Pleasant Surprises--Good Omens?

So, I called my Mom this evening because today was such a weird, tense day for me and I wanted to vent some of my election stress. And just out of curiosity, I asked if my Grandpa had voted. She told me, yes, they filled out an absentee ballot for him and mailed it in to Georgia. I figured he would vote for McCain, because he usually votes Republican, being an older Southern Baptist conservative WWII vet. He and I even had an argument about gay marriage last year when he asked me whether I thought homosexuals should be allowed to marry, and all I said was, "I don't really care if gays and lesbians get married to each other, if they are in love." I didn't even state my entirely true feelings on the subject because I didn't want to make him too mad, but he got mad at even me saying I didn't care. So, imagine my surprise when my Mom told me he asked her to fill in the bubble for Obama. (He's blind, so she had to do the bubbling for him.) She didn't ask him his reasons, which I assume are largely finance-related. But, if my almost lifelong Republican Grandpa is voting for Obama, I feel very reassured about the world and about people's willingness to be open-minded. I love my Grandpa very much, and I've always been proud of his service to the country and the amount of love he has showered on me and my Mom, and this just makes me prouder. It's nice to know that, when pretty much everyone else on his side of the family is a vocal McCain supporter, he decided he isn't too old or indoctrinated to make his own decision. I don't feel so isolated anymore when it comes to that side of my family. Maybe it even helps me understand a little better why my Mom and I turned out to be so liberal.

The other thing I found out today is that Obama is a Leo. So is Bill Clinton. Not that I really think it matters, of course, but, being a Leo myself, it does make me feel a little more kinship with the guy.

Anyway, I hope these are good signs, and I hope there aren't too many shenanigans on this Election Day.

Can It Just Be Election Day All Ready?

I think I've OD-ed on this election. I've been checking like, 8 different websites every hour of the day for the last 2 months. I'm surprised I don't fall asleep with my fingers poised over an imaginary laptop keyboard! Election fatigue--it's real, and it. is. brutal.

Also, I have a sore throat, so that might be making me a little testier than normal.

I mean, if I had my druthers it would just be January already right now--skip right over the next week, the whole president-elect phase, and the tense family gatherings for the holidays--and just make it be the day when Bush is no longer the President. To quote General Hospital's Jack Wagner, that is "All I Need." Don't judge, you know you have that song on your 80s playlist in your iTunes.

New Site I Frequent

I'm adding thinkprogress.org to my links on the right.

Stuff

Last night I had one of those stressful dreams where I am waiting tables and I can't do anything right, not even remember a drink order. Fun! It was kind of weird, though, because I was waiting tables at the restaurant where I currently work (but I'm a bookkeeper here, not a waitress) and yet all of my co-workers were people from my days at the Olive Garden. Silly smooshed-up brain!

I feel bad because I haven't written anything on here in a while, but I don't really have much of anything to say. It's been a boring month, with just work and watching the debates and reading celeb gossip blogs. I did buy a new laptop because my old one, well, basically it was a POS and nothing worked on it anymore, and now I can't even get it to stay on long enough to get all of my old files off of it. So I've kind of lost about 3000 songs that I had purchased and/or downloaded and I have started over from scratch with the importing and the downloading. Exciting stuff! I knew I didn't want that stupid computer, but for some reason my Dad and Stepmom really wanted me to have a laptop. IDGI! LOLZ. Ok, sorry, i've been reading too much Dlisted/BestWeekEver/LiveJournal lately.

It is nice that the new tv season has begun, so that has been pretty distracting, along with all of the political and economic stuff. I mean, the whole economic issue hasn't really affected me in any way (yet), but my grandfather did lose about half of his money. So that sucks.

TL;DR

I try to avoid posting too much about politics on here because I have a lot of friends and family that feel differently, and I don’t want to offend them or cause any awkwardness the next time I see them in person. I mean, I’ve never made a secret of who I support, but I don’t usually post blogs about why I am a liberal or my stances on the issues or anything so specific. But I’ve been offended by a lot of things lately (actually, not just lately, for at a minimum the past eight years, and, let’s be honest, long before that, too) and as an adult, a woman, a citizen, as someone who wants the best for my own future and the future of this country and the REST OF THE WORLD, ALSO, I feel the need to explain myself so that I don’t have to play nice or coy anymore. I can just point to this blog for people to read if they have questions or criticisms, and hopefully we can discuss it from there.

This year I will be voting for Barack Obama. I had reservations about him when he first ran, and I still have some. I voted for Hillary Clinton in the primary, and I was excited (and am still excited) to be alive and of voting age in such an extraordinary election year. I was excited that there was an intelligent, liberal, strong woman who had a decent chance. It didn’t happen, so I turned my attention and research to Obama and McCain.

Eight years ago, I felt truly disappointed that Bush beat McCain in the primaries. I wouldn’t have voted for him in the general election because I was a Gore supporter (and if living in Florida during that election hasn’t disillusioned me, I hope nothing will), but he seemed like one of those rare Republicans, rare politicians really, who didn’t toe the party line because he actually used his heart and his gut and wanted to do what he thought was right. Now he has had to turn his back on almost everything he once stood for in order to win the Republican primary, and that still wasn’t really good enough. He had to go and pluck Sarah Palin out of basically political thin air to cement conservative support.

You guys didn’t like Kerry when he was a “flip-flopper”? Oh, but it’s okay when it’s YOUR Vietnam vet who has done a 180 on a bunch of issues. Bullshit. Also, let’s not forget that McCain is 72 years old. It is not very far out of the realm of possibility that this man could die within the next four years, and then Sarah Palin would be the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES! Are you freaking kidding me?!

Listen, people. It’s never going to be the 1950s EVER AGAIN. NEVER. Deal with it. There are a lot of very good reasons we don’t live that way anymore. People of color, women, homosexuals, non-Christians, people who weren’t strict adherents to capitalism, but who WERE citizens of this country were not SAFE here in that period. Still aren’t, but we’ve made a lot of strides since then. In case you’ve forgotten we are ALL supposed to be guaranteed life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Not just white Christian men, who have not exactly been the most responsible people in the world with those things, anyway.

