday, October 6, 2000 4:50 pm so catherine has a fun, fun page up today. So many things to see and do! Anyway, I took the unbreakable test - well, 2 of them, since the 3rd wasn't working for some reason - and I guess if you average my scores, I'm 72.5% unbreakable. That's cool. Although I don't really see how it's a sixth sense II. Oh well. I guess it would help if I ever saw sixth sense I. I know, I'm a big loser. speaking of movies, liz & i saw the contender last night. not so great. so much drama that the preview hints at and that could have actually been in the flick, but no, it wasn't very dramatic at all. it was like it shot itself in the foot or something. funny that they had the screening the same night as the VP debates (since it is about a woman VP candidate). well, despite the fact that i haven't heard anything about last night's debates, they were probably about as interesting as the movie. some more games for you: I suggest that you don't take emode's IQ test unless you have a lot of time to kill. I mean A LOT. It took me forever. I really thought I'd never be done. They should really tell you how many questions those damn things are going to be so you know what you're getting yourself into. Sheesh. Oh right, I just went back and looked and they do indeed tell you: 60 questions. Well. also, the CIA's kids page. You can actually feel somewhat smart when you play the games, just as long as you forget that it's a page for kids. do cows like gum? this piece doesn't really tell you but it's kind of trying to. Huh. planning on a hot date? Better stay hydrated. fortunately for me, the only reason I'll be needing to stay hydrated is the 5k I'm running on Sunday with liz. Wish me luck. It looks to be a pretty crappy day. If nothing else though, I'm totally prepared for morning running like never before. and no doubt while I'm running on sunday, I'll be thinking about this article about guys who feel compelled to sprint ahead of women about to pass them (which I never knew had a name: the Henry Phenomenon). Idjits. yay! Laws against scooters! Well, okay, not really, but laws against riding scooters without helmets. Close, right? wow. This article about how an african man stolen from a grave in botswana was stuffed and put on display in europe back in 1888 freaks me out. Fortunately he's now been buried in his homeland. I can't believe it took this long. ha ha. Bush can't come up with a reason to vote for himself. thank god I'm not in high school anymore. I know I'd never have graduated if I had to go to school all year round. hey, oregon is moving. i mean literally. That's really bizarre. Thursday, October 5, 2000 6:30 pm wow, do I love INXS. Other than my lunch (and yummy pumpkin ale) with liz, that's been the highlight of my day. See, Holly and I ordered some CDs from BMG (I have a discount, otherwise I'd never do it) and this is what I got: INXS: the greatest hits rocking my world as I type, for the second time today. I'm still quite sad that michael hutchence offed himself. I used to have a huge poster of him in my bedroom when I was in grade school. Such a hottie. And such a beautiful voice. And such great lyrics. I mean, "I need you tonight/cuz I'm not sleeping/there's something about you girl/that makes me sweat" (from "need you tonight") and "words are weapons/sharper than knives/makes you wonder how the other half dies" (from "devil inside") and so many others. Pure genius, obviously. Clearly ahead of his time. A misunderstood poet. Fabulous. Wonderful. Bravo. Sarah McLachlan: Mirrorball well, I got this mostly because sometimes I want to get all sappy and hear "I will remember you," but also I got it because it reminds me of college and felicity (yay for the new season! Yay for ben & felicity! Yay for better plot lines or else!). why you ask? Because of that one episode when megan tries to convince ben that felicity really does love him even if she's with that other loser from the clinic. And how does she do it? She explains that she could always tell when felicity was thinking about ben by the fact that she would play sarah mclachlan. And recently she'd had mirrorball on repeat. I love that story because I relate to it so well. If only people knew what songs always remind me of them. Here's a brief list: the ex: anything irish or from the buena vista social club the ex-ex: anything hip hop some random guy I'd rather forget about: "closing time" and that terrible song…uh, something about giving your friends props….i forget now the ex-ex-ex: anything by van halen, but also totally lenny kravitz - the whole "my mama said" album - so damn sexy it is someone else, farther back in my past, who I suspect is now engaged: anything by jewel or from "romeo & juliet" someone who sucks: dave's "lover lay down" and "say goodbye" - damn it my senior year of high school boy: alanis (well, in the aftermath anyway) my freshman year of high school older boy crush: "be with you" by mr. Big my grade school boyfriend: "never tear us apart" by the aforementioned INXS, as well as "everything I do" by bryan adams and that song from ghost, "unchained melody" - ha ha! okay, where was I? Oh, yes. Tori Amos: to venus and back tori just rocks and somehow I just hadn't picked this 2-disk set up yet. Part live, part new. She's always fun, even if some of my coworkers think she's just depressing. I disagree whole-heartedly. She's very self-aware. Not everything has to be be-boppy and hanson-esque, right? Sad can be good. So can angry. Cases in point: sarah and alanis. Fabulous, both. Happy? Rarely. Diana Krall: When I look in your eyes got this because of my new obsession with jazz. Nearly every morning now, once I tire of matt & katie's cuteness on the today show, I turn on 89.9 and listen to their morning jazz show. Sometimes the host will super-analyze various charlie parker tunes and compare them to other musicians' pieces. That's kind of annoying but yet also rather educational. So anyway, after listening to these a.m. shows for a while, I was quite pleased when I left a Friday today show concert on long enough to hear diana krall and tony bennett together on the plaza. She's great and has a super deep and soothing voice. anyway, my CDs have made me quite happy today, despite the crappy work. wanted to say that I felt this article about how men's eating habits predict what kind of mate they'll be was quite poorly written and well, just outright stupid. Just cuz you like spices doesn't mean you're domineering. God knows I'm domineering and detest spices. So there. wow, this whole serbian protest thing is crazy. I can't imagine living there, and after you vote someone out of office, they nullify the vote and say, "screw you! I'm staying!" that's crazy. And then the military backs him up. Poor people. Yay for tony blair who said, "Your time is up. Go now.'' Love that british straight-forwardness. Or something. won't be watching tonight's vp debates as I'm going to see "the contender" with liz. But find it quite amusing that this dick vs. joe thing is being called the thrill in the 'ville. Wednesday, October 4, 2000 5:20 pm thanks to angela, I have now been exposed to this great column - rough draft - which had somehow escaped my perusal of the washington post. go to the archive and read every damn one. Or at least a couple. Joel achenbach is my new god. Or something. Anyway, he's cool. I like him. so, had a bit of a break-down at lunch today in the park. Need out. Need freedom. Need to kill. Uh, I mean, need to get a…kiln. Yeah, a kiln. Pottery. Stuff like that. Seriously though, this office is driving me crazy. I just want to stand up and yell, "THESE PRETZELS ARE MAKING ME THIRSTY!" but of course that would make no sense whatsoever, so we're back to the point about this place driving me crazy. Nuts. Bad stuff. but really, what I