(disclaimer) okay. This opinion could freak people out. By no means am I a supporter of sympathizer of Osama Bin Laden or Al Quaeda or terrorist sponsored activities.

I just read transcripted excerpts from the Osama Bin Laden tape that was released yesterday. In the excerpts he lays out his points in a very straightforward manner and basically says, stop fucking with us (Muslims) and we'll stop fucking with you. The excerpts, released by Reuters, seem very sound and logical.

Why is it that this fucking maniac (as he has been painted by the world) sounds more fucking sane and less fanatical than our President? Why is it that I buy what he is saying more than I buy the paranoia and threats being bandied about by the leaders of our country and perpetuated by our mass media. Does that make me a terrorist sympathizer? How many people have bothered to read this transcript and have only read or heard the teeny little sound bites that the press has pulled out?

Again, let me re-iterate that I do not support the actions of this guy or his followers.

I do however question the actions of our current administration. I hope that more people are questioning these things as well as they move toward the polls on November 2nd.

And the administration should be questioned constantly, even after November 2nd, and after January 15th when the new administration walks in the door, whoever they may be. I don't give a shit if I vote for Kerry; I will still monitor his administration's actions as much as I have monitored Bush's administration. And I will speak out when any of them cross the line.

I became politically aware during the 1992 Clinton campaign, but in the aftermath of that and throughout the Clinton 90's I, like many others, became complacent. I didn't pay much attention. Hell, I was sitting in a hospital room with my dead grandfather on election day of 2000; I could've given two shits about who won or lost. . .until Al Gore DIDN'T WIN, which I, in my complacency, thought was a foregone conclusion.

Now, with the last four years behind me, I realize how important it is to watch, to listen, to question, to think about these things. To examine my own political views and to clarify where I stand on broad sweeping topics like Abortion and gun control to micro topics like the economic revitalization of my neighborhood. I question Kerry's comments that he does not support Gay Marriage (Third debate.) I question Bush when he says anything since everything he has said to this country to justify any of his actions has been ultimately proven false and I question the motivations of any administration that says they are trying to deliver "Freedom" and "Democracy" to any nation other than our own, especially when the administration is busy trying to pass laws and amendments designed to restrict freedom within our own borders. I question how the new mayor of Jersey City will spend my tax dollars; will it all be spent downtown as it seemingly has since I've lived here (3 years) or will there be efforts to inject some economic vitality into the Journal Square area. How will the city provide services for my neighborhood? Who will clean the trash from our streets? Who will be policing our neighborhood?

I question all of this, all of the time.

And that's my right as a citizen. It is everyone's right.

Dissent is Patriotic.

Questioning Authority is freedom.

Don't believe anything different.

I have three email accounts which I check religiously. I am a junky, looking for a fix. The thrill that comes when I log in to one of my web based email accounts and see that there is something there, unread, waiting for me, is like taking the first hit off the crack pipe; a deliberate slow, smooth, sharp inhale, followed by floating out of mind, and then a speedy rush as I click on the hyperlink that says "Inbox."

Not only do I then savor the words that friends have bestowed upon me, and words that non-friends have foisted on me, but then, after the devouring, it is my turn to rack my brain cells and delve into my half gone mind, and look for words worthy to embed in my response. Then I compose. And compose. And compose.

I looked up the word pedantic today, fearing I was that. I am happy to say that adjective cannot describe me. If it does then I am wrong but, I am right when I say I certainly don't feel that way. (This blog entry could possibly be the most pedantic to date.) That word I would reserve for scholars and academics; two groups I have always peered at through the tiny windows in their classroom doors, envious and afraid. The fear of writing has kept me from jumping into that pool.

Fear is funny. I have a funny story about fear. My mother told me when I was really little, maybe four years old, that she and my father drove our family to Paradise, a park somewhere on Mt. Rainier; a place I can still not find to this day. When we arrived, I refused to leave the car because I was afraid of the snow. I said, and I quote my mother on this, "It's dangerous."

There are ideas and half baked thoughts clanging, banging around my skull. I write them in emails to myself when I fear that I have over taxed my emailing friends. It is easier to compose in a gigantic internet textbox than to sit and look at a blank word document. If I tell myself it's just a blog entry, or it's an email to a friend, surely there will be some tiny entertainment value in it for someone. Maybe that someone is only me.

This blog entry has the disjointed cadence of a drunken entry but I am not drunk. I am exhausted and a little overwhelmed but before I go to sleep (early--it's only 9:30--I haven't been to bed this early since I was a child forced to go to bed on Christmas eve so that my parents could wrap last minute presents), and I repeat, before I do go to sleep, I have to get these damn words out of my head.

I've been thinking about TIME. And about how time never meant anything to me and how I never wore a watch until I turned 37. And how now I am nervous without my watch and how a train arriving a minute late can throw my tightly wound schedule into hours of delay, guilt, and recriminations.

I've been thinking about THE TIME when a guy on the street passed me coming home from the PATH train around 1am on a cold February morning. He loomed under an unlit street lamp; a dark ominous shadow that I tried to skirt but he was insistent upon some kind of exchange. We approached one another and I tried to avert my eyes but then remember that like dogs, people smell fear so I looked him straight in the eye and jutted out my chin as if to say, "Yeah? Bring it bitch" and he said to me, "Damn mama, you look jiggy." To this day, I'm not sure what jiggy means, but the hint of approval in his voice told me I must have done something right that day. I took mental stock of what I was wearing; a puffy black parka, boot cut charcoal grey pants, a little bit of heel, because the height always offsets the size, a ponytail, and a goofy brown felt hat. I sauntered off a bit, feeling less jiggily and more jiggy than usual, went home and went to sleep.