Freedom of religion isn’t the right to go hauling the ten commandments around and sticking them up on the wall anywhere you want. Guess what? Christians aren’t the only taxpayers in America. And as long as that’s true, you need to keep your religion in your church and in your home and THAT’S IT. “Well, the founding fathers were Christians blah blah….” Um, No. They weren’t actually. They were Deists. If you don’t know what that is, look it up in something like an Encyclopaedia Britannica, and not in some “book” you got at the Christian bookshop. They also had slaves, and they also were raping them. So, as great as they were, they weren’t perfect people, not even perfect “Christians.” No one is. If you don’t want me to bring up the fact that Sarah Palin’s daughter is pregnant at 17 because no one bothered to teach her about the many forms of birth control she could have been using (not just to prevent pregnancy, but also to prevent DISEASE), then you shouldn’t have hounded Clinton for eight years about him cheating on his wife. If things are PERSONAL, then try to be consistent about it. And don’t try to use the fact that she hasn’t had an abortion as some sort of “right example” to other girls in the same predicament. Teen pregnancy is a big problem in this country, and so is crime, and so is pollution, and so is poverty, and so is OVERPOPULATION. In fact, those are all big problems around the world, especially that last one. You know why? Because abstinence-only education DOES NOT WORK! It doesn’t work here, and it doesn’t work in Africa, and it doesn’t work anywhere else.

What do Republicans propose to do about these issues? Basically, pretend they don’t exist, or that they aren‘t real, or that things are just “theory.” Look, you can’t just throw a Bible at someone and pretend it will solve all their myriad problems. They’ve been trying that same thing with the Koran over in the Middle East, and look how well that has been going! You can believe in whatever you want, I don’t care as long as it doesn’t involve human or animal sacrifice or something, but don’t try to tell ME that because the Bible said God created Adam and Eve and you guys got together and calculated it, that the Earth is only a few thousand years old despite what every LEGITIMATE scientist in the world has taught us about dinosaurs and evolution. Same goes for global warming.

“But the Bible is God’s word….“ How the fuck do you know?! If there is a God, He or She proably wasn’t doing mundane crap like writing out rules and shit for humans back then. When is the last time God actually talked to you and told you to write something down? Did you tape this exchange? No? Then I don’t buy it. (Actually, even if you did tape it, I probably wouldn’t buy it.) He may or may not have sent Christ to try to wake us up to some of the inconsistent and hypocritical ways people were and still are treating one another. If you consider yourself a Christian, you should try to remember the things CHRIST ACTUALLY SAID. And, guess what? He was a human, too, and he was also imperfect, and he was also inconsistent. Same goes for his disciples, and for all of the other HUMANS who actually wrote the Bible. Inconsistent and imperfect, and at least one or two downright crazy, people wrote things down about their religious experiences that some other human decided was worth sticking together and using as a way of controlling his subjects.

But Christ was one other thing--PROGRESSIVE. He CHANGED the world, tried to move it forward and help it be better. He didn’t come down and say, “You know what? In about 1,950 years there is gonna be this awesome way of life, and we should NEVER EVER EVER CHANGE IT!” Believe me, I have four different Bibles, and I checked them all. I even have a Book of Mormon (don‘t ask how or why), and he didn’t say that to them, either.

The founding fathers? They were pretty progressive, as well. Abraham Lincoln was also convinced that REAL progress was necessary. Not to mention tons of other people who have helped hold this country and its government to account for what we are SUPPOSED to be. We aren’t supposed to be a nation of small towns who all believe the same thing. We are supposed to accept and find a way to live with people who disagree with us about religion or sex (as long as it’s between consenting adults) or whatever.

The world is so complicated, so much more than I ever thought, and there are so many things we don’t even know or fathom that happen to women and children, and yes, men, too, every day. I don’t want to pretend it isn’t true. I don’t want to pretend that if everyone were the same religion, or had the same “values” that all these things would stop, or that the world would be an easier place to live. It will never be easy. That just isn’t the human condition.

This election is supposedly also about change. Republicans have not only been in charge of the White House for the last eight years, but, up until two years ago, they were also in charge of Congress for 12 of the last 14 years. What kind of change is McCain promising to bring? None that I can see, unless you want to continue to change the meaning of this country from something hopeful to an international joke, a bully.

Last week we had an anniversary of a terrible day. I live in New York City, and not that that gives me any sort of additional insight, but what happened seven years ago didn’t make the people here all agree to live to the same morals and standards, and decide to stop being open to new ideas and discussion. It just didn’t. Because that isn’t what New York is about, and it really isn’t what America or LIFE IN GENERAL is about. If anything, it made us value the fact that our society CAN live with so many differences of opinion. We do a lot of things right. Why do we want to go back on that?

Some of the reasons that we even experienced such a horrible day are rooted in things that we have done in other countries to try to force our values on people who don’t want them, people who don’t have the luxury of having a lot of intangible values. Why can’t we live and let live? Why is that so hard? Sometimes war is necessary, of course, and sometimes there is actually a point to the conflict and rarely, it actually makes a difference in the long term. The war in Iraq is not now and never has been in any of those categories. It is a war that was fought for the profit of oil companies who are sucking this country dry.

Republicans have been using religion, and fear, and racism, and sexism and lies to keep us ignorant and divided. It is to their benefit to prevent progress because that is the only way they can continue to get away with all of the crap they pull economically. Did that tax cut in 2001 benefit you for very long? How about the check you got this year? How far did that go? The reason we are not recovering from what would be a regular cyclical downturn in the economy is because of all the trillions of dollars we have spent in Iraq. And who benefits from that? Don’t kid yourself, because unless you suddenly became the CEO of Halliburton, it ain’t you.

The more they remind you of the ways we are different, the more you forget how we are all really the same. Everyone just wants to live their lives to the fullest, to pursue what makes them happiest. Love, education, friends, a career, whatever it takes. Aren’t you doing that? Am I running into your house telling you what positions you can and can’t have sex in? How many kids you should have? Which God to believe in? How to prepare your dinner? No. Because I don’t care. I’m happily over here doing whatever the hell I want, and I don’t care what you’re doing, as long as you are doing it honestly and happily.