can't stand more than anything is bad managing. Do these nearly-40-year-old people not yet know how to communicate? How can they be such poor delegaters after so many years of doing this bullshit? I can't stand it. This is like oppression. But I get paid for it so I guess it's not really. Yes, I'm having a pity party for myself. Chris, can you finagle it so I get laid off, too? Thanks, pal. Or maybe I should just pull a nancy and quit my job outright, with nothing else lined up, a move which i honestly admire greatly. takes a lot of balls to just make a run for it like that. hey, speaking of running or racing or something, you can find out how fast your sperm move by entering them in a sperm race. No kidding. That's scary. I wonder if that means they're better or stronger or something? Yet another point that men can feel masculine or not about, I suppose. so, watched the debates in the comfort of tricia & bruce's place last night and felt pretty happy being surrounded by other liberals. Quite fun indeed. Though I didn't hear til this morning that nader had been tossed after trying to watch from a satellite location on the campus. That's so stupid. Why the hell would they do that? Is this a democracy or is this a friggin 2-party dictatorship? Do I live in zimbabwe after all? Bizarre. More bizarre-ness: here's a 2-part story about rhode island's racist mr. Potato Head (here's part 1). Huh. For the record, I would just like to state that that particular mr. Potato head - that is tourist potato - is definitely darker than the others - excluding baking potato - and it's not just because "he's a potato," as the creators tried to explain. They clearly made this tourist potato black and probably didn't think about how people might interpret this cheesily-clothed tourist in black skin as racist. but I think the stupider thing is that the town of warwick, which should be embracing tourism since it is it's only saving grace, is obviously mocking tourists with the very statue that was meant to be celebrating them. Ijits. was going to say something about the ozone hole they found over Antarctica that's like 3 times the size of the U.S. but I'm too tired now. And besides, you gotta realize that my boss is practically leaning over my shoulder to see what work I'm not doing as I write this. Okay, that's an exaggeration but that's what I feel like. This sucks. Tuesday, October 3, 2000 6:50 pm oh my god. How good is this radio station? The Hawk rocks. I really need to move to spokane. Well, I guess I don't since I'm listening to it here in NYC. Well, huh. Fine then. But I really have to say that towns with really great radio stations must be really great. Like springfield, mass. Or something. But 102.1 kicks butt, man. or how about 99.3 in the very hip northampton? That has to qualify kind of, even if the station isn't always great. Or how about my new hometown-region fave, Alice 104.5 out of philly? Does anyone else know what the hell I'm talking about? Knock three times if you do. Huh? Think it's time to go watch some debatin'. Yee haw. Tuesday, October 3, 2000 5:50 pm amazing how freewill astrology gets my frame of mind right on every single week, as this week, indeed, I am feeling "stranded in the middle of nowhere," despite the fact that I'm in the middle of friggin NYC. Or maybe I should say because of the fact that I'm in the middle of friggin NYC. Hmm…also heard from a friend who's just arrived in san fran to run and live and run some more. So jealous…. I never thought I was the kind of person to get really annoyed by the sound of someone eating until this job. For some reason, my boss is always eating at her desk, and she tends to do it later in the day than most of us eat. So that means, I'm sitting at my desk actually trying to work (since any time after lunch is when I'm most productive) and she's chomping away. And I mean chomping. And slurping. And snarfing. And glucking. Do you know these sounds? It's disgusting. She totally chews with her mouth open. This just grosses me out and makes me want to distract myself from it in any way I can. But unfortunately, even if I can't hear her, I can see her in the reflection of my computer monitor. It's very disturbing and disrupting. I would like to be moved. I would also like to be moved for other reasons, not the least of which is that people are constantly talking and yelling over me to my boss. But also, many people in the office walk by my desk and feel the need to acknowledge my presence and/or make me acknowledge theirs. This is fine if it's once a day per person. But with some people this means up to 10 times a day, which I find ridiculous. I actually spoke to someone about this yesterday in the nicest manner I possibly could. I feel bad about it but it's so disruptive and even upsetting at times, particularly if I'm already stressed or having a bad day or just generally hating my job. It really pisses me off. Call me awful but it just does. So, a funny thing happened to me this morning: I got up extra early to go running so as to be ready for my dresser delivery boys should they actually show up on time (nearly: 8:30 as opposed to 8 - good job though, and quick -- gothic cabinet craft which i can't find on the web now for some reason). So that meant 6:45. So I left the house and ran ran ran and just as I was coming up on my exit back out of the park I saw one of my college track & field captains there ahead running towards me. We just pointed at each other and yelled the other's name and said, simultaneously, "How are you?" and "Good!" and "Bye!" it was weird. But it was cool. And then I kept running and was totally in this what-a-coincidence fog and thinking about college and where the hell is rob now? (he's the one i just found out today is now in san fran) and how I need to call rachael and how my college roommates have done a better job of keeping in touch than she has and stuff like that. When all of the sudden I hear my name yelled out and I turn around and there's one of my very own college roommates - renes - running along in the opposite direction. We did almost the same thing that my captain and I did just moments before (as far as the simultaneous speaking, I mean) except that thrown in there was "What's up?" and "Call me!" she also yelled out "YOU ROCK!" which I was particularly happy about. Aw shucks, renes, thanks girl. So I have to remember to call her very soon. Also while I was running so much earlier I noticed that people at that hour tend to be much much better at sticking to the RIGHT. I was quite impressed. I wonder if it has to do with experience or age or some other all-important factor. Like many older runners get up earlier and just know better than to run on the left. Or maybe the more serious folks who need to get in more mileage get up extra early and of course they know to stay to the right. Hmm…I think I like this early morning running thing. But it does mean getting to bed earlier which can be a challenge. I may have to try harder. Also, I put some half-assed challenge to myself to lay off the beer for three months, figuring that if I did so, I'd probably save enough money to go to ireland - where of course I would make up for not drinking for three months. I think it sounds like a good plan. But with the people I have around me encouraging me to drink all the time, that could be hard. Then there's also me, the encourager of many bad things. Just to give you a glimpse of my wicked ways, let me paste here for you a song I wrote for the PG just yesterday (yes, a mere two days after my challenge to myself). um, yes, i'm oh-so-proud of it. verse 1: oh, we need drinks drinks drinks drinks oh, we aren't finks finks finks finks cuz a drink is a drink and a fink is a fink so let's get together and have some drinks! chorus: yay for beer! beer is