I've been thinking about A TIME when I fought against danger. IF I was too afraid to try anything in the years before I turned 22, then by god, now that I was 23, I would try any fucking thing that came my way. I had sat in pedantic classrooms at the University of Washington, studying ABOUT writing but too afraid to write. Too afraid to let anything out. When I played the sax throughout high school, I was too afraid to blow. Too afraid to suck. When I was 23 I threw away my fear and my common sense. I blew it out the other end in order to find out if I could survive and come back from the wherever it was that I was going. I am still paying the debts incurred from that time.

But here's the deal, this is why I crumpled up my fear and chucked in the can. I wanted to write. And the writing instructors said, "Write what you know” which I took to mean, "You CAN ONLY write WHAT you know." And as far as I was concerned, I knew nothing. About anything. What I knew then was that I had to push myself to the limits of my existence so that I could be more interesting and knowing and sage and humorous.

I don't know if that experiment had the results I intended.

Now let's talk about luck. I saw today that the Mega Million dollar multi-state lotto jackpot is up to 57 million dollars. I am convinced I will win it even though I did not stop and buy a ticket. Sometimes I get lucky that way. I was lucky to have not killed myself in any of the cars I owned, driving under ridiculous conditions, self-imposed and not. I'm lucky that some of the silliest blindest choices I have made have panned out. I am lucky that my friends indulge me and read the emails that I inflict upon them. Thank god I have three email accounts. When the words have to run out I can always resort to the holy trinity of hotmail, yahoo, and gmail.

Time. Appearance. Self-Esteem. Fear. Luck.

Perseverance.

Good Night.


PS I'm actually spell checking this entry. How pedantic.

my co-workers just voted me most likely to have A.D.D.


must

concentrate

harder

what was I doing?

oh yeah, working.

woohoooooooo BOSTON!!!! What a great band!!!!!

So anyway, Princess Rohbeena thinks that maybe it's a good omen for John Kerry that the Red Sox won. Maybe it's a sign that anything coming out of Boston these days has all the luck.

One can only hope.

Don't forget to vote!!!

one of Mark and Katherine's friends, Jeremy, is one of the creators this series, FilmFakers. We all watched the premiere episode in the bar last night. It was funny as hell!

The NY Times had an article on it too saying it "may go down as one of the meanest reality series yet." The also said it was a cross between Punk'd and Project Greenlight. bwahahahaaha.

Anyway, it was pretty funny, but probably more so since we knew people connected with it. By the way, Jeremy played he part of "Lyle" -- the psychopath method actor.

A scene from the making of Croc Park.

Recently I've had a couple of friends who have said they hate their jobs . But I started thinking about it, you know, if I really am that miserable I can leave at any time. I mean, your job is not like your family. You can choose your job. Your job does not choose you.

Between October 1999 and May 2002 I worked for four different companies, with the longest stint being 9 months. In all but one, I had the choice to stay or leave. Things weren't good, for various reasons, so I left. I left them all. Do I look back and regret any of this? Not really. Why would I? There was no way I was willing to sit around and remain anxious and/or miserable. What kind of a utopian job am I looking for? Not sure yet. Hopefully I'll know it when I see it.

I spent seven years working for Starbucks (90-97). I bought into their culture of crap for seven years. I bought their mission statement and in turn, I internalized it and proseltyzed it and jammed it down every new hire's throat in each orientation class I taught. I worked for them in three different cities and at the corporate offices. They are no different from any other corporation and would be better off if they focused on telling their "baristas" about the good things they do for them like full health bennies for PT workers, 401k and stock purchase plans and the ubiquitous pound of coffee a week instead of trying to brainwash them into thinking that Howard Schultz has created a utopian corporate culture; that Starbucks is the panacea, and pent-ultimate retail nirvana. It's a fucking corporation and now that I have left there, and have gone on to others. . .well, it's easy to see now. Boy was I brainwashed and taken in by all of it. I was so disillusioned when it turned out to be a false assumption. And then in September 1997 I snapped. I mean, I didn't go postal, but I had to look at myself and say, "I'm 32, what the fuck am I doing working fast food. I keep trying to bullshit myself that this company is more than that but it really isn't. I need a REAL job."

So I left. And it was hard. And when I got laid off from NBC in May 2002 and my unemployment was running out, I thought maybe my only option was to return to Starbucks. Maybe I was only qualified for crap jobs. But this all takes me back to choice. Thank god I made the choice to trust in my abilities and trust in myself enough to perservere and to stick with what I do now.

I don't know how I got off on today's preachy rant. I really don't.

I really would just like to become a "lady of leisure." That is what I am most suited to I think.

I told Mark I'm going to start yelling that at tourists. Just because it sounds funny. I get to practice being a old cranky lady.

I finished two weeks worth of Java homework and turned it in last night, as well as wrote my midterm paper on the train to Manhattan, and barside at the Collins. Then I got to stay out late like a dummay. But at least my homework was done. I am typing my paper here at work, on the sly and will have it ready to turn in by the time I leave today.

I saw that kid I propositioned last Monday. He's a funny kid and I must repeat. . .he IS a kid. Unfortunately I think he might be a junky which is really bad news. But I will never know that detail about him because I resolve to steer clear. He's got two strikes against him.
1.) too young
2.) junky
who needs to wait around for strike three. Not I. BeenThereDoneThat.

must get back to stealing the company's time.

Kudos to Bethany who finally gets to join the rank and file. The working classes. The shameful masses.

Welcome my friend and congrats on your first big job out of college. May you keep it together, always.

it's 10:30 am and so far nothing has exploded.

not bad for a monday.

perhaps I speak too soon. . .

