Invasion of the Manichees

Although perhaps they weren't Manichees on campus Friday. Just the run-of-the-mill, anti-gay-lifestyle (although I guess "anti-gay" would be more accurate), magic Bible quotes on one side of one guy's standard, the other side having a picture of two guy about to kiss with a red diagonal slash through it. The Other guy with the longer standard, listing everyone goin to hell on one side and on the other...idunno.

I tried to avoid them the hour in between classes mostly 'cause I don't know anyone on campus anymore, so the likelihood of running into anyone I know in the crowd was close to nil. Still had to pass by them to get home a couple hours after though, and somehow the crowd was even larger than before.

The guy with the longer standard was standing on a milk crate with a whistle, yelling about how a man needs a woman helpmate. In between Huey and Duey was Louie, a chunky male student in a NIN t-shirt with long brown hair holding up a side of cardboard with a pentagram on it that said ...something Santa.

Whatever. I guess since it's the fall quarter, this is the first time a lot of freshmen manchilds see em.

In related news, I got into listening to sermon/Bible studies from the local-ish radio station. A couple of the pastors/teachers are okay...well out of the three I regularly listen to only one is genuinely still rad to me, he's the one who enunciates every. Single. Syllable. Perfectly. There's the one who sounds like a white boy...I'm not sure how that describes. He complains that people study Biblical criticism, that people study evolution, sounds like a fundamentalist. And then there's the guy who runs at 1AM. He kinda. I don't like him.

Was explainnig Matthew 16:13-20. Non iam from my Reformation class exactly a year ago, nor the Middle Ages class that had a lot of Papal docs earlier this year, sed etiam dating a Catholic for a couple years up until bout a monthish ago...and I'm really interested in how an evangelical/fundamentalist talks through this one.

So...the money verses:

17Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed
to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.

He pointed out that Jesus used Peter's old name. Not really sure if he said why He did that. (It was 1am)

18And I tell you that you are Peter,[b] and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades[c] will not overcome it.

uuuuuuh you have to do the very thing that everyone gets mad at the Catholics for doing, which is know the linguistic mysteries and secrets of the text. No, in this one time you cannot "just read the plain words of the Bible" but understand that if you took Hebrew, that "Peter" isn't Petra but is petras which means little pebble, small stone or some such. When Jesus says on this rock we're all supposed to somehow know that Jesus is pointing past Peter to the...some important rock behind them. The term that comes up to my mind is Dome of the Rock, but I'm not sure. Perhaps it was where Jesus was later crucified. Building the church upon the cross and whatnot.

They Hate the Haters, I Hate the Game

This is awesome. Al Sharpton debating Chris Hitchens. I'm only 15 minutes into it, at the beginning of Sharpton's first rebuttal.

Because I want to use another title for a post, I end with this. Was given this flyer today on campus:

How To Handle Hate Preachers

Hate preachers thrive on attention and publicity. They use provocative language in an attempt to "hook" people. They frequently press charges and fund their homophobic campaigns by winning lawsuits.

• Some effective strategies that others have used include:
• Ignore the haters completely.
• Do NOT touch any of the haters...
• Conduct a positive campaign of rainbow ribbons, buttons, banners--'Not in R House."
• Form a 'moving circle of love' - surrounding haters. Hide them!
• blah blah bunch of dumb crap that'll not get done on this campus...
• Play music like "I'm coming out" and dance around them.
• Grab a bunch of people and have a same-sex kiss-in all around the protesters.

On Overproof

Have class on Civil War in two hours.

So...if y'all had slaves (yes, Y'ALL), then you were rich. And praaaahbably lived in the South. Lectures have been about a week of proving this. Efficiency isn't mentioned, only profitability...in toto I guess, not relative to "free labor" (and yes I will put that in quotes). Slavery was profitable.

But then, Foner relates the Northerners who would visit the south and come back home to write and publish how backwards and stupid and ignorant and such the South was. Roads are crap, mechanical efficiency is bunk, the free white males are lazy...dun dun dun. At the same time, professor in lecture compared the wealth of the South and North, concluding that the South "had" all the wealth. Of course the suppos'ed basis of this is in the fact that they have slaves, but that's not what I'm getting at right now.