Barack Obama represents positive progress to me. Actual change. And I hope he fulfills his promise. And I hope that you and I and the US and the world benefit from it. I want a better system for health care. I want diplomacy to be the first thing we try, not the first thing we toss out! I want children to get better education because one day they will be adults and will be trying to run things, and trying to compete with people from countries who have already realized how important education is! I want young people to stop getting killed so men like Dick Cheney can line their pockets and buy their wives fur coats, when everyone else in the country is trying to budget around how expensive gas is now!

I guess it comes down to something everyone’s “hero” Ronald Reagan once asked. Are you better off today than you were eight or four years ago? Is anyone you know? If the answer is no, then put your money where your mouth is and vote for Obama.

I’m sure I have plenty of inconsistencies in here, and I welcome comments and discussion. I prefer to exchange ideas and disagreements openly. But I won’t approve anything hate-filled!

Mood Swings

I don't know why, maybe it's hormones, the crap weather, post-vacation blues, whatever. My mood is all over the place this week. I went from incredibly happy on Saturday to completely in the dumps today. Not even about anything specific, just feeling frustrated and blue. It doesn't help that my boss can be a complete harridan at times. Even if it's not directed at me, it's still not fun to be around! I've been thinking about buying this really cute purple coat that's in the window of the shop down the street from my job. Maybe that will perk me up? Blah, what a boring post!

Thirty

So, people have been asking me to write something about turning 30. I don't really know what to say. I guess I made my peace with it (for the most part) several months back so it kind of doesn't really feel like something I need to write about at this point. There was a point where I had intended to spend my 30th birthday hugging a bottle of Patron tequila and getting an ankle tattoo, but after some contemplation that came off a bit desperate and sad. And I don't feel desperate and sad. I've said several times that it feels similar in some ways to turning 18. I feel a little more self-assured, a little more free, a little more like an adult, but those were feelings I'd been having for a while now. Aging--it's what happens to everyone, and really, it's not as if I went from 29 to 50 overnight or anything. I do feel lucky that I live in a time and in a city where being a single 30-year-old woman is pretty normal. I probably would have felt a lot worse if I hadn't made some changes in the last year and a half, and I don't just mean quitting waiting tables.

I have to say that the day itself was very nice, a Sunday, my favorite day of the week. I had a beautiful and delicious brunch at I Coppi with an excellent group of people who also seemed to enjoy themselves, and who were very nice and patient with the somewhat tipsy guest of honor. After brunch a few of us went to see Mamma Mia, which was cute but not great. And after that we went out on the town and had drinks. I made it home about 12 thirty that night, and certainly (OK, side note, someone just walked by my window wearing only body paint and a white thong--I don't know, just wanted to put this post in context for you all) had a full day. So thanks to everyone who shared it with me, and thanks to everyone who couldn't be here but who called, sent gifts, cards, MySpace and Facebook comments, etc. I mean, it's great that we have so many forms of communication now, there's really no excuse for not acknowledging your friends' big days. I need to be better about it myself.

I should also thank God or Mother Nature or Science or Satan or whoever the fuck decided to remind me that morning that I am still a woman. You really made my day!

And thanks to me, for being me and loving me and buying me some lovely gifts for myself. I love you, me! Hee hee.

P.S Recent celebrity sightings: Martha Plimpton; Albert Hammond, Jr. and his girlfriend Agyness Deyn.

Boy Meets God; Boy Falls In Love; God Isn't Real

Okay, so maybe it's a little more, Boy Meets God; Boy Falls In Love; Boy Becomes Disillusioned and Withdrawn When Forced to Confront the Harshness of Living; Boy Decides God Isn't Real and/or Has Forsaken Him; Boy Comes to Terms With the Fact That You Have No Way of Knowing, But That Life Requires Living.

Of what do I speak? I finally watched Ingmar Bergman's Winter Light last night, after it had been sitting on my coffee table for about six months. It's the second in the Trilogy I wrote about several months back.

Although it is much slower and heavier than Through A Glass Darkly, I actually liked it more. It's the story of a (Protestant) clergyman who, after experiencing war and death, ends up feeling cut off and abandoned by God, no longer sure if God even exists, and unable to be an effective shepherd and counselor to his congregation. The black and white film truly enhances this work, acting as a bleak backdrop of despair and lifelessness. There is plenty of classic Bergman dialogue; here is an amazing example:

Priest: If there is no God, would it really make any difference? Life would become understandable. What a relief. And thus death would be a snuffing out of life. The dissolution of body and soul. Cruelty, loneliness and fear--all these things would be straightforward and transparent. Suffering is incomprehensbile, so it needs no explanation. There is no creator. No sustainer of life. No design. God--why have you abandoned me?

He doesn't want to believe this. He wants what so many of the ultra-religious truly want--to feel special in God's eyes, to feel blessed, to feel pride and arrogance at "knowing" the answers.

Not to go off on a tangent here, but I definitely hit my spiritual crisis at around the age of 15 when a lot of things in my life sucked and several people in my family died. I couldn't understand what kind of God would allow or cause these events. The way I eventually reconciled this was to sort of decide that if there even is a God in the Judeo-Christian sense of the concept, it is the God of the Deists. The clockmaker who set the world in motion but does not interfere. Maybe there are reasons for life's difficulties, maybe not. Either way, at the very least the bad times allow us to appreciate the good times that much more. So people die--without death, what would be the point of life?

Anyway, I think this falls in line with the ideas espoused in the film. I'll wrap up with this brilliant monologue:

Parishioner: The passion of Christ, his suffering [referring to the beatings/indignities Christ suffered on the way to his execution, as depicted in the Mel Gibson film of the same name]. Wouldn't you say the focus on his suffering is all wrong?.....This emphasis on physical pain.....I feel he was tormented far worse on another level. Maybe I've got it all wrong. But just think of Gethsemane, Pastor. Christ's disciples fell asleep. They hadn't understood the meaning of the last supper or anything. And when the servants of the law appeared, they ran away, and Peter denied him. Christ had known his disciples for three years. They'd lived together day in and day out, but they never grasped what he meant. They abandoned him, down to the last man. He was left all alone. That must have been painful. To realize that no one understands. To be abandoned when you need someone to rely on. That must be excruciatingly painful. But the worst was yet to come. When Jesus was nailed to the cross, and hung there in torment, he cried out, "God, my God. Why has thou forsaken me?" He thought that his heavenly father had abandoned him. He believed everything he'd ever preached was a lie. In the moments before he died, Christ was seized by doubt. Surely that must have been his greatest hardship? God's silence.