Saturday night was the setting for a four hour, five course meal at Becco, one of my favorite restaurants in Manhattan. This is when having friends in the restaurant industry pays off. We went for Joe's birthday -- he of the infamous yankees/red sox night with the bar expulsion, which seems to be going down in infamy--but only in the best way. It was nice because Joe is an executive chef who is phenomenal and for once, it wasn't him behind the stove, slaving away for all his friends. (Ha ha, I would cook but it's no chef's fare -- all trailer park food -- plus then peeps would have to trek to Jersey to get it and that's always a hard sell.)

Anyways, the chef at Becco and the sommelier, who are friends, took care of us like no one's business. Kris and Joe just told them to give us whatever they wanted and they completely delivered. On of the highlights was this arugula salad with pancetta, walnuts and pomegranite. For the main course they brought out broccoli rabe, grilled striped bass, lamb shanks braised in espresso, and roast suckling pig, which was delectable. And desert--I can't even name all the things they brought--the panna cotta makes me want to break into an orgasm every time I taste it.

Here's their website. I'm not sure if all the items that we had are on the menu. I believe they just whipped us up some good grub.

And the wine. . .wow. We must've went through about eight bottles of wine. I was so stuffed. If you're ever up in the theater district, it's definitely worth checking out. It's Sunday night and I'm still full.

My roommate went to a psychic party down toward the Jersey shore yesterday so she couldn't make the dinner. She came back with strange reports from the psychic, including some tidbits about yours truly which I thought were odd and a little disconcerting. The psychic, who I'd never met, mentioned some weird tidbits about me that were not altogether off. Now I wasn't there, so this is all second hand info, but I find it strange that the psychic was able to tell my roommate about the current state of my affairs without my roommate telling her anything besides the fact that she had a roommate. The psychic specifically mentioned an "internet relationship" (however you want to define that term) that was disingenuous. It's very odd. I had something like that going on. Well, I don't really know at this point if it was disingenuous but I always have my suspicions about things. Whether or not psychics have some special ability, or they are just con artists, well, that's besides the point really.

What is the point is how genuine can a person be over the internet. Anyone reading this blog. . .they have to take anything I say at face value. Most everything I've written in here could be a load of horse shit. I mean, some people who read this will know which tidbits are fact and which are fiction; which entries contain dramatized content and which are filled with brutal honesty. This person I corresponded with. . .I can only take him at face value. For all I know, I am one in a string of people he has used for whatever kind of authoritarial masturbation he was pursuing. And I was happy to play along with it. It certainly jump started quite a bit for me so I have no complaints. But all in all, it is a nebulous, insubstantial, fleeting moment with no concreteness whatsoever. And that's all I have to say about that at this point.

I am working on establishing contact with the outside world again, so that I don't evaporate into a random series of zeros and ones.

so apparently the Boston fans got so excited about winning the ALCS that they had to riot. How civilized.

Anyway, it was bad enough for the cops to fire pepper spray balls into the crowd. One hit this chick in the eye and killed her.

nice fans.

In the spirit of the election, I decided to shave. And I'm not talking about my legs either. But here's the deal. . .I just don't think I'm the shaving type. If I want to smooth everything out down there, I'm going to have to wax.

I mean really, who wants to kiss a girl with five o'clock shadow.

This is the last time I try this. From now on I'll go to the scary Russian lady in Grammercy Park who'll give you the bikini wax for 35 bucks. No nonsense, all business. Zip zip, no more bush.

Maybe I'll get that done on November 2nd.

I had a 9-11 nightmare last night. We (I don't know who else was with me at the time, probably Kristeena) were down and we were south of the towers, probably down Church street kind of by Trinity church and I looked up because all of a sudden we could hear the plane, flying low and we could see it because it was below the tops of the skyscrapers and then, we saw it, from a different angle than all of the news replays. . .it, everything in the dream went silent for a moment and then, SMASH like most horrific loud explosion noise ever and we just started running and running away and there was fire everywhere and screaming and I looked back and saw the jumpers.

fuck.

maybe I dreamt it because I had my radio playing all night last night and the thing that I woke up to on the news was that they've just raised the final steel beam on 7 World Trade Center, the last building to collapse, around 5:25 pm on September 11th.

My stomach hurts.

why is it so hard to find a guy to have sex with?
What am I, chopped liver?

chopped liver	not chopped liver
I rest my case

maybe people can smell the desperation.
note to self -- pick up anti-aging, anti-celebacy deoderant

I'm having this for lunch today. mmmmmmmm salty.

Be an American Hero. . .or just vote like one.

and make sure you check out Ass or Trunk?

and for the punks in the crowd,hit punkvoter.org

I am doing my best to limp through today. . .thank god the CEO has jury duty this week. It's made it a little bit easier to be invisible.

I told Mark that if I had a dollar for everytime someone came up to me and asked me where he was last night, I'd be rich beyatch! I am unaware that I was his babysitter.

good god. Lalji kicked my friend Joe out of the bar. . .I love Joe but leaving him unattended after the yankees lost, in the company of Lalji, who has a tendency to get hot-headed . . .well, that was like putting the match to the tinderbox. I hope we didn't offend too many people. . .I'm a little embarrased but not too embarrased because at the point he got kicked out was about the point I stopped remembering. Thank god for Kristeena. I woke up in my own bed and not in Queens or Brooklyn on a train.

I was walking to work and I couldn't tell if I had brushed my teeth or I was tasting residual fernet.

I'm going on hiatus after Saturday -- dinner at Becco where the wine doth floweth.

Wouldn't everything be so much easier if life were just boring? I really know it would be.

mmmmmm. yeah.

watched game 7 and the red sox can finally be happy they got past the damn Yankees, those pansies. And Johnny Damon. . .I'm about tired of that chick with the beard. Get a haircut.