What I wanna know. Was the North not as wealthy because of the American System? State governments spent all their revenues/focused tax/tariffs on canals and roads, subsidies to manufactures/factory builders -- I suspect that the builders er investors at Lowell were not James A. Hills, and if they were, how does that possibly hold as the rule for so many other states?

If the North really did blow all their blow on public infrastructure, and the South apparently didn't (although, maybe the politics differed locally-a county along the Mississippi I guess or some other high-commercial traffic area, may have less scruples than someplace..."in the middle of nowhere")...theeeeeeeen.

I have $20. Paula has $20. I buy $15 worth of nail polish, Paula buys one 99-cent nail polish. Walking out the store, the fact that she has more moneys than I do...isn't really the point. It's truuuuuue. But not everything.

OMG PICKCHURZ!

Turned my brains into mush after like, 4 minutes. And I'm sure I didn't help anything by forgetting how to move forward after I apparently changed the controls. Like Turok, the screen movement just....*keels over dead*

I found it at a thrift store out here. My then-roommate dropped off a pile of souper-Azn clothes, so the owner gave me the game free when he saw me scrounging for the $1 change he said it cost.

Ugh, I'm getting dizzy just looking at it.

How to

Write a lameass article. And more importantly, get on my nerves.

"I can't believe the U.S. House of Representatives can pass a resolution recognizing the Muslim holiday of Ramadan, which we did this week, but can't send out certificates with the word 'God' on them," Camp said. "It doesn't make any sense. The policy needs to be changed."

Changed...changed to what? To allow both Ramadan to be recognized and that oh-so-specific name "God" to be on the flag or certificate? Or for none of them?

One proposed compromise was to put out a uniform certificate of authenticity while allowing members to add messages they choose, but some lawmakers objected to that approach, the aides said.

Objected to that approach...whhhhhy? Did you ask?

This particularly bugs me because of a conversation I had this weekend with another "writer"

person: yeah so I did the phone interview, and he was so rude!

Me: Rude? How can...how do you know he was rude, what umm what gave that off?

person: He could tell that I didn't know who he was and got all "uuuugh!" I'm sorry sir, but you are not that important, ok?

Me: ...well, do you know who he is?

Person: kinda, but not really.

Me: did you like, do any research?

person: I should have, I guess.

Me: Name, just...Google. Guy's name. hit Enter, and read!

person: yeah well, he was acting ... acting like he's a *nother name* and I'm sorry but he ain't.

Me: were you interviewing *nother name* ?

person: No. But that guy was so rude though.

and on and on and on.

prooooooooooobably not.