Turn Left

Only Who fans would understand this post, and I don't know any in person, but let me just say:

BAD WOLF

Amazing!

House On Fire

So, my stepdad burned down the kitchen at my parents' house yesterday. Everything is ruined. They are going to have to re-do the room, buy new plates, silverware, all that kind of stuff and also buy new furniture and mattresses and do some re-upholstering for the rest of the house because the smell doesn't leave fabric. Even their clothes will probably have to get sorted through and seen what can be salvaged. Luckily my Mom and my Grandpa were up in Georgia, so they weren't there to watch it happen. But now they are going to have to go back to Florida sooner than expected, which is too bad because my Mom was planning to take my Grandpa to the new WWII Memorial in Washington, DC next month. AND they aren't going to be able to live in the house for about 6 months, so now they have to find a rental home. I'm still planning to be down there in August for about a week, but now it looks like I will definitely be staying at my Dad's house in Boynton Beach while I am there.

Hopefully, in the future Louie will not start cooking with grease and then walk away and forget about it!

Across The Pond

Yesterday evening, my friend Desiree and I booked a trip for next May to England, Scotland, and Ireland! I'm VERY excited about it, as we've been trying to get it together for a while now. We are going to stay in London for 5 nights, Glasgow for 2nights, and Dublin for 4 nights. Our booking includes airfare and hotels, so we won't have to worry about that stuff when we are there. Breakfast is included in Scotland and Ireland, too. So all our money can go toward day-to-day expenses and between-city travel.

There are so many things I want to see and places I want to go when we are there. Luckily we have a good long time to plan. Already on my list for London are the Tower of London, National Portrait Gallery, Westminster Abbey, and Harrod's department store. In Scotland, I have to do a little research, but we are planning to daytrip over to Edinburgh, so I know I want to see Edinburgh Castle. In Ireland, it looks like we will be going to the Guiness Storehouse, the James Joyce Centre, St. Patrick's Cathedral, the Jameson Distillery, and Dublin Castle. I'd love to see some ruined castles during the trip, also. Apparently the Scottish Borders are good for that!

If anyone has any advice on cool stuff to see that is a little off the regular tourist map, please let me know!

Dreaming

I had a funny dream the other night. I was a member of a Destiny's Child-type of girl group with Beyonce Knowles (-Z?) and we were supposed to go to some big event one night and she and I had a fight because she and her Mom wanted us all to wear red dresses, but I wanted to wear a purple dress. I thought it would be stupid to all wear the same color. The dresses came in like, 5 different colors, and they were all jewel-toned, so i thought it would be better if we each wore a different color. Well, Beyonce was having none of that. So I stayed home instead of going to the event. We all made up the next day. Also, this whole thing took place at my grandparents' house in Macon, GA (which they moved out of 4 years ago), and Beyonce was like, related to me. Verrrry strange. Lots of random stuff knocking around in my head lately!

Last night I went to dinner with Lester and this friend of his named Lens. It was good to see him again. It had actually been about a year since the last time we hung out. We also went back to the apartment afterwards and I got to see Judith and see what they've done with the place since I left. It looked very nice, mostly the same, except that Lester now lives in my old room. That room looked amazing. The carpet was pulled up and underneath was a beautiful wood floor! I wish I had known that! The walls have also been painted and they got those weird sized shelves down somehow. Muff and I tried to get them off and couldn't, so I don't know how they did it, but it definitely freed up some more space in there. It really made me want to move out of my current place. But I don't think I can beat the rent situation I have now. And I'm in a pretty convenient neighborhood. Ugh! I wish I had more money, I'd move straight to Park Slope!

My Summer Goals

So, since I have a lot more free time in the evenings now than I ever have since like, high school, I've decided that this summer I am going to go back and school myself in some of the bands I've always wanted to get into but have never taken the time for. On the list: Wilco, The Replacements, The Flaming Lips, The Shins, The Decemberists, Guided by Voices. I already know a few songs/albums by all of them, but I've always intended to go back and get a little more in-depth, so that is my summer project this year. Luckily, I get to play whatever music I want when I am at work, so that will be very helpful in getting to know stuff better.

Last weekend I went to Buffalo with a bunch of old friends from OG to surprise my old roommate Jim for his Big 3-0. We went to Niagara Falls, met Jim's Mom and Stepdad (and his runaway dog, Maggie), went out and partied at some gay bars, had the police stop by the apartment (possibly getting jim evicted), ate at Arby's, and had an incredibly long ride home during which we made an alphabetical list of people to invite to our next party! We also went to an outlet mall where I got a really cute Marc Jacobs dress for $100. Now I just have to get some shoes to go with it!

I'm also planning to read a lot of Barney/Robin HIMYM fanfiction, so if you're into that drop me a line, ha ha!

Posting Song Lyrics

In somewhat of a response to Carrie's posting of the lyrics to "Pressure" a few weeks ago, I'm going to post some lyrics by Ani DiFranco that sum up a lot of what I have been feeling about the world lately. The tone of the song is playful, but serious, although not nearly as destructive as the lyrics might appear when typed out.

"Fuel"
Music and Lyrics by Ani DiFranco
Little Plastic Castle 1998

They were digging a new foundation in Manhattan,
And they discovered a slave cemetery there.
May their souls rest easy now that lynching is frowned upon.
We've moved on to the electric chair!

And I wonder, who's gonna be President?
Tweedle Dumb or Tweedle Dumber?
And who's gonna have the blockbuster box office this summer?
How 'bout we put up a wall between the houses and the highway,
And then you can go your way, and I can go my way?

Except all the radios agree with all the TVs,
And the magazines agree with all the radios.
And I keep hearing that SAME DAMN SONG everywhere I go!
Ha ha ha!
Maybe I should put a bucket over my head,
And a marshmallow in each ear,
And stumble around for another dumb, numb week
For another humdrum hit song to appear.

People used to make records,
As in a record
Of an event.
The event of people playing music in a room.
Now everything is cross-marketing,
It's about sunglasses and shoes
Or guns and drugs.
You choose.