In other news. . .ahhh.
there is no other news.

in case you were wondering what is in Keith Partridge's closet (besides Chris) here you go. . .look inside Keith's closet

and here's another blast from the past

Maybe Bert is in Keith's closet too.

gotta get back to reading porn. bye.

good grief. . .I'm a little late to bring this up but it's worth a post.

Plant a chip in your subdermal layer.


There is something so incredibly NOT RIGHT about this. But, in a culture of fear, what better way to tell your kids "I love you" then to plant a tracking device under their skins. It'll save time later, when suddenly the government requires all citizens to have one in lieu of passports or papers. . .what did people have to carry in South Africa under Apartheid? What about in Nazi Germany?

Racial profiling will become a thing of the past because anything anyone needs to know will be in your barcode.

Where can I hide?

completely and utterly exhausted.

I made it to work today and I'm limping through all of the things that have been piling up. I can't seem to shake the tiredness and I can only believe that the combination of work and school is starting to take it's toll.

good night America!
keep on rockin in the free world. . .what's left of it, anyway.

take this test and see where you fall on the political compass.

http://www.politicalcompass.org/

I'm sure this will be no surprise to anyone but I ended up as a libertarian leftist.


Some of the peeps I'm in league with are Nelson Mandela and The Dhali Lama. Not bad company.

I propositioned this geeky hipster dude from Brooklyn ("Why don't you come back to my place?") -- that's pretty straightforward isn't it?

He said no. Perhaps that was too aggressive. Although he did say if I was around next Monday it would be a different story. So. . .what, he has to get the permission slip signed from his girlfriend first? I thought he said he was single. I was pretty sure I caught that much.

Maybe he wasn't liquored up enough. That's always a double-edged sword.

whatever. I'll never have sex again in this decade.

content edited

in keeping with my current hypochondriacal condition. . .is that even a word. . .well in a linguist's world it would be. . . .that being simply determined by the morphological structure of the word. (GEEEEEEEEEEKING OUT ON LINGUISTICS!!!!!!!)

let me start over,
since I am such a freaking hypochondriac . . . sometimes. . .not ALL the time.

okay, one more time.

I had a crazy allergic reaction to my lunch today. I have had unexplained food allergies from time to time; one severe time landed me smack dab on a gurney in an ambulance headed straight to the E.R. at Highline Hospital, where I got to have benadryl and a bunch of other crap pumped into my veins in hopes of keeping my tongue from swelling anymore than it already had. Suffice to say, I get a little nervous sometimes if I have even a sneaking suspicion that I am having an allergic reaction to any kind of food. I've never figured out the trigger, so this thing is a ticking time bomb waiting to kill me. (overly dramatic.)

anywho, today it was a chicken salad sandwich which caused my lip to swell up like a birthday balloon and my tongue to go all numb. I took a benedryl and that seems to have calmed everything down but not after I sat at my desk panicking, thinking my breathing was going to stop at any minute.

after I had the emergency room incident, the doc gave me an auto-injector to carry with me in case I got into a life threatening situation. If that happened I was supposed to take the shot and jam it into my leg. . .ggggguuughhhh. Kristeena said if I was truly her friend I would make it so that she never had to inject me with that thing.

so far so good.

center for american progress

Read about Sinclair Broadcasting's cynical republican agenda

again. . .more free advertising.

remember in a previous blog how I said I wanted to take a picture of a construction site because I was so amazed at the shoddy workmanship (still am.)

and in the blog I said that I was worried that I would be singled out because my actions looked suspicious?

well read this and weep. . .http://www.nj.gov/oag/newsreleases04/suspicous_behavior.pdf

Posters, billboards, electronic billboards featuring this kind of Orwellian shit is all over the area where I live. And quite frankly, it is a constant reminder to me to not relax. I have to say, the reason I take the WTC PATH train is because the time spent under the Hudson River is only a minute and a half as opposed to 5 or 6 going to Christopher Street. Not that there's much hope if anything happened anyway, but the less time spent under water thinking about it the better. I know a woman who refuses to take the tunnels or the train. She will only take the ferry across from Hoboken.

yikes.

anyways, Yanks vs. Boston today. Yanks didn't sweep but maybe they will take it tonight. Saturday was a massacre on many levels.

must get to work.

well, I watched the game. kinda.

didn't take anybody home except for me and my head which now feels like a ticking time bomb.

owwwwwwwwwwwwww. blink blink. owwww.

last night my downstairs neighbor, who I barely talk to, got locked out of the apartment. She's actually okay; I sat and told her the story of both Kristeena and I getting our cars stolen and told her to get a club, then I told her about the new and improved super mercado down the street, which she was happy to find out about.

So I guess, when she and her boyfriend were locked out, it was only natural that they throw rocks at my living room window at 1 am while I was passed out on the couch underneath my text book I was supposed to be studying.

At first I thought it was the ghost, for real. I got a little scared because when I looked in the direction of the then unidentified noise, there was no CAT, which I expected. . .what else could it have been. But then I heard voices coming from the street and went to take a look, thinking maybe it was Kristeena's ass goblin of a boyfriend. He always either honks his horn or throws rocks to announce his arrival and gets pissed at her if she doesn't run down to let him in because I guess, using the payphone is not one of his skills.

not a ghost

As you have already guessed, it was my downstairs neighbor, who I was going to ignore at first until they saw me peering out the window, like Gladys Kravitz. So I walk down three flights like a good samaritan and let them in and they're a little tipsy and I'm happy to have done it because, were I in the same position, I would be grateful for the help.

I'm now esconced safely back in my own three bedroom cave when I hear a different noise and this time I know it's no ghost, and I know it's not Kristeena and her boyfriend, because she's not due back until Saturday. No wonder those two were throwing rocks. . .the time must've been about to expire on their libidos or something because it sounded like they were going to pound the bed right into the downstairs apartment and she sounded pretty happy about it to.