actually when i finally fell asleep i wanted to stop thinking about something, or at least to try to stop a mental thing that i've been doing lately and i don't hink it's a good thing.
so i finally get to sleep and it's like, i really want this thing and i wrestle in a shallow lake with someone who kinda drowns me (he's the devil) and right before i die he lets me go and says something kinda cryptic...i go to this old guy and the thing i want is like, this position in some program, something where i'm filling out paperwork and realize that the old man is like, already in. and I think wow this would be so great for me and my 'boyfriend' I'll be so set and but this guy who almost drowned me was so close to me. and what he said was so close. he dumped me onto another side of the pool where what he said turned into paper which turned into a pile of frogs that swam away. I was looking for the old man I was going to replace. and, not really sure of the game I kinda just swam around, laid low when i saw lights flashing and a man walking around in the upper areas of this building. it got lighter and i found my boyfriend and didn't tell him everything that happened. was really ashamed. the old man i was going to replace was dead. he'd been killed in the night while I was sitting around watching the lights. he was killed like, by the lights, by no one else being there. by me being not there. but there was no body; just his younger family wanting to know where he was. we go wading waist deep in the same water, I remember where he should be (almost outsmarting the drowning man) but before we can reach the place, he falls out of the tree boughs above us, above that spot and lands onto the pavement. already dead. lift him up and realize that his wife is still upstairs and maybe alive so she needs to be reached. i'm no longer the protagonist, no longer the 'hero' saving people, that's now some guy. we all (hero, his girlfriend, his little kid sister, me) all go up this building and climb the twirling staircase to where she may be. she's not there and we have to go looking for her. while the hero starts yelling, his little kid sister walks away from us and disappears. i know this because i was the only one who saw her leave the group. hero realizes and starts climbing down the staircase furiously to reach her. i imagine what would happen if the little girl falls on top of him while he's still climbing down to save her; maybe he'll not be strong enough to save her, maybe he'll totally break her fall and she'll shove his head into the wall of the staircase which is now more like a well i guess and he'll be the one who dies. halfway down his girlfriend gets heroic and starts climbing down after him so that she can help him catch her. we're all certain that his little sister is gonna be found having fallen. there are two staircases like this, one on each end of the pool. i get downstairs to the other one. the other one has a wider edge that leads into the water and a small fence like you'd see on the edges of mountain roads to keep the cars inside; that fence has about a ten foot gap in it for people to enter and exit the water. hero and his girlfriend are on the other side. we're absolutely certain that we have to be on the lookout for what the drowning man/devil is going to do that we're not paying attention to and that it's about the little girl being killed. at the edge of the pool, before the fence, perhaps only visible from the waist or so up, with four maybe five men in business suits that all look the same on his right and his left, is rudy guiliani in "9-11" garb. dirt, sooty suits, yellow plastic hard hats. he's laughing. not laughing, he's smiling. not like something funny was just said or seen, but like he's laughing at something incredibly inappropriate, like he's a filthy kid. the kid sister falls out of the sky. the hero and his girlfriend were basically trying to call out for her. i was looking at the edge of the fence when what looked like a ragdoll fell out of the sky, hits her head at a bad angle on the fence and lays facedown onto the ground. i reach the scene before the hero does, but while i'm screaming and crying "my baby" which is what the hero is meaning to say, i can see the face of guiliani and he's so laughing at what just happened. and i start to think about how i'm in the middle of a stephen king novel and i don't like stephen king novels and haven't read any since i was in the eighth grade for a reason, the reason being that the endings were all the same, the meat of the books were so gory, and movies were so cheesey. but so obvious. i ponder how lame the little girl looked when she fell, as is someone just tossed a raggedy ann doll onto a miniature scaled set. i'm screaming and crying, pacing the floor a little, then start to think that this probably doesn't look real so I start to laugh in my crying and somehow make an inside joke with guiliani, go back to crying when i turn and face the hero. i wake up and it was a bad dream. i don't like bad dreams, i know that they're not just synapses defragging themselves for more space. this one wasn't, even with the special cameo by what's his name, (and yes i do think that that's embarrassing) or the fact that the hero was very definitely some youngish movie star that became popular over the summer, (yes also embarrassing) or that once you realize who you're talking to and tell them/it to go away, that they will/have to. that they've been to you in dreams before and only now i'm thinking that i wish to fuck i kept a diary when i was younger that i now had access to 'cause then i'd be able to see what set that off then. to see what set off my allergic reaction that summer like the one i had back in may of this year. was it really the same year i had to watch my brother's best friend yell in front of everyone in the apartment complex at the guy who ... to our youngest brother while the cops came to arrest him, that i watched this knowing that brother's best friend had done practically the same thing to me for the past 2 or three years, and i didn't say anything. and my mom's boyfriend starting...fuuuuucking a, doing what he started doing to me around the same time. was it that summer that i started one day to suddenly just break out in hives all over my legs and panics in the middle of the night, that only went away with benadryl after about a week? about exact same as what i got caught with in may of this year, after all the stress that built up.

wow that last part had nothing to do with the dream i got out of 45 minutes ago. well, oh well. needed to be said. if i may be a total recluse in real life I guess at least this is something.

but now i'm curious as to when i first started having dreams like the one i just had. i remember what it was. standing around what was basically train tracks, and someone who looks like a guy from school is saying something to me. and i get really scared, but just tell him No. and that he has to go away. i didn't look up to see what i already knew, that he was gone. i didn't have the guts to look up at him either, 'cause that would have meant Really Bad Thing.

i know i've had other dreams like that later on, 'cause that's probably the only way i can remember the first one. this was similar to those. and has been so long, only after, after making an honest attempt to rid myself of the mental sin i've been in; though i hate to say "making an honest attempt" 'cause i think it's more like finally realizing that it isn't pleasing to God to fill my head with the notions (no, not notions of that, gosh i roll my eyes at you) and that i've been doing it ...geez since i was first a loner which would be...four years old? ever since i've been aware of being wronged i'd in my loneliness fill all of my free time in either rehashing what happened over in my head, supplanted with what i should have done, what i could have done, and then practicing in my head what i'll do in x situation, in x conversation. everything else is satellite to myself and what i'm doing, down to imagining my shoes.