great! we love beer! beer's our mate! verse 2: oh, beer is good good good good oh, if only we could could could could drink everyday, everynight, every morn drink like we'd met jesus and were about to be reborn! (repeat chorus, followed by verse 1) verse 3: oh, friends are the best best best best and when you're hard-pressed pressed pressed pressed for a beer, who will be there? but a friend with a beer to show his care! (repeat chorus, followed by verse 2, and another chorus) instructions: repeat entire song 5 times, interspersing verses with the chorus and inserting 2 choruses after every other round and gradually increasing the speed of the song until there is only 1/4 of a beat between lines. also, by the fourth round, people should break out into their own rhymes and variations on the tune, plus they should also take up their own rounds of the song. author's comment: you see, it's quite complicated, so we'll have to meet to discuss. the song was created in an effort to make them all come out with me last night, but no one accepted, so I went home and had a beer all by myself. so clearly I'm not so motivated to save up just yet anyway. hey, you have to check out these debate cartoons. hilarious. the person i spoke to yesterday about not stopping in front of my desk all the time just walked by and said nothing and didn't even look at me. i think it's working! maybe i'll just become invisible here! or better yet, people will start respecting my space and acting like i actually have walls around my desk! yippee! Monday, October 2, 2000 7:00 pm quite geared up for the debates tomorrow night I am. And in preparation, watched a hefty amount of Sunday morning news/feuding shows. Even saw ralph nader with pat buchanan (who is friggin scary) on meet the press, and I must say that I was quite impressed with nader's very straight forward, no-nonsense, liberal platform. I mean, you want a guy who stands by your liberal beliefs whole-heartedly, well this is the man, and there's no hemming and hawing (I don't believe I've ever used that expression in my life) about it, like you have with gore. Very, very interesting. Still, I'll probably end up voting for gore since nader himself said that he knows he's not going to win but he just wants to increase people's awareness of the green party so it can serve as a watchdog group for the other political parties after november. That was cool to hear. We need more watchdogs. I would like to be a watchdog. I think I'd make a good one. After all, emode's "what kind of dog are you?" test says I'm a pug. Oh, but that's a different kind of watchdog altogether, I suppose. anyway, nader says he'll be at the debates. Don't know how since he's not invited to participate, but maybe he'll just be selling popcorn or hanging out in the balcony or yelling "FIRE!" and starting people panicking or something. That could be funny. and apparently, there's a mole in the bush camp, and they're seemingly trying to pin it on some intern. This bit of news just reminds me of jesse jackson's statement at the democratic convention: "STAY OUT OF THE BUSHES!" he he. but then i read this piece that said that people were going around the dem. convention wearing shirts that said "lick bush in 2000," which i find just gross. speaking of gross things, holly wanted me to mention what exactly i've been finding that people are searching for when they land on my little site here. first of all, let me say that this insight has completely grossed me out about people and what they really are looking for on the web. not that i didn't assume or kind of know, but hey, it's my site, damn it! well, knowing full well that i'm going to be getting probably ten times as many hits as i would normally just by listing these obviously very important and desired search items, i present them to you, purely for your amusement: gay hot boys nyc college sex stories birkenstocks "wnba" panties gay guys willing to fuck young boys hillary clinton getting fucked photo gallery super macho guys Super muscular Women nude hurdling Lita nude fur dominatrix cute boys of hockey dominique dawes nude rachel weiss nude little girlies sex also, other less steamy (though i suppose that's always debatable) ones: "maureen dowd photo" starbucks sucks reggie miller wife dream decoder MacLaughlin Group "Melissa Etheridge" and "break up" WHAT DOES AMY CHOW EAT salon olympic gymnastics ozzy ozborne getting over ex-boyfriend janus joplin summer time faking-woman jodi applegate starbucks weaknesses hippie skirts "linnea leaver" Bela Karolyi is an awful person boyfriend forgive see? told ya. yep. oh yeah. Monday, October 2, 2000 10:40 am so I went home this weekend and got to hang out with nan, and though our apple-picking aims were thwarted by bare trees and a hick hunter in camos, we had fun hanging out anyway. It was also good to hear that I'm not the only one missing home - particularly this fall - and to feel just as connected to a friend as I always have, even if she lives way too far away. also got to hang out with my dog, brisby, who also goes by any number of variations on that name, including: bris brissy brisser biz biz-b bizzy bizzer bones bonesy boner mr. bones bonanza biz-bones bizzy bones baby bones baby b b-b old man mr. old man old man baby and old man bones. He's 13 and his body is now deteriorating big time, so he has serious arthritis and shakes almost constantly. He can't hear, can barely see, and surely has dog alzheimer's, as afer greeting you - either playfully or viciously depending on who you are and whether he's had his pain-reducing meds - and then falling asleep on the floor in front of you (which is pretty much all he does all day long), he'll suddenly jump up and greet you again in the same way he already did as he's forgotten that he saw you in the first place. But he was cool this weekend and very good for me for some reason. He actually seemed psyched to have me around and have the girls - that is, the other much more chipper two dogs, hadley and coty - out from under his arthritic feet. They had gone with my parents to my grandmother's in pennsylvania, and he had not been included because of all his maladies and because I was coming home. Fortunately, due to his alzheimer's i suppose, he didn't seem to miss them or feel excluded one bit so we just hung out and he slept on the floor next to my bed in my childhood bedroom-turned-bird's room-turned-guest room. Yes, I now sleep in the "guest room," as my high school to college room - which was in the basement - was converted into a "game room" only minutes after I moved out. (this was upsetting for a while but I've since gotten over it, thanks.) so I'm currently reading "the liar's club," by mary karr, and I'm not thrilled with it at all. Let me explain: I don't trust the narrator. And I don't mean because I know her or anything (although I did hear her read at the union square barnes & noble last week, completely accidentally), but rather because she just can't make me believe her when she's constantly referencing opinions and thoughts and experiences that she has way, way after the fact. I mean, if you're going to revisit your childhood, STAY THERE. Do not mess around and try to decode your behavior and inner monologue for the reader by inserting your adult voice - at least not in the same damn paragraph or sentence for that matter. She's constantly crossing over and analyzing herself and trying to explain to us what she was really thinking, but in this adult voice that I refuse to believe would have actually been generated in her 6-year-old brain. Bullshit bullshit bullshit, that's what I say. (although my boss adores this book for some reason and keeps bringing it up so we have the same discussion over and over again, though she can't seem to explain why she actually liked it.) And not