Is there no rest for the wicked, and by wicked I am referring to me.

Who needs internet porn?

I don't know if it's because I was listening to the Goth channel last night or because I recently watched Ed Wood but I felt compelled to illegally download, excuse me, "share files with people", and the file that has been "shared" with me is "Bela Lugosi is Dead" by Bauhaus which I am now playing at top volume (and laughing about it I might add) AND enjoying the shit out of it.
  

go ahead. laugh if you want to. I won't hear you. I'm away looking for my cape.

bahahahahahaahaaaaa.
  
I don't know why I thought of that when I got out of the shower but it sounds like some new age-y bullshit bumper sticker that I would end up rolling my eyes to or giving it "the look."

It's a bumper sticker that you would find in some new age-y bookstore in southeast Portland between the Nag Champa incense and the section on "the goddess."
  
phuck.

I have to go take a test. Cross your fingers. . .I'm going on intuition.

this made me laugh until tears were squirting out of my eyeballs.

http://www.youforgotpoland.com/

I haven't laughed this hard since the Kenny Roger's Jackass sketch on comedy central.

I wrote this to a friend of mine in Seattle. He and I have been talking about things that are going on in our lives, trying to make sense of the world and our respective places in said world. I'll take a couple of excerpts out that I feel are blog-worthy.

I'm up studying for a midterm. I just bought the book yesterday and am trying to read all the chapters. The deal is that I took an almost identical class last semester so a lot of it is repetition. If I just read through this stuff and look at the questions she gave us to think about, I'll do fine.

The temptation is to just go to sleep . . .zzzzzzzz. I'm sure you remember THAT pleasant feeling; having something due and being sleep deprived and/or cramming. I try not to do it. I try to stay ahead of everything because time is very precious these days.

I'm listening to classic blues right now but may switch to Goth soon. Yeah, that's right. Goth.

Want to talk about negativity? Someone rocked my world for a minute. And it sucks dude. It really sucks. I was fine going through life like a shell. Shells don't walk around with an ache in their gut. I know that is warped and broken and screwed up. But my shell was MY coping mechanism. And now my coping mechanism is broken and it's just stupid to have grim and fruitless fantasies about things that will never happen.

And that's how I feel about ALL human interaction.

How do you like that for negativity?

. . .for all the negativity I espouse, I am still an optimist and I have hope that we will all find some modicum of happiness at some time. I can pretty much brush anything off.

I have to reiterate, and I'm not preaching here, but I really am thankful that I moved out here. I think if I would've stayed in Seattle, I would have slit my wrists and if I would've stayed in San Francisco I would have died of cirrhosis. Out here, I can be self-indulgent with this blog and be a self-absorbed, self-obsessed, neurotic, childless, thirty-something adult but ultimately, here, I really need to keep my shit together in order to make it successfully. And I must like the challenge. I'm not doing too badly.

Plus, the rabid diversity of this place appeals to me. . .I've always been intrigued by different cultures and languages, and the differences in people. Here, it's in my face 24x7. I am never bored. . .even when I say I'm bored.

Getting older. . .you don't experience high drama anymore. . .not like the angst ridden twenties. The drama is a little muted, like someone put a pillow over it, trying to suffocate it.

Anyway, I guess I'd better get back to studying. Apologize for the long-windedness but it seems to be par for the course these days, everytime I sit down to type out a thought.
Tomorrow I will be in and out but most likely sunday I will be lurking around the internet, pretending to do homework.

I'm gonna have some fun
What do you consider fun?
Fun, natural fun.

Baaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh can I just have some sex please? The real thing? Good god!!! I almost let this lesbian chick pick me up last night. . .except that she was effing married. I can't even win with the lesbians.

But I forgot to say, I got my first non-solicited compliment on the weight loss from Mr. S.

Thanks S.! You made my day! Wanna f* bleeeeeeeep?
HA HA!

So maybe Saturday when KB, Katherine and I go to watch game 4 of the ALCS (oooooooo!!!!), maybe I can find a dopey deer-in-the-headlights guy I can kidnap and take back to my apartment and fuck his brains out, hopefully he's a mute; I don't want to make any conversation. And I don't feel like cooking a fucking breakfast either. I swear to god he'll never know what hit him.

First the windup. . . then the pitch. . .

Why did I not think of this. . . .ARGH! This is GENIUS!

It restores my faith in the creativity of others, as do these blogs. Thanks peeps. . .hope you don't mind that I link to you.

The Liam McEneaney Experience
lindsyism
The Black Saint
Diary of a Recovering Angry White Girl oops I already linked to her. . .oh well.
oddTood What's Happening
New Yorkish
Other People's Stories nice design, by the way. . .
http://www.nycbloggers.com (I just tried to sign up with them even though I am in Jersey City. . .shhhhhh. . . mum's the word.
Postcard's from Hell's Kitchen NYC

Maybe I'll actually move this to my side nav. . .hmmmm. That would entail republishing the entire blog. Lot's of effort. later maybe.

here's another thing that's funny.

monkeys.
monkeys are always funny. especially monkeys with cameras:


or sock monkeys:

This sock monkey drove with me in the passenger seat all the way across country. I actually carried on conversations with the monkey when I was driving across the Mississippi, somewhere north of St. Louis at 3 am in the morning. We woke up together in Springfield Illinois, the birthplace of the great emancipator.

I wonder what they will call George Bush in a hundred years time. . .I'm sure it won't be preceded by the word great. Perhaps "DE-STRUCT-OR" would be okay. Or "LIAR" might be appropriate. My my, we sure have come a long way in our own cultural mythology from George Washington chopping down the cherry tree.