We got it re-hashed.
We got it half-assed.
We're digging up all the graves and we're spitting on the past.
And we can choose between the colors
Of the lipsticks on the whores
Because we know the difference
Between the
Font of 20% MORE
And the
Font of teriyaki.
You tell me, how does it make you feel?
You tell me, what's real?

Am I headed for the same brick wall?
Is there anything I can do about anything at all?
Except go back to that corner in Manhattan,
And dig deeper, dig deeper this time.

Down beneath the impossible pain of our history
Beneath unknown bones, beneath the bedrock of the mystery,
Beneath the sewage system and the PATH train,
Beneath the cobblestones and the water mane,
Beneath the traffic of friendships and street deals,
Beneath the screeching of kamikaze cab wheels,
Beneath everything I can think of to think about!
Beneath it all, beneath all get-out!
Beneath the good
And the kind
And the stupid
And the cruel
There's a fire that's just waiting for fuel...
There's a fire just waiting for fuel
There's a fire just waiting, waiting...


Okay, so I left out a few lines about being an alcoholic because that doesn't really apply to me here, but I really wish that I and everyone else could "dig deeper." Try to value life and art and the environment, try to remember how we got in the mess we're in now, try to be productive instead of destructive. To quote someone else, "The opposite of war isn't peace, it's creation!" ("La Vie Boheme", Rent, Jonathan Larson, 1996)

Just my take on a week of gorgeous weather here in NYC! Hee hee! No, it just seems like every time we make a few strides forward, some idiots come along and push us all back again. Most of the news recently about the economy, and the war, and the environment, and almost everything has been bad. It's hard, but I have to hope we'll eventually start to make progress again. Hopefully, after the Presidential election this year!

Update

Just to let you guys know, my grandmother passed away on Sunday while we were all with her. I've never been in the room with someone when they died before, so I wasn't sure how it would be. It was very peaceful, and she actually slipped away at a moment when we were all laughing at something silly my grandfather was saying. We had all been very silent, just watching her and sort of crying, and then we started to talk and laugh a little, and she let go. Maybe she needed to just hear her family, know we would go on and be okay. Anyway, the funeral was on Tuesday, and a lot of family and friends made the trip, so it was very nice. Mentally exhausting, to have to be kind of sociable to people when you just want to go home and absorb things, but very nice. And people also brought over a lot of food, so that is always appreciated!

Thank you guys for your words of encouragement last week. We aren't ready yet to sell the house or anything, but we did take some photos and my aunt let me pick out a few pieces of jewelry. I took two things that I had given her.

My Grandpa is going to be going down to Florida with my Mom, at least until school lets out. Then I think she and Louie will be bringing him back up to Georgia for the summer, and also they might take him to Washington, DC, so he can go to the World War II Memorial. It's going to be a big adjustment for him, and for my Mom and Louie! He took this whole thing very hard, as would be expected. I just hope it doesn't make him want to give up. But I think the change of scenery, and being around my Mom and Louie will be helpful.

Life, Death, Family, Blah

Yesterday I received the news that my grandmother has terminal cancer. She hasn't seen an oncologist yet, so we are not sure how long she has left. My guess would be a few months, maybe a year? She has been in the hospital for a couple of weeks now because she couldn't keep any food down and was having stomach pain. They found some tumors in her colon, removed them, and did a biopsy, which showed them to be cancerous. Afterwards, they tested her lymph nodes and found that the cancer had spread to them. Apparently, there is no surgical option at this point. I don't know about any chemotherapy or radiation, but the woman is 87 years old, so I don't think they will very highly recommend those, either. My mother says they are going to let her recover from the surgery she just had, then send her home and start the hospice nursing process.

They haven't told her yet, either, because they're afraid she'll just give up immediately and we'll never get her home. She is on some heavy pain medication right now, too, and doing a lot of moaning and groaning. I am going down to Georgia on Friday and will be spending the weekend there, coming back on Monday night. It's strange to think it could be the last time I see her before she passes away. I hope that isn't the case.

Most people know that she isn't my biological grandmother. But she is the only grandmother I have ever known on that side of the family. My feelings for her are very complicated because of the way she treated my mother when she was growing up. My real grandmother died in 1956, when my Mom was three. My grandfather re-married to Minner (as we call her, her real name is Mildred) five years later. She was a widow with two children who were older, and I guess she didn't really want to raise some other woman's daughter. I'm sure she did her best, but my Mom always felt the difference. Other kids would have their school art projects hung up on the fridge, she never did. When she asked for help in her Home Ec. class, she was told she had to learn it herself. She had to do a lot of chores that her stepbrother never did, meanwhile, he was drinking and flunking out of school--she was an A student. On the day of my Mom's marriage to my Dad, Minner cried and admitted she had never done right by her. How sad that she couldn't reach out to a little girl who was yearning terribly for a mother.

Anyway, she was always good to me when I was growing up. She always made a chocolate cake for me when I visited, always bought me nice gifts for Christmas and birthdays. I won't lie and say it was the same way my real grandmother on my Dad's side made me feel. There just wasn't the same sort of connection. But I can't in good conscience say that no effort was made when it came to me. So, as I said, it's complicated.

It's probably not a good idea to revisit the bad feelings when she is about to die, but it can't really be avoided. I feel the worst for my Grandpa, who how has to go through the death of a second wife. He is blind, so after she is gone, he will probably have to move down to Florida and live with my parents, or perhaps in one of those assisted living communities. He might enjoy that, he has always been active and sociable. Who knows?

It's very sad how quickly life really does go by. Eighty-seven years sounds like a long time, and I'm sure at points it feels like a long time. But it isn't really. When I think of how fast thirty years seems to have gone, and the fact that after my grandparents have gone, it will be my parents who are next in line (theoretically), it does seem quite small and fleeting.

As for me, I kind of hope I die very quickly around age 75. I have considered just killing myself if I reach 80, because, while you might be robbing yourself of something, what are you really robbing from the rest of the world? Not that life isn't valuable, but the progress of society requires death. Is it more selfish to cling to something you know will end soon, or is it more selfish to end things before it gets too troublesome? I don't know.