that I don't like the little girl she portrays herself as being, or her sister or her dad for that matter. I actually like them all quite a bit. And I do feel sorry for her and her "god-awful" childhood, as the book flap calls it. But I just don't buy it, and it's her own damn fault for thinking her readers are stupid and can't understand what's really going on, and instead trying to make up a bunch of baloney (or bologna -- but only if you pronounce it as it's spelled, please) for us all to read, as if the facts themselves aren't interesting enough. Just plain insecurity in a writer. So, no, I don't like the book much, which I decided after only 50 pages, but now I'm 30 pages til the end so I have to finish, of course. But don't be expecting me to read her latest, "cherry." Uh-uh. Friday, September 29, 2000 3:30 pm So I’m sitting here in my html class. We’re now on a break. I’ve actually learned a couple of things today which is always refreshing, but this guy – hector – is painfully annoying and slow when it comes to teaching. I swear, I could have gotten through the stuff we’ve covered inside an hour. But instead, I have to sit here all day. It’s rather painful. So anais and I are just checking email, reading the news, chatting, whatever. We’ve had so much coffee today and I don’t think it’s helping all that much somehow. Oh shit! Just almost spilled my coffee! Anais says it’s probably because I’ve had too much caffeine. Hmm… Oh, bummer, marion jones fails in her drive for five with a bronze in the long jump. That’s too bad. Maybe next time, mj. And why is it that so many great athletes’ initials are MJ? Michael jordan, michael johnson, marion jones, uh…email me if you can think of any more. In other sad olympic news, the women’s soccer team loses to norway in sudden death of the finals. I hate, though, how everyone makes people who get less than gold feel like garbage. That’s sucks. I mean, they’re the best in the world – well, almost. But anyway, did anyone else see the today show this morning? Katie couric so focused on mia hamm. What’s the deal? You’d think a savvy newsperson like herself wouldn’t fall for that media darling bullshit. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I adore mia hamm but yep, there are other people on the team. Just a little FYI for ya. So this weekend I’m heading out to jersey for some apple picking and fun time with nance. Should be fun. I’m definitely psyched to get out in the country as it’s so autumn-y outside and I love it. Bit of a nip in the air today. Psyched for yummy apples and just hanging around and talking. this morning i got quite lost coming to this damn class and had to wander around as wall street types swarmed all around me, pushing and running and generally very viscious-behaving. this area really sucks. thank god i don't come here everyday. i think i'd freak out or something. but then when we went out for lunch (i had a hefty piece of lasagna, thanks), everyone seemed much more chill. that was good to see because i really worry about all these people in such high-stress jobs. but then we saw something quite funny. there was this very orderly, long line of people that extended down the block. i mean, it was so orderly it looked like a line of kindergarteners, each of whom had a buddy that they'd been instructed to stand next to. so anais and i were walking along, expecting to find some kind of leader or organization or something, but there wasn't. at the front of the line, there were these two 30-something year old women standing there with their disposable cameras just chatting and facing forward. it was weird. when we passed by them again, i just turned to a red-haired boy and asked, "what are you waiting for?" and he said, a bit too quickly and in a very heavy french accent, "a tour." i think it must have been of the exchange floor or something. why would anyone want to do that? Thursday, September 28, 2000 3:50 pm what???? felicity is adding tyra banks to its cast???!!!! [via angieb.] Um, yeah, she's really gonna look like a college girl. And can we just talk about making teenaged girls feel even worse about their bodies? And we won't even get into the question of whether she can act (if you've seen her try to do it even once, I think you know the answer). Puhlease. Her only purpose is to draw more boys into watching the show. Gross gross gross. I may have to stop watching altogether. But I will not promise that now. After all, I have been a quite dedicated fan - at least during the season. ha! Thanks to some random person who actually searched for my name on the web (yes, I can see you, it's called site meter - see that little rainbow-colored box over there on the left? um, yeah.), I found yet another site that I exist on on the web. Apparently, as I do now recall, I wrote a letter to christina kelly (of sassy and now jane fame) back in my sophomore year at amherst after finding her web site, fallen princess. She subsequently posted it. Basically I was just gushing because I loved sassy and her 'what now' column. Anybody else remember it? Lots of funky and cute boy bands and random pop-culturish vocab words. No other medium has touched my life so much. Not even kidding. Wednesday, September 27, 2000 6:30 pm maureen dowd makes a total ass of herself in today's column. What is she thinking? Just because the media is being stupid, it doesn't mean that they're talking to women. She's a friggin idiot. I may have to swear off her columns for a while. hey, canonize everybody, why not? I mean, I just don't get it. How the hell do they pick people to "honor" with canonization? If it's so special, you'd think they'd be smooth enough not to give it to 120 people at once. Duh. Good to hear that they probably killed a bunch of Chinesem folks during their stints as semi-saints as well. Yep. poor gail devers fails to win a gold in the hurdles and even ends up injured from trying. She's still the coolest in my book. I guess it helps that I used to hurdle and actually came within 4 feet of her (true story -- and no, we weren't running at the time, obviously). this piece about giving the presidential candidates personality tests is very bland, but it is an interesting idea. Just poorly executed I believe. I think we should give them the spark's personality test or even one of emode's, like "What color is your aura?" (which I took today - I am crimson, thanks). now that would be fun and interesting. Tuesday, September 26, 2000 6:15 pm hey, lookie there, the radcliffe publishing course is coming to the big apple. All I can say is that, if it was obnoxious out in beautiful cambridge, completely removed from the city and the stress of job hunting - at least for a little while - then it will be even worse once it's here. I can already imagine all the born and bred snot-nosed new yorkers pounding down the doors with their prada purses and blahnik (did i even spell that right?) shoes. Gross me out. I think it was inappropriate for the IOC to take that romanian gymnast's gold away for having cold medicine in her system - at least from the information I have. I mean, come on, there's a simple way to get to the bottom of this. If she was sick, she was sick. If she wasn't then there was no reason she should have been taking cold medicine and then they can talk about taking it away. But I haven't even heard anyone say anything about whether or not she was sick. Stupid stupid people. a coworker of mine thinks the reporters are trying to screw up marion jones' shot at winning 5 gold medals by bringing up completely irrelevant news concerning her husband, cj hunter. I too find the timing particularly suspicious. I mean, they obviously knew about this when it happened and who gives a damn otherwise, as he's not even in the olympic games because he's injured. Still, there is the