I am getting no work done today. . .

HELL's HALF ACRE

and although life can get pretty hellish at times, I think I am using this thing as too much of a therapeutic tool. It's no longer interesting. I will try to be more observational. Then again. . .it is my blog and I guess I can put anything up here I want to. Like this:


this is what papi the praying mantis looked like. kinda cute.

I was thinking about deleting the more depressing entries that I put up recently and I had to reconsider. Eventually I want to look at what I collect here in a larger scope.

Kristeena and I were talking and I was getting antsy to work on some stories and stuff and maybe attend a writing workshop and all that jazz. She suggested I just keep blogging and concentrate on finishing these last 4 and half (oh my god it's only four and half) semesters of school (oh my effing god. . .am I really going to graduate??? excitement abounds!!!!) and channeling all my energy into the finishing up instead of diverting resources all skitter skatter all over the place. And she's really right. . .it is very hard for me to stay focused on the task at hand. I am easily distracted and distractable.

so, to those of you who read this thing. . .I'm okay. I kind of get on a downer in the fall for a little bit. . .sorry to dump. and yeah, my emotions on this page are one big goopey mess but it's okay because I let out what I want to let out and what I can handle letting out.

And I'll give you some happy blogs to read. I'm not saying they're good or anything. . .In fact, my apologies to these two blog authors. . .I didn't even read your blogs. I just wanted to offer up something not as dark.
Alessandra's awesome blogg
Cerebral Kingdom -- Space Malarky

and one kinda like mine but I think she's funnier and I actually got stuck reading her for awhile
Diary of a Recovering Angry White Girl


I'll leave you with something funny to contemplate:
   

so. I really wanted to get my hands on the new U2 single and I tried downloading it from limewire (does this open me up to prosecution--I didn't download it.) Anyway, I tried to download and every file I got was corrupt. So, try as I might, I could not get a copy of the song that was playable.

Not to be easily put off by this, I went to U2.com where I see that they've partnered up with good ol' iTunes. Apple is making a killing with iPods and iTunes and all that. . .if you haven't already purchased stock, now would be the time, especially before the holidays. Their fourth quarter earnings should go through the roof. But of course, I am only speculating.

Because now that I'm having trouble getting it, my desire for this song has reached mega-proportions. I download iTunes and whip out my cc and BUY the damn song for 99 cents. Not bad. BUT, here's the catch, I download it and it's in some crazy protected file format that only plays in the iTunes player. . .and the iTunes player wnats to know if I want to play all my illegal music in the stupid iTunes player. I'm no fool. . .all this software needs to run is some quickie subroutine that scans my files and checks against the database to see which are "legal" and which aren't. I try to convert the dumb U2 song to an mp3 and I can't. I try to burn the thing to a disc in mp3 format, which is an option in the software, but I get an error message saying "cannot burn protected files." So far I have not been able to make this damn thing into an mp3 so that I can stick it in my library of illegal downloads and play it in my player of choice.

I will be buying the album anyway when it comes out; I would have anyway. Fuck iTunes. I have to say however, U2 has learned how to work the system and make it hard for people to rip their music.

. . . ho ho but not for long my friends. . .I WILL get what I want.

I've decided I am never leaving my house and I am taking a vow of silence. I haven't left my house or spoken in two days and that's fine. Oh, I lied, I went to the grocery store. So I guess that's some interaction. ANd I did speak. I said "debit card" to the cashier at the grocery store. . .and "thank you" so I guess my polite gene is still kicking around.

I'm in my apartment kvetching about how cold it is. I've put on two shirts and my hat because I was freezing all morning. I actually called the landlord and asked him to come and fire up the boiler because it's too cold. So I'm getting ready to go to the store and I break out the new goosedown jacket I bought awhile ago and put on my fleece hat like it's two degrees outside.

It's not.

It's about twenty degrees warmer outside than it is in my apartment. Let me tell you, coming back from the store with four bags of groceries got rid of the chill pretty quickly. My landlord must've thought I was on the crack pipe.

ummmm. . .in fact. . . I just checked the temp on weather.com. . .it's 68F.

I am a wuss.

morford talks about defending the right to choose in the way only morford can. . . Read it and weep, non-voters.

holy frijoles!

somebody outside my apartment window has a new talking car. I'm sitting here working and suddenly I hear this electronic voice repeating the same thing over and over. It's so annoying that I had to stop what I was doing (typing something) and try to hear what the voice was saying.

the lady robot voice was saying "Your attention please. This car is backing up. Your attention please, this car is backing up. Your attention please. This car is backing up. . . ."

holy god, the first thing I would do is disable that feature or I would reprogram it with my own voice that said, "Get the hell out of the way before I run your ass down, idiot. Get the hell out of the way. . ."

ahhhh, the advances that technology has provided.

. . .so I had this memory plaguing me last night. . .I couldn't fall asleep. When I was 15 and living in Shelton, I was on the track team. I went to the first track meet but I wouldn't participate because I was too afraid to fail. Instead I ended up hanging out with this guy, Randy something or other, and making out with him in the cab of his pick-up. I vaguely recall that I was actually "going with" someone at the time so I guess I was cheating. Anyways, what's his name gave me a ride home and when we pulled up in front of my house, there were two cop cars parked diagonally on my lawn with their lights flashing. It was like an episode of COPS. The town, Shelton, had about 1200 people living in it so whatever was going on in my house would be known throughout the community shortly thereafter.

I told the guy that it wasn't my house and had him drop me down the block. I walked back after the cops left to assess the damage. Apparently my mom and her criminal boyfriend had been out. My best friend had been watching my sister when they came home and my mom's boyfriend started beating the shit out of my mom. My friend hid under the table; my sister escaped through the bedroom window, ran to the neighbor's house and called the cops.