The Way of the World

So, this year's summer Olympics are scheduled to take place in Beijing, China. I'm quite morally opposed to this. The Chinese government has a terrible human rights record, terrible environmental record, and no transparency whatsoever in their processes or in their press. I'm sure it's a beautiful country, and I'm sorry for the people that are forced to live there in horrible conditions and would like to have something about which to feel pride, but if I were an athlete there is no way I would agree to participate. It's almost impossible to boycott items produced in China--I tried it in college when the whole Free Tibet thing was really big. And as many problems as I have with organized religion, I don't think the Tibetan monks really pose the same type of threat as Islamic extremists or Christian fanatics. I'm not even that anti-Communist really, I am just anti-secrecy and tyranny, and those are the things that seem to grow out of governments like the one in China, or what happened in the USSR, even if they start out with noble intentions.

I mean, I guess it's not as bad as trying to hold the Olympics in Syria or Darfur or something, but it's not far above. And of course, our reasons for participating are purely economic: to maintain good or at least cordial relations with a large, powerful country that we do more importing from than anywhere else. It's so hypocritical. But I shouldn't really be surprised, since money is at the root of almost all of the decisions our government makes. Money for large corporations that don't care to act responsibly, money for oil companies, money for drugs, hookers, designer clothes and haircuts for our elected officials.

Sometimes it's hard to be the amongst the smallest cogs in such a large wheel. And although I know I won't be able to do it 100 %, I am going to try to be more aware of where the money I spend goes. I'll try to patronize smaller, localized businesses, and do more research on the business practices of larger companies. To me, this is part of being a responsible, and even patriotic, adult. I already don't drive, so I feel good that I don't spend anywhere close to the amount of money most Americans do on gas. Of course, we all rely on it, and I wouldn't want to live without the opportunities it affords us for comfort, travel, whatever, but I would like it if the oil companies and our government felt a bit more pressure to come up with alternate energy sources. There's certainly no way of turning back the clock on the Industrial Revolution, but I'd like to be more progressive about the way we deal with its fallout.

Various & Sundry

Nothing too exciting has been happening with me lately. Just more of the same--work, reading books, tv, working on the genealogy stuff. Work is boring, frustrating, and stressful all at the same time. Sometimes just thinking about it makes me feel like there's a black cancerous maw just gnawing away at the organs in my chest cavity. I never thought about how such mundane crap would make me feel so sort of useless. At least as a server, I had some instant gratification, as usually (although NOT always) people were nice and thankful to you on the spot.

So, I already know that I want to leave after I have been here for a year. That's only about 5 1/2 months away now. I'm going to be getting some money from a life insurance policy my grandfather decided to cash out. It's not much, but it will be enough to put some into a CD or something that earns a good amount of interest, and then spend the rest on both my planned trip to England and Scotland and my planned time off. Hopefully, it will not be a lot of time off. I'm not sure what kind of job I will look for, but definitely something a little better-paying. I keep thinking about going back and getting a management position at a corporate restaurant, just because there is better money and more stability, more oversight. But at the same time, I know how crappy the hours are and how crappy it can be to have like, hundreds of corporate bosses breathing down your neck all the time. That is one thing I like about working here. I only have 2 or 3 people to whom I have to answer.

Anyway, I am sure I will figure something out. I always do.

I started re-reading Jane Austen's Emma the other day. I just love that book. It's definitely my favorite Austen, because it has the least amount of sturm und drang. It's just about a gossipy little village and a deluded, misguided girl attempting to be helpful. None of the women get scandalously seduced by a charming but soulless rake who refuses to marry her. No one dies penniless in a pauper's hospital. Everyone gets the marriage they wanted, and everyone takes care of one another. It's a lovely fantasy. The character of Emma Woodhouse is supposedly the least likeable of all of Austen's heroines, and I can definitely understand that, because she is quite smug and is certainly a snob. Her motives at the beginning of the story are self-gratifying, an attempt to prove to everyone around her how clever and talented she is, even though most people already feel this about her. But her better qualities do come through--her devotion to her father, her love for her friends, her offense at seeing Harriet snubbed by the Eltons, and her true remorse at insulting Miss Bates. And in the end she is honest with herself, and her Mr. Knightley, and everyone (except maybe Mr. Elton) lives happily ever after.

On the genealogy front, I am still stuck way back in like, 11th century England and France. It's getting a bit frustrating, too, because at a certian point I forget which family I am even tracing. I try to follow the male line until I can't get any farther, and then I have to go back and try to trace each of the mothers' lines, but that just leads to following a new male line back so far. It's seriously like taking twelve steps back to take one step forward, if that makes any sort of sense. I have a whole spiral notebook full of reminders of websites and information on names so I can try to keep track and not forget people I have already added (because there are certainly cross-overs).

Anyway, that is a fraction of the crap running around in my head this week. Yesterday was St. Patrick's Day, and I went and hung out with some friends in Woodside. We went to eat at Donovan's Pub, which is right around the corner (didn't even have to cross a street), and there was a full pipes and drums band entertaining us. It was very cool. One guy even did some Irish step-dancing, right in front of our table! It was the first time I've ever really felt like I was celebrating the Irish in America as opposed to just an excuse to go out drinking. I hope at some point I will be able to trace my grandmother Sullivan's family back in Ireland.

Everyone Else's Pedigree

Yesterday I read an article stating that a group of geneticists have found the mutation that causes people to have blue eyes. Apparently it traces to one common ancestor who seems to have lived in the Baltic region thousands of years back. So according to this study all blue-eyed people are distantly related.

This doesn't come as too big of a surprise to me since I started working on my genealogy. Families used to have so many children, and when one spouse died young, the survivor inevitably re-married and spawned some more. Not to mention all of the inter-family marriages. They say that something like 75% of the English middle class is descended from Edward III. While he hasn't come up in my family tree just yet, I have discovered that I'm possibly descended from Charlemagne at least three times over. There was a lot more information out on the internet than I would have suspected. People who have been working on their pedigrees for years have published their findings online and there is a lot of corresponding information. Of course, there is also a ton of conflicting info! Anything that seems too questionable to me I am leaving off. And of course it's all speculative, anyway. There are historical records to back up a lot of the info, but it isn't like people kept such careful track of what year things occured and a majority of records have been in some way lost or destroyed because either they thought no one would care, or because of war or just because sometimes things get lost. It's really only within the twentieth century that accurate records of births and deaths were kept by the states.