issue of the u.s. olympic track team covering up doping charges in meets prior to the olympics several years ago. My feeling is kind of like, everybody is doing it, and the people who get caught are just the ones who are unlucky. To put pressure on people to break records and be better and better every year is just to place this crazy, inhuman goal in front of them. And to tell them that they have to get there (wink wink) without testing positive for drugs is a joke, because, hello, just because they don't have steroids in their bodies at the time of competition doesn't mean they haven't taken them during their many months of training. Still, as one athlete said, it's a catch-22: "If you do well, people are going to say, 'Oh, she's using,' and point a finger. I didn't make the finals. What does that mean, that I'm not using?" good to see that my birthplace isn't the only town demonstrating parental violence at kids' games. when I read that the iceman had been thawed so that they could do tests on his genes and intestinal contents, all I could think was how bad must that guy smell? definitely gross to think about what they'll find in his intestines and how they got it out, for that matter. Cool though that he had tattoos. I never really thought about the tax issues of having a child kidnapped until I read this. a good point. Thank you, salon. ha ha! More german bashing on the pita: these stupid asses got caught cheating in the berlin marathon. How'd they cheat, you ask? They took the subway. I have to wonder if they - a huge group of 33 - had this whole thing planned for the months leading up to the race. Or was it just like, 'hey, (pant pant) you guys (pant pant) tired?' 'yeah, man, (huff puff) this sucks.' 'why don't we (deep breath) take a rest and (hack hack) hop on the subway?' 'hey, good idea.' Then, mass exodus of people from the race to the subway entrance. The funniest part though I think is that they didn't consider the fact that they'd get caught because of the computer chips they willingly wore on their shoes. Ijits. this piece on poverty in the u.s. is really good. Read it. It's a good reminder that you really don't need to pay $1000 a month in rent, but also that you should feel very, very lucky that you can. yay for the economic boom in nyc. good to hear that kennewick man's bones are being handed over to 5 native american tribes. This probably means nothing to most of you but I found it particularly cool since I had studied it when it first became a political and cultural issue a few years back. Don't ya just love when things conclude? Monday, September 25, 2000 6:40 pm well, unexpectedly heard from the ex this weekend. Isn't that bizarre? Apparently he was calling to find out how much I hated him, in his words. So I told him, in my words. No, I didn't tell him I hated him. I just told him all the things I've been bitching about on this site to you. It was rather refreshing to get it all off my chest and to hear it all greeted with variations on the phrase "yes, I was such an asshole." And yet it was also rather distressing. Goddamn, why stir up all these things now? Well, whatever, all my complaints have been validated by the one who caused them, so I guess I can't really complain about that anymore. I still can't believe everyone's getting all in a hissy about that nike ad with the girl getting chased by the guy with the chainsaw. Um, no, I do not see how it could be perceived as "making light" of violence towards women. It was a joke about slasher movies only, plain and simple. And one that shows a smart woman who puts her one foot in front of the other to escape the out-of-shape loser. And no, it is not the kind of thing that a guy would see and think "that looks like a good idea." I think these people are dwelling on the wrong things here. On a somewhat related note (in that we're talking reverse sexism or something now), I find it ironic that the editor of cosmogirl would say that a web site that allows girls to "rate a boy's good looks" is "a really positive environment for girls." Why's that? Because judging the opposite sex based on their looks empowers girls or somehow makes them believe that boys aren't doing the same thing to them? Huh? Yay for olympic track and field! I can't help but love watching stuff I actually have some understanding of the difficulty of and once believed i could maybe do the same thing. For instance, michael johnson's 43.84 second 400m race to the gold. The fastest I've ever seen anyone run a 400m is 47 seconds. How cool is mj? Damn. On a related note, I had a dream the other night that I won what I think was a triathlon. It was so unusual because typically when I have dreams about running and/or racing, I lose or get lost or something gets messed up. But this time I won. And I was pretty psyched when I woke up and thought about it because, without even looking at my favorite dream site, I knew that it foretold of growing confidence and taking charge of my life. Then, this morning, I kicked off a new ritual of picking a tarot card every morning before I run so that I can think about it as I truck along. And so I picked the Father of Water, which, I know, sounds really stupid and flighty, but what it said was that I should trust my instincts and work on developing my self-confidence because I was headed in a good direction. One that was like "falling in love all over again." Um, whatever that means. Anyway, I think it's a good thing. Friday, September 22, 2000 5:40 pm so, catherine does a fine job of discussing last night's trip to see the early screening of requiem for a dream [a link which I can't see because my computer sucks and won't use flash - hope you enjoy it though]. As I left due to complete disturbance, I did not get to hear the director's insight into the graphic, upsetting, and jolting scenes depicted in the film. Let me tell you though, should you happen to go see it, it's completely jarring. I think the real problem comes from the fact that it's really not a graphic movie until about ¾ of the way through - and then you get it all - drug use, sexual violence, physical violence, physical pain, emotional pain, mental pain, the works - thrown at you at once. And then pounded in. again and again and again. And again. And a couple more times for good measure. Call me emotional but I must say I was crying at that point. And wanting to just run out the door. Instead, I just shut my eyes and gripped my arm rests. Terrible terrible terrible. And not terrible in the way that documentaries of war crimes are terrible. Terrible in the way that this guy just did this to fuck with our heads and what the fuck? Ugh. It was upsetting to say the least. so I took off as soon as the thing was over and headed home via the L and then the C. and can anyone explain to me why it is that when either a) you look like shit, b) you feel like shit, or c) both, you get more comments and stares than ever in the friggin city. Are people on fucking crack? I was so traumatized and then I had to deal with some guy saying, 'hey baby - how you doin?' (I'm not joking - people actually say that) and some drag queens prancing around in front of me on the train platform, waving their lollipops (no, I'm not being figurative here) in my direction, and saying, 'hey girl,' and the like. Ya gotta love that. Thursday, September 21, 2000 3:00 pm okay, so it turns out that my day hasn't lived up to the horoscopes. First, I got a talking to by my boss about my attitude. (newsflash: apparently it's been poor.) then I find out that she's been looking over my shoulder and seeing all the sites I surf to during the day. (newsflash: job sites galore.) not so good, huh? but then I went out to lunch with a friend, and though the first thing she said to me was that I definitely shouldn't apply for a job at her place of business and also that the eagerly anticipated chicken pot pie was actually quite poor, we had a good time catching up. And you gotta love people willing to throw parties - even if they live way uptown. had a great dinner last night though with ker-dog at la dolce vita. If you go there, be sure to get the pumpkin ravioli with vodka cream sauce. Scrumptious. 