The cops didn't haul the bastard away and everyone was there when I walked in. It was like some greek tragedy. My mom, lying; my sister, hiding; my friend telling me not to believe a word my mom was saying; and Bob, pouring himself another drink. My friend left and I read Bob the riot act. It must've been pretty ineffectual because he simply walked over to me, picked me up and threw me across the kitchen. I was pretty scrawny then; easy to abuse.

Anyway. . . there's a slice of my childhood.

Brilliant.

I feel awful today. I can't seem to keep anything down. I'm not sure what the problem is. I can't determine whether it's something I ate or nerves. It started this morning so I figure if it was something I ate then I would be done with it. But here it is, 1:45 and I feel like my guts are falling out. A little cold too. . .can't seem to stay warm.

I wish Kristeena were here. Sometimes it really sucks to be alone.

I forgot this rule:

Never, ever, EVER use your turn signal or you are sure to confuse people and cause an accident.
--Everyone will know where you're going anyway.

this is on sale on craigslist today:



3.5 HP goes 45 mph custom made chassis great for getting around happy hour. Call me at ### ###-#### 1-5pm ask for John retiring this year and selling all my toys very cheap. Check out my website for all the toys johnsminibike.com

What the heck. . .it was funny. I'll give the guy free advertising. Besides, who couldn't use one of those babies!

a friend of mine responded to recent blog posting about the whole "even though you're chubby you're still sexy B.S."

my friend said:
That must be the inverse equivalent of "you're really
nice, but...".

the krixfort response team writes:
it is in a sense but "you're really nice but. . ." is really vague and telling someone they're fat is very specific and while both are very personal, whenever you make it a point to point out a specific perceived flaw, well. . .I mean, I could say to guys "Well, if you had more hair. . ." or "if you didn't need a man-bra. . " or "if your penis was only a little bit bigger. . "

You know what I'm getting at. The last guy I dated, as I was kicking his alcoholic ass out of the house, had the audacity to start picking apart my physical flaws, as if, were he to point them out to me, I would be so demoralized and insecure that I would have no choice but to let him stay because obviously, I could do no better. I got to hear the laundry list of everything that was wrong with me physically, down to the minutia of stretch marks. Even though I laughed in his face -- believe me, I had my own laundry list, which I refrained from airing -- sometimes the words still echo around in my brain.

Anyway, how did I deal with that? I got online and bought him a one way ticket back to the keys. Hopefully he was washed away in a hurricane this year.

I think, unless people have a compliment, for real, people need to learn some fucking tact. I'm all for self expression but when it starts making other people feel shitty about themselves then it's time to censor it or reign it in a bit.

People tend to treat each other so poorly. . .I really don't know why.

I was asked if I was doing anything for Halloween this year and here's what I think about that:

I don't have any plans to do anything this year. . .Halloween in New York is like St. Patrick's Day and New Year's Eve. . .a huge excuse for people to get drunk and start fights. And doubly so because they can all come out wearing masks and get away with a lot of crap. Too scary to be out in that mess.

Although last year I asked if I could borrow my friend's kid as part of my costume. I wanted to dress him up like a little Capuchin monkey, put him on a leash and go as an organ grinder. I would have either been hauled in by Child Protective Services or the ASPCA, I'm sure.

I have a friend that is getting shipped out to Denver/Boulder for training next week. I gave him my recommendations on where to stay:

. . .stay downtown. It's safe there. I used to live on Capitol Hill in Denver. It was the only place where I wasn't bombarded with right wing bullshit.

Boulder is okay, I guess. It's full of Trusta-farians -- hippie wanna-bes. Kids at the university of Colorado-Boulder who are left-wing on the outside, conservative on the inside. Their democratic ideals go out the window when they graduate and get their first position at IBM. Trusta-farians and football playing date rapists. On second thought, scratch Boulder.

I still have friends in Colorado and for the most part I like visiting. I just couldn't live there again. I finished my tour there. On to different places I suppose.

the mania seems to be subsiding. . .soon to be followed by the inevitable crash. It's like I was fed too much sugar or something. Now my energy is waning and my attitude is going right down with it. I feel a lethargy coming on that usually precedes a bout of depression and I can only hope that it will be minor and brief. I will try to fight it as much as I can by getting enough sleep and eating right and all and staying calm but it is so hard sometimes.

My roommate is out of town, which at first I thought would be great but after four days of walking around my apartment like a ghost, I believe that I need to have people around or else I end up way inside my head and that's when things just get weird. It's okay if I can keep writing it out but now that my energy is running out like the tide, I find I barely have enough in me to put anything in this blog.

I used to see a shrink in Seattle who once suggested I was bi-polar. I fucking laughed my way right out of that office. Unfortunately the power of that suggestion still haunts me. If I am. . .well I guess I am. I brought it up with my mom once. She said that I never get happy enough to be considered manic but that I certainly had the corner on depressive.

In any case, if that is the case, I refuse to go on meds, unless I go so completely out of control that I need to be assigned to someone else's care. I spent a good two years medicated to the hilt. I walked through life like an unfeeling zombie. Hey. . .I was never depressed. I was never really joyous either. I simply existed, staring blankly at the sound, drinking my tall americano, watching the clouds drift in and out, and wondering what life was like outside my bubble. I was so medicated that I had to take more medication to counteract the side effects of the medication. How fucked up is that?

up. down. all around. All I know is that I'd rather be on this crazy roller coaster, no matter where it ends up, then sitting in the bleachers, wrapped up in a saftey vest.

happy monday.