I only hope some record of my existence survives for a thousand years.

My Pedigree

I took a genetics class with Carrie in college, and our professor was this short, skinny, nerdy old Southern man who would always refer to family trees as "pedigrees." She and I had a lot of fun creating a pedigree for the white trash family we used to make up stories about. Let's just say, there were a lot crossed branches and twigs indicating learning disabilities.

Genealogy fascinates me, not that I have any really cool ancestors or anything--I just like to have an idea of where I come from, what life was like for the people before me, why they came to America, and what they would think of it nowadays. Why I am the way I am, I guess. It's really all about me, let's be honest here. So, I joined ancestry.com for a free trial of their like, deluxe package, where you have access to all sorts of records and other people's family trees to see if you have any matching information. It's pretty cool, and I've been able (if the information is accurate) to trace one line of my tree all the way back to France in the twelfth century! A lot of ancestors had Norman-English names, which is to be expected, since the conquest was so complete. Most of the tree dead-ends in various parts of England or Wales, which was cool because I didn't know I was at all Welsh. There were some people from Devon and Cornwall, too, which is kind of neat because supposedly they are from an entirely different tribe than the Anglo-Saxons. Although at this point they've all inter-married so much I suppose it hardly matters. There were some pretty crazy names, one being a guy called Oger Fitz Oger. There was also a woman named Amicia. That line of the family eventually moved to the Jamestown settlement in Virginia, then to North Carolina, and then to Georgia around 1800 or so. I had always assumed that because Georgia had been a debtor's prison colony when it was British that I was descended from some poor people who couldn't pay their bills! Looks like we're not such deadbeats after all! At least on that branch.

Unfortunately, I completely dead-ended on my Dad's branch after my great-grandparents. His mother was Irish and she was raised in Atlanta, but we aren't sure where she was actually born--she would say either Connecticut or Florida, but I don't know her mother's maiden name, and her father was one of about a hundred men named Jeremiah Joseph Sullivan that lived around the same time period. And while the site does have death certificates on file, they don't seem to have access to birth certificates, so that's a lot of missing information. There are no records from Mexico or Spain on the site, either, so nothing on his father's side.

My great-aunt did a lot of genealogy on my Mom's mother's side of the family, so I might give her a call and see if she can give me some more information there. Anyway, that's what I've been up to this week for the most part. The free trial is going to end soon, though! Maybe I should just print out all the stuff so that I have it. I think I will do that.

A New Look

I changed the colors on here. It was a little boring before. I wish I knew how to add a border, because I don't want the whole background to be this greenish color, I would like a white border. I'll have to do a little more snooping around on here to see if I can figure out how to fix that!

Masochism

So, TCM is trying to make me kill myself. Last night they played Gone With The Wind and Wuthering Heights back to back. I sobbed for about two hours during all that, and then decided to watch the final half of the "Doomsday" episode of Doctor Who. It was a puffy-eyed Tuesday I had.

Through A Glass Darkly

Last night I started Ingmar Bergman's Silence of God trilogy with the film Through A Glass Darkly. I got it from Netflix (along with the next film, Winter Light) back in November or December. I kept putting off watching them because they are black and white, Swedish films with subtitles. Having familiarized myself with Bergman in the past by watching two of his more famous works, The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries, I knew I would need to be able to completely concentrate on watching the movie and reading the dialogue.

The Seventh Seal was intriguing, and very dark, and I kind of hated it, even though I didn't hate the experience of watching it. Wild Strawberries was much more enjoyable. For some reason, I like to watch people evaluate their lives and am always curious to see how artists depict what they, through the characters, find most valuable.

Art that struggles with the concept of God is also endlessly intriguing to me, which is why I added the Silence of God trilogy to my queue. Through A Glass Darkly was quite good. Short, at only ninety minutes, and encapsulated within a twenty-four hour period, there are just four characters, and the movie is basically all about them reacting to each other's reactions to Karin, a woman who is beginning an "incurable" descent into mental illness. The other three characters are her unimpeachable husband; somewhat absentee, novelist father; and sexually and artistically frustrated younger brother. After an intense day during which Karin finally decides to give into her darkness and has a vision of God as a spider that unsuccessfully attempts to penetrate her, she gets flown off to the hospital. But her father and brother stay behind and discuss finding something in the world to hold on to, and hoping that love is the true nature of God.

I suppose the spider, to me, represents all of the difficult questions associated with disillisionment about God, the feelings of helplessness when such terrible things are going on in the world, the self-hatred we feel when we allow our own inappropriate thoughts and feelings to overwhelm us. Had Karin allowed the spider to penetrate her, would she have fallen further into this fear and anger? Or would she have had to accept the duality of God (or as I see it, the duality of humanity, which we have assigned to God)? She was so blissful in her hallucination up to that point, wanting to leave reality behind, wanting to be allowed to see God. I like that the movie ends on a relatively positive note, a breakthrough between father and son, and the only idea of God that I really think should be adhered to--love. The world is full of grace, and as Studs Terkel would say, hope dies last. Unfortunately, we only get to see or access the smallest ideas of what God could be.

Anyway, I might try to watch Winter Light tonight. Depends how tired I feel after work today.

"Live Every Week Like It's Shark Week!"

It's Thursday night, and although I have Lost back, I'm really missing my other shows, especially 30 Rock. So in honor of the crew responsible for "Werewolf Bar Mitzvah", I present some evidence of the idea that Liz Lemon is based on ME:

Jack: Lemon, you're here early.
Lemon: Well, I gave up caffeine so I've been going to bed at 5:30.
(This happens to me a lot since I took a 9 to 5. Especially on days when I don't have coffee and I've stayed up really late the night before.)

Liz orders her meatball subs with extra bread!

Liz: You are a suit. You take the hard work and creativity of other people and turn it into commercials and pie charts and triangle graphs!
Jack: What's a triangle graph?
Liz: I don't know! It sounded real.

Liz: I've got my life together, okay?
(A molar comes tumbling out of her mouth.)

Jenna: That guy was going to buy you a drink.
Liz: Really? I already have a drink. You think he'll buy me some mozzarella sticks?