11:00 am how you can you not love my horoscopes for today and the whole next week. This, I believe, is the good sign I've been waiting for. (although it doesn't hurt one bit to hear that the ex is heartily regretting his dumping me. Ah, ya gotta love getting back at someone without doing a thing but rather through their own damn head.) from the wonderful free will astrology: If you were about to graduate (which in a sense you are), and you handed me your yearbook, this is what I'd write in it: "May you stay as fiercely cute as you are. May the transformations you bravely unleash next in your life be greeted with excitement and curiosity, not fear and resistance. May you think deep thoughts without becoming a pretentious know-it-all. May you stay on really good terms with G spots, X factors, and the C students who seem to be in charge of running everything. May you never have a cat food jingle running through your head while you make love. Adoringly, Your Secret Admirer." and from yahoo: You could be ecstatic over the success of a group project today. You'll get the opportunity to begin a work project that could greatly increase your effectiveness. Your work must reach masses of people. Your income could be propelled onto a new level as well. You'll have to put your hand to the plow and make a commitment to hard work and deadlines, though. You may have little time left for fun and games or just for yourself. yay! Wednesday, September 20, 2000 11:00 am so, one of the two olympic ads I forgot to mention the other day that I have now seen about 1 kajillion times but actually still like is the nike one featuring runner suzy hamilton. In the spot, the speedy 800m girl leaves the chainsaw massacre guy in her dust, thanks to her nike shoes. The thing cracked me up because that was exactly what I always figured I'd do were I in one of those crazy scenes. I mean, just run away, ijits, cuz those guys are not fast and, besides, they can barely see with those masks on their faces. Anyway, it turns out, nike has gotten a bunch of complaints and so they've pulled it from the air. How dumb. hey, since I'm up for looking for a new job, I was thinking I'd try out to be an alligator wrestler. what do you think? apparently, marriage makes women dumb, since it turns out that married ladies are more likely to want to vote for bush. Silly girls. on a related note, good thing I'm single because this article about how you keep germs from everyone you ever kiss totally grossed me out. Yuck. I'm completely stressed out. Why you ask? Well, I think it has to do with a number of things, including my crappy apartment and crazy, dirty roommates, but it also is closely tied to the state of my office and the mental state of my boss - neither of which seem particularly stable or good. So I've been trying to exercise more (even pulled an 11 ½ miler on Sunday, if you can believe it - a full 90 minutes!), but that doesn't help for very long, particularly here in nyc, since the park is now running amok with psycho people who don't know how to stay right. What is the problem here? And why do they have to be so adamant about staying left? People would rather run into me than stay right, I swear. It's crazy. And it totally stresses me out because I have to dodge people continuously or just stick to my guns and hope they get the point - and I'm not sure that they really are. So, I think I'm going to make myself a sandwich board. I planned it out on my run this morning. This is what it will say: WHY IS IT SO DIFFICULT? JUST STAY TO THE RIGHT--> What do you think? I wonder if people would yell and/or throw things at me if I did indeed wear it. I also wonder if the problem actually is that many people are not from the U.S. and thus think that traffic is supposed to stay to the left. Anyway, the one thing that is working to calm my nerves is listening to the radio over the web at work. Particularly the jersey stations. This blocks out (at least somewhat) the rantings and ravings of the people in my office, and just gives the impression to everyone around that I am not completely accessible, which is key since I work in an open space and people are constantly just calling things out in hopes that people will just answer them. I hate that. They all just need to shut up and pretend that we have walls around our desks. I need boundaries, damn it. Hey, there goes one random comment right now. Love that. Tuesday, September 19, 2000 2:20 am Heh heh. I just found this stuff on the web from my days at amherst. Ah, to remember when I was so young and opinionated. Here's a piece on myths we hold about Africa and here's one about UNICEF, kind of. Jeez, so different from what I write now, isn't it? He he. Other fun stuff you can read about me on the web includes my finish at this year's midland run, my finish in nyc's minimarathon this past june, and way too many of my horrendous finishes while running track at amherst. Why did I just share that? It's pretty pitiful. 11:00 am oh no! I just translated my dream on my favorite dream site to, as always, scary results. Here's the dream: I move ["if the move was troublesome, unsatisfactory, or uncompleted in your dream, you are likely to be faced with a choice between a retrenchment or a new start"] into this new apartment that's huge ["if it was large and/or luxurious, you can expect a steady increase in prosperity"]. I'm sharing it with several people and we all have gigantic rooms. I'm so excited and it's going to be so much fun because they all seem really cool. I move my stuff in and set up and my walls are even the color I want them to be -- orange ["Orange suggests that an expected change in your situation will be delayed"]. Everything's peachy. So then I go around to chat with my new roommates. When I return to my room, I see that all my stuff has been piled up ["you are being cautioned about a forgotten (or neglected) obligation which could suddenly embarrass you; don't compromise your integrity for the sake of passing pleasures"] in the hallway ["predicts a long period of worry"] by my current, lease-holding roommate. There sits my bed ["your own bed promises security"] right in the middle of the pile, my alarm clock ["a straightforward warning to stop wasting time"] perched right in the middle of it. So I go in and I'm like, "what are you doing? This is my room!" and she says, "no, I was told this was my room, so I just moved all your stuff out." So I go to some of the new roommates and they tell me that they did hear that I may be living in this other space, a tiny, tiny, little shit of a room ["the apartment was small and/or uncomfortable, you will have to persevere and try to avoid family quarrels"] - well, no, it was more like a parking space because it didn't even have walls, just a bed frame of wooden poles and a lockerroom-like cubby. Isn't that horrible? I woke up completely agitated. isn't it amazing though how my dreams hit my state of mind right on the head? Tuesday, September 19, 2000 10:20 am well, thanks to time delay and yahoo, I already know - albeit accidentally that I found out - who wins "tonight's" team title in gymnastics. Don't click here unless you want to know, too. Gotta say, I'm happy for them. And based on my biting words yesterday regarding the U.S. team, you can probably deduce who didn't win. there's a pretty damn funny article on freezerbox about the inanity of the olympics. It had me laughing out loud and my boss was giving me