I have the easiest cell phone number in the world. . .in fact, sometimes I get calls from babies. . .seriously. Before they instituted 10 digit dialing in Jersey, occaisionally I would answer my phone and all I would get would be this baby breathing in my ear, and occaisionally a little baby squeal.

I was telling this to my mother while I was in Seattle and while I was relating the story to her, my cell phone rang. . .it was a baby. I don't know how the baby got around the area code thing but somehow, the baby managed to get through. So I told, my mom, "case in point. . .I've got another baby on the phone." I AM NOT making this up. My mom can back me up on this.

Crank called. . .by a baby.

Driving in New Jersey is a life threatening experience everytime you hit the road. The rules of engagement that I've encountered seem to be different from any other state. Here are some of the rules that I've observed about driving in NJ:

Make sure you drive aggressively regardless of whether or not aggressive driving is required.
--if you're merging onto the turnpike at 75 miles an hour or trying to jam your way into the Holland tunnel, you must drive as if you are dying of a heart attack behind the wheel and you are on your way to the E.R. for defibrilation

Stopping distance and personal space do not exist.
--that's why there is a big business in brake pads. . . hopefully

Playing "Chicken" is a perfectly acceptable way to merge
--doesn't matter if you're in an eighteen wheeler or a mini cooper

Gun it at all times
-- you need to get there. how do you need to get there? FAST.

Your car is your personal body armor
--it's like a bullet proof vest. . .you can dodge and weave in and out of traffic, ignoring those around you, because hell, you've got all that plastic wrapped around you, protecting you.

I'm sure I can come up with more but I'm telling you. . .if I can survive the commute to and from work every day on that short bus I ride from Newark, then I am pretty much invincible (knock on cyber wood.)

don't have much time to write. . .demonstration speech due saturday, must write it and rehearse it. Midterm coming up in Business org and the Jzva class just started up on Mondays. Meanwhile Edwards and Cheney are scheduled to duke it out tonight. I'll be there, ringside. I'm a little flipped out because I haven't bought any of my books yet; so far I haven't really needed them but I know something will come up where I will. Gak! Fuhhhhhhhhhh. . .

HELP!

so. the grocery store nearest to my house has undergone a total transformation. When we first moved here, I went in and it was completely ghetto, with rotting, fly-infested produce and a smell which I can only describe as decomposition. I vowed never to spend a dime there, ever.

About four months ago we got a flyer stuffed in our mailbox for the "grand opening" so my roommate went over to buy, oh I don't know, a tomato or something.

She came back so excited! They had completely cleaned the place up. She had purchase a whole bag of produce that looked GREAT. So I had to go check it out for myself. . .the transformation was stunning. We suddenly had this cathedral of food only two blocks away, which is beautiful for two people who have been relieved of their cars by third parties.

it's a spanish grocery store and has an entire aisle devoted just to ecuadorian food and one to columbian food alone. I think there is also a Dominican section also. So buying any kind of pepper, or spice known to the southwestern hemisphere is a piece of cake. Plus, instead of the crappy elevator version of "Smells like Teen Spirit" or a smooth jazz version of "Rock you like a hurricane", they play SALSA music! It's a great way to put you in the mood to make a nice little pico de gallo and some killer chicken enchiladas.

yum yum

time to eat!

so I'm sitting there and this guy turns to me and says "you know, you've got a great look." And I'm flattered for a second and I laugh and say "yeah, how so?"

I guess I should have never asked.

"Well, you're sitting there, and well, even though you're chubby, you still exude this air of sexiness."

so. . .even though I'm chubby I can still rock your fucking dick? That's great to know.

FUCK YOU.

Keep your asshole comments to yourself. You're only a millicosm better than the one who said, "Why do you look so sad? OH I KNOW why you're so sad. . . it's because you're overweight!"

Well genius, now that you've figured out my problem, why don't you go out and cure cancer.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I will be sleeping all day, unable to communicate while I fend off this onslaught.

I'm thinking of my granfather who passed away on the day George Jr. stole the election from Al. It's a good thing too, because my grandfather would go bezerk when he had to listen to people he felt sounded ignorant. It used to make him physically ill. These last four years would have put him over the edge for sure.

it's been a rough week but it's friday now and I must turn my attention back to school and the speech I have to give tomorrow and the prep I need to do for my Monday class.

I hope I can accomplish something this weekend.

God. . .it will be nice when this is all over and I can rest.

Whether long range weapon or suicide bomber
Wicked mind is a weapon of mass destruction
Whether you're soar away sun or BBC 1
Misinformation is a weapon of mass destruc
You could be a Caucasian or a poor Asian
Racism is a weapon of mass destruction
Whether inflation or globalization
Fear is a weapon of mass destruction

Whether Halliburton or Enron or anyone
Greed is a weapon of mass destruction

We need to find courage, overcome
Inaction is a weapon of mass destruction
Inaction is a weapon of mass destruction
Inaction is a weapon of mass destruction
--Faithless "Mass Destruction"

Bush: We pursued Al Qaida wherever Al Qaida tries to hide. Seventy-five percent of known Al Qaida leaders have been brought to justice. The rest of them know we're after them.

Krixfort: Did you pursue them into Saudi Arabia?

Bush: . . . We continue to pursue our policy of disrupting those who proliferate weapons of mass destruction.

Krixfort: Except in Iran and North Korea.

Bush: And, as well, we're pursuing a strategy of freedom around the world, because I understand free nations will reject terror. Free nations will answer the hopes and aspirations of their people.

Krixfort: Unless you live beneath the terrorism of the Patriot Act.

Bush: We're facing a group of folks who have such hatred in their heart, they'll strike anywhere, with any means.

Krixfort: Yes, as demonstrated in the Swift Boat ads.

ohhhhh, it's just too easy.

Go Kerry.