Liz: I don't have any money, if that's what you're after. And I'm not one of those girls that does weird stuff in bed because they think they have to. If you're a gay guy looking for a beard, I don't do that anymore. And if you're trying to harvest my organs and sell them, I have an uncle who's a cop, so don't even try.
(My uncle is actually a sheriff, but close enough.)

Jack's brother to Liz: You know you would be attractive if you didn't scowl so much.
(Sadly enough, I get this a lot. Still, I'd rather hear that I scowl too much than that I should smile. It's so condescending. If I feel like smiling, I'll fucking smile. Otherwise, leave me alone!)

Jenna: ...And you're wearing a one-piece swimsuit instead of underwear.
Liz (defensively): I have to do laundry.

Now that the strike is rumored to be coming to an end, hopefully some more hilarity from Tina Fey and company will soon be forthcoming!

Heliocentric

I'm a bit of a sun worshipper, not in the sense that I go out and get a leathery tan as soon as the weather gets warm or anything, but I just always feel like the sun being out in full force, in a mostly cloudless sky, assures me that the day will be good. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, I guess, because if I am in that frame of mind then the day probably will be decent and bearable, even if it isn't spectacular or anything. When I was little I would always try to look directly at it through my fingers or through a pair of sunglasses--maybe it was the allure of the forbidden, like God. Who wouldn't try to sneak a peek if God revealed itself in front of you, even though it would blind you forever? When it comes out in the morning, it kills the darkness, and all of the dark feelings and thoughts that keep me up late into the night. That's probably why I prefer to sleep in daylight--I feel safe at last.

In October (or November, this last year) when we change the clocks and it starts to be fully dark by 4:30 or 5:00, I feel so bereft. It's dark when I wake up and it's dark when I leave to go home in the evening.

The sun is responsible for our existence, and for every aspect of our survival. When our most distant ancestor somehow sparked into life in the primordial ooze, he was made up of the dust of stars like the sun. For some reason I find that very reassuring--I feel the connectedness of the known universe. Major figures in history are often held up as being representative of the same sort of awesome force--Julius Caesar, Christ, Louis XIV. Its worship is the origin of countless world religions over the ages. In astrology, the sun is my ruling "planet". I always kind of felt bad for signs like Capricorn, whose ruling planet is Saturn. I mean, when do we ever get a glimpse of Saturn? How much of an effect on anyone's daily life does Saturn have? It's sort of been assigned all of these arbitrary characteristics based on the figure it was named for, but if, like me, you don't really believe the movement of the stars has anything to do with whether or not you will come into money this week or make a new romantic connection, what use is it?

I understand why ancient people assigned deities to natural aspects--they didn't have many answers in the way of science to explain the world, so they gave the sun and the moon and the oceans human characteristics (superhuman, I guess) because that made the most sense. But what I don't understand is why people today still look at a tree, for example, and say or think they see God in the tree. Why can't you just appreciate the tree for its own existence? Be thankful for the miracles of natural science that make it possible for trees and oceans and people to exist.

I'm not an Atheist, really. I understand people crave the divine and somehow take comfort in the thought that there are reasons we cannot fathom for certain happenings. Oftentimes I also feel relief or happiness thinking that when I am dead I will understand everything and be reunited with people I've lost and experience eternal happiness. I have hope that this will happen, but I don't really have a belief deep in my soul. And more and more I find it really hard to accept organized religion as anything but divisive. We are already divided on so many lines--language, nationality, skin color, political beliefs. Why throw more fuel on the fire of existence? Why can't we all just believe in humanity and acceptance and love for the things we can see and feel above anything else? That's divine in my eyes.

I didn't really intend to get off on a religious tangent there! I guess reading Brent's blog got me thinking about what I believe. Anyway, when Dec. 21 arrives, it's always a relief to me because it means the days will start getting longer again, even though I won't see the effects of it for several more weeks. And I certainly won't feel much in the way of any warmth for several more months. Now it's January 31, so we are a little closer.

California

Last weekend I visited my stepsister and her boyfriend out in Los Angeles. They have a six month old named Jake, whose birthday is the day before mine. He's very cute, very good-natured. It was a lot of fun to play with him and make silly faces and watch him be fascinated by all sorts of things.

It was also fun to go see Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and Rodeo Drive,. I actually bought some jeans there, so even though they were only like $40 I can still say I got them in Beverly Hills should it ever come up in conversation (doubtful). We also went out to Santa Monica Pier and my Mom and I rode the ferris wheel. It was gorgeous, and so unusual for me to see such a wide beach surrounded by mountains. Not like the beaches in Florida, where everything is flat. After that we drove up to Malibu and watched the sunset, then drove back through Topanga Canyon, stopping at a lookout point where you could see the San Fernando Valley all lit up in the early darkness.

I have been to California in the past, but it has been about fourteen years since I was there last. Back then I was a teenager and even though it seemed fun and cool to be there, I was very interested in doing things like seeing where the stars lived and buying keychains everywhere we stopped. It was nice to go back with a more mature perspective (although I still kept my eye out for any celebs--no luck). Hopefully one day I will make it back to Northern California, which I preferred over L.A.

The only thing I wish we had done more of was eat out at nice restaurants. Honestly, I flew 3000 miles from New York to Los Angeles only to eat at El Pollo Loco and a Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. There was one really cool Cuban bakery called Portos that we went to on my last day there, actually. It was in Burbank, and it's the kind of place where you walk up and place your order and then they bring it out to your table. The food was very good there, though, and they had an amazing selection of desserts (chocolate mousse!).

Anyway, I can understand a little better now why people want to live there. The mountains are lovely and the ocean seems so much bigger than here on the East Coast, and let's not even get in to the weather. But it's not for me. Too much driving on "free"ways and mountains for my comfort. And no connectedness--if you're not working in the film/tv industry and don't manage to get to the beach very often it's probably easy to forget you even live there (like every other place in America).

Next stop: England!

You Can Never Be Too...

So I read an article that said a study done in Japan showed that people with more extroverted personalities tend to be heavier than people who are more introverted. Apparently all the mental anguish shy people put themselves through ALSO keeps them trim and slim! Finally, a good thing about being a quiet type.