funny looks. (Yep, that's the kind of place I work in, apparently. No laughter here.) anyway, maybe my favorite line was "I feel that if you have chosen to dedicate your life to the javelin, that's your problem, not mine." gail collins doesn't fail to crack me up yet again in her column about reporters having too much time on their hands in this season of politics. Ya gotta love that a "Republican Senate candidate in Connecticut called Joe Lieberman 'a very moral man, a very Christian man.'" Ha ha. buchanan is scary, particularly though as he suggests that the marines help the U.N. get the hell out of the U.S. - at bob jones university of all places. Yep, he's got my vote - to get kicked off the island. for all you eating at taco bell, what are you thinking? But also, beware that not-approved-for-human-consumption corn. gross. But then again, I often wonder whether fast food, in general, should be approved for human consumption. It's scary. but speaking of gross, I knew you always lied about washing your hands after taking a leak. And now CNN knows it, too. And you gotta love their instructions. Who knew our hands had "nooks and crannies"? Huh. oh, super. Apparently my company's brand-new partner, women.com, just launched their latest superhero: Lacey Brazeer. Salon takes a swing. Yep, feeling good about the women's web today. Monday, September 18, 2000 6:30 pm well, if today hasn't sucked, I don't think I know what kind of day does. Oh, except that I got a little tipsy at lunch - the only real bright point - without that I think it would have been a complete downer in every way. what started it all off poorly actually occurred yesterday. And if you love gymnastics like I do and you saw last night's olympics, you'd know what I'm talking about. Here, I file my complaints: 1.) NBC lies. The 27th olympiad station knows very well that we all want to see gymnastics. So they tease the hell out of it and then don't even put it on until 9 pm (though they said it would be on at 7!). I really didn't need to see all that other stuff. And it just got me angry. Which leads to…. 2.) NBC sucks. while I had to wait and wait and wait to see america's sweethearts grace the australian stage, I watched the men's triathlon. Not a bad event in itself at all; rather, I was all psyched for them and so impressed by the various competitors' stories and journeys and motivations that I actually began cheering for some guy out loud. He was in front, his name I think was walton, and so I was all psyched for walton. Then, all of the sudden, we go to crappy commercial. (No doubt it was one of the 4 you'll see during the olympics: the dasani water spot, the zoom-zoom s.u.v. spot, the "instant winner" mcdonald's spot, or the senegalese basketball player spot - ya know the one: "Mayamati is a hero!" "Maybe I'm a hero, but I just want to be a regular basketball player.") then we're back watching the triathlon, and some other 2 guys are in front and - you deduce, because no one explains this - walton is no longer winning. But what the hell happened? Where'd he go? How'd they pass him? He was so far ahead! And no, you cannot blame this on the commercial break because, hello, it's taped. Which leads to… 3.) Time-delay is the worst, but almost better than NBC. how's that you ask? Well, yes, it sucks that we have to deal with time delay because we don't get to hear and see the news of who wins as it's happening, but hell, with NBC broadcasting, it's almost better this way. 4.) Again, though, NBC is balls. when finally gymnastics came on, I was again all geared up. So ready to see each one on our team compete, but also psyched to see the girls on the other teams, because, after seeing the U.S. qualifying competition, I'd seen enough to know that our team was probably not going to do that well. So yay, it started and I'm watching round 1. Three girls go and then they rotate and I'm like, huh? What happened? I start thinking that I'm just not clear on the rules and that not all the girls go on each apparatus. But then the announcers actually have the gall to talk about the performances we didn't see when we finally do get to see them perform on some other apparatus. I'm like, hello???? I mean, I was all psyched to see dominique and amy on the beam, but why didn't I get to see one of the new girls? It was totally weird. And quite upsetting. So much so that... 5.) I actually went to bed before it was even half way over. How lame is that? But, hey, apparently -- even without me cheering, if you can believe it -- they still made it to the qualifying round. now the question is whether or not i keep watching this garbage. Friday, September 15, 2000 2:35 pm huh. Well, it's been an interesting start to the day. I should have known that something was gonna go down at the office when I dreamt last night that I had quit my job but that I was still working there without getting paid. Although I think that's a little backwards from what's really going on here. Anyway, no I wasn't laid off like I was after my last job-anxiety-related dream but instead the head of our site was fired. Maybe this means something very bad for everyone in the magazine world, but I'm not sure what it means for us. The thing I'm most concerned with is that this shady guy from marketing is taking over. Hmmm…. We'll see. gail collins hits my point right on the head when she discusses rick lazio's idiocy during the debate with hillary the other night. As she notes, probably the most ridiculous part was when he freaked out, stormed her podium, and demanded that she sign some agreement. Says gail: But Mr. Lazio turns out to be one of those politicians with no thermostat. Having started hot, he just got louder and louder. By the end, he had charged over to Mrs. Clinton's lectern and thrust a no-soft-money pledge under her nose, demanding: "Sign it! Right now!" I mean, give us a break. Nobody in their right mind would find that impressive, or "admirable," as hillary quite mockingly dubbed it afterwards. I have no idea if she'll win or not, really, but lazio needs to chill out. Not that I'm surprised, but duets is looking to be a pretty poor movie. If you've seen the previews, I think you've also seen that the movie is based upon nothing and thus they have nothing to show you other than some people singing karaoke in a bar. Poor gwyneth; sacrificing her career - to some degree - for dear old dad. Sigh. Thursday, September 14, 2000 6:00 pmi can't believe salon was so harsh on karenna gore with their gen x quiz [via catherine]. i mean, i took it and while i did better than she, that whole bubble yum thing was definitely before my time and i literally just found out that shirley of what's happening died and you really gotta be good to know that "reality bites" took place in houston (i did only because i wrote my final college final about it and several other post-college flicks). i mean, a d-??? she was just stupid about the "friends" question (go with the characters, obviously), but come on. 11:30 am So I have this great horoscope today: Be thankful that a situation involving a home at a distance is finally resolved in a satisfactory way. Work through your own emotional reactions to tap a creative reservoir that needs to be revealed. You could create a vehicle that will reach many people and express your compassion and nurturing on a wide scale. Important projects are pending that will bring major new sources of income your way. Keep your ideas to yourself for now, except for the particular groups involved in your plans. now, I would like to tell you just what this all means -- because I feel it has much relevance to my life - but then I would have to kill you. After all, it said to keep my ideas to myself. Sorry! yay! William saletan gives me hope that gore will win! and this all makes me think about how, in just a few months, the loser will be completely out of the spotlight and the public will practically forget that he was ever an option. I mean, how long did it take for bob dole to disappear? Days? Hours even? It was just like, poof! And he was gone. I'm hoping that that happens to dubya and that he never reappears on the presidential scene again. He scares me. this piece about anna kournikova being hailed as so great simply because of her looks is so true (thanks, holly). There's very little that gets me more riled up these days than this topic. I mean, the girl gets sponsorships like you wouldn't believe, and yet she's not even so good. And the better - though less feminine athletes - get considerably less attention - even when they win huge tournaments. The thing that pisses me off though about this article is the british researcher stating out right, "Exercise for women is about looking beautiful. They are doing it to look good, not for health benefits or to improve their heart rate," as a conclusion for why women's magazines promote women athletes' looks and personal lives over their sports success. That's bullshit. A lot of women exercise for health reasons, but most mags don't like to cover those things as much because it's less sensational and they'd prefer to stereotype women and focus on Looks! Looks! Looks! It's garbage. That's why I want out! That's why I want to go back to school so I can criticize like crazy and not be responsible for making women feel like shit! Yay! wow, here's something else crazy: Apparently the WNBA put out a press release listing the number of players who are "married or engaged," (see second item) alongside their male partners' names - seemingly in an effort to point out to people that it's not a league packed with just lesbians. Not only is this completely ridiculous and irrelevant to the game, but it's offensive to the players and fans. For one, a good portion of the fans are gay. For two, why would the married players even want people to think about that aspect of their lives when it doesn't have anything to do with them on the court. It's just stupid. (thanks again, holly.) Wednesday, September 13, 2000 4:30 pm oh, how cute! I just registered to vote online at election.com and I printed out the form I have to mail in and realized that the site never gave me instructions for the "ID number" space, that is, space #6. So I'm like, well, what the heck do I do? Do I need to put in my social security number? I dunno….. so I look on the site for the voter registration hotline in new york and a very, very nice woman answered the phone, knew exactly what I was going to ask, and told me that I don't need, and I quote, "to fill out space #6." I love that. She was so sweet. 4:00 pm wow, that was close. i just nearly lost my archive without even noticing. and no one at pitas.com has even written me back since my plea for help this morning. thank god i'm so damn resourceful. ha ha. oh god, this - having a metal coil stuck in your fallopian tubes - sounds so ridiculously painful. I don't even care that no one has yet experienced pain from it, because just the thought is enough to send me running, screaming, bleeding. Ugh. How invasive. That's like saying, "I'd like to not ever smell that sewage-y scent that I get a whiff of every garbage hauling day in new york city, thanks," and then getting two giant metal plugs stuffed up your nose. Even if you don't feel it, isn't the thought of them being there enough to make you imagine pain? I think it would be for me. oooohhhh….i want a glow-in-the-dark-and-flashing leash for my dog!!!! How fun! Oh wait, I suppose first I should get a dog. Um, yeah, I really want a dog. 10:40 am okay, that was garbage. well, for you privileged few who happened to pop onto the pita between 7 pm last night and this morning, you got a sneak preview of another page i've started with some other folks. though it's likely that those of you who saw it are actually in that group, so maybe it wasn't so exciting. i don't know why the hell that got fucked up, but i hope it's fixed now. that was crazy. thank god i had sent an email to a co-worker with my html code about a month ago when i was redesigning and having all those width problems. fuck. better make a word file containing that stuff now or that could very well happen again and i wouldn't be so lucky. more to come later once i settle down. and as for the other page, you can find it here from now on. ain't nothing but a book thing. 10:00 am what's going on here? Tuesday, September 12, 2000 6:20 pm oh dear. so the ex pays a visit to the office of his friend who works with my friend. of course i got a half-full report. immediately i get all flushed and anxious. why does this upset me? i can only think that it's because up until his email last week, i had actually convinced myself that he had stopped existing. you know, not out of sight, out of mind, but rather, out of sight, out of this fucking world. and the thought of possibly running in to him scares me to death. why why why? it's not as though i couldn't handle the situation just fine if i did indeed see him. i mean, i have it all planned out. this is how it would go: (i picture it taking place on a subway.) colin: hi. me: huh? oh, hi...(squinting eyes, looking closer, as if trying to remember name) colin....hey, how's it going? colin: good, good. things are good. me: oh yeah? that's great. colin: and how are things with you? me: oh, super. yeah, you wouldn't believe it. i'm moving to california where i've been offered a column with the san francisco chronicle. and my boyfriend's coming with me. and we just bought a house -- it's right on the beach, you'd love it. yeah, so things are super. ya know, thank god you were such a dick and broke up with me. god, how much my life sucked then. woo! oops, this is my stop, gotta run. take care! ha ha. yeah right. reality check, folks: the only things i would get out would be "hey" and a whole lot of nervous, evil looks. or, at best, spiteful comments. terrible stuff, man. 12:40 pm some people will be happy to hear that scott agrees with them that the way of the gun was a decent movie, though, of course, others will be quite unimpressed. I was quite pleased with today's entry, not for this reason, as I have not seen either nurse betty or ryan phillipe's new flick, but because I had a very similar experience when I watched the blair witch project. And I was actually in the theater at the time. I mean, no, there was nothing explicitly scary about it, but I do think you had to go into it wanting to be scared, wanting it to really freak you out -- kind of like you have to really want to be hypnotized when you go to one of those college auditorium hypnotist things. You really have to be ready for the experience, suspend your disbelief at least for a bit, and just jump whole-heartedly into the experience. I must say, this is really not the way I usually am, but at the time, as I was with some friends and we were really revved up for it, I wanted to be scared. And the last scene did it - but particularly after we left the theater and walked along the streets of brooklyn and recounted the movie to each other. Then it just got scarier. I, too, am looking forward to the new blair witch movie. but I wish nate would learn more about it and tell holly so I could actually feel somewhat informed. Then again, I also wish nate would get me some artisan premiere and/or preview passes, but hey, I suppose I'll just have to settle for invites to his house parties. Which I quite enjoy since they supply damn good and beyond the call of duty party food. Oh, and plenty of drinks. 12:00 pm Did anyone else see the oprah show yesterday? I was all psyched that she was going to show gore off to the world and really let him ham it up, but it turned out to