everyone else does it? okay, fine. i'm not in everyone else's head, so ...whatever. and i kinda don't think it's the same. ha. as if i have a reference.

so anyway, it's sometime last week that i first realize that the level of such is not good, and a sin, and since then it's been...on my mind to stop it. on my mind as a struggle. that, it's just substituting something else. if i really want to talk to Him (hahaha not Him-Him, just another person i haven't named here and am too sleepy to try to make a name up, certainly not one i'll remember) then i should stop doing it in my head and rationalizing my feelings and actions and beliefs mentally, i should maybe try real life. and then i get such 'characters' in my sleep. well, haven't been able to fall asleep at all for about an hour or so, anyway.

*pulls fallen-out strand of hair off arm, onto trash can next to me* and now i am totally convinced that waking up in the middle of the night is bad for my hair. пока.

the tough questions

[22:22] Me: well, the music i'm listening is putting me to sleep
[22:43] Me to someone else: i'm going to go back to bed and read


as I have shown, I obviously soooo called sleep way before...before the timestamp of this post.

how am i supposed to get monoxide poisoning or some other such
if my roommate shows up with loud ass friends at midnight
so effing loud taht i wake up and close off the air vent that leads into my room 'cause they're loud and coming in like a freakin speakerphone?

and you, guy that like...roommate's friend that always asks me what's up in front of the entire poker table and then as i get back to my room I have to hear the 'uh, your roommates are getting freaked out by us' maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan I am doing tottaly so super rad that I look like i just rolled out of bed and can barely form out words.

And speaking of getting your ass handed to you in a good way

really now, is there any other way?

Awesome!!!

Spiders jumping up out of the left side of the double sink onto my face while I do dishes.

Well, not onto my face, more like onto the plate I grabbed before I saw it and started mumbling "eeeeeeeeh" and poured hot water on it. But it would have if it had the chance.

.

I'm such a ...ugh. I just...I totally got my ass handed to me. In a good way.

1 Hour and Five Minute Later Trascript

So...talk to me.

*looks at mousepad on her desk*

And...and tell me straight. Even if I get mad or upset...so, what?

I...I don't care about the subject. About the way it's presented.

You don't...care?

I mean, I do care, I think it's important--I think the regional, sectional differences are really interesting the way that the North and South really did see themselves as two basically two different nations and the...the federalizing of ... of civic law, of civic rights, I think that's really interesting but...

But...

But I don't respect duBois.

...You don't...respect...duBois?

Well. Not "disprespect" even though that's what I just said. I ... *mouse pad again* I mainly don't agree with him. I agree more with Booker T even though he's... [duBois outlived BTW by almost fifty years so it's hard for me to call them contemporaries] I'm not completely sure they were contemporaries

They definitely butted heads

They certainly did and I just...agree with Booker T more, and ... no he certainly does have his faults

*nods*

And I don't...I don't care anymore about...about the rightness or whatever, of having to read duBois that doesn't matter to me, I just want to get out of class. Not out of class-class, but to be done, and get my work permit and just...get out and I...I know that I won't do well in such a seminar, and I looked and there are others I can take

*nods*

So...

And really...you did not have to tell me all this. You've obviously thought about it and your perspective is very different and truthfully...what I have to say doesn't interest you. What you are interested in, I am not interested in. You could have just dropped the class. Your voice, in the class, would have been very...enlightening, and had you shown up something something others could have learned. But you won't be there.

Oh yeah absolutely...at the same time I said I'd be here at 4pm and didn't want to just not show up and you said your email needs a 48 hour response time so...

And I could tell yesterday that you were not happy in the class

[I did audibly snort with disgust when she started to like, pretend to cry like a baby instead of just saying 'you have a kid' or something like "us urban people got our own thing goin on while the rural folk are all chawin on hay"]

so just...be...you already have a sense of what you want to pursue about history, so ... Be. A. Scholar. And do your thing.

*shook hands, I left*

College sucks and the sky's blue

If I had just been able to get in contact with this professor over the summer I would have had no problems at all.

I'm enrolled in the 19th-century U.S. seminar for the upcoming quarter, and am curious as to whether you have a specific time period or theme in mind for the class. Or...well, I haven't taken a seminar before, so truthfully I'm not exactly sure. I've tried reading what I can over the summer on the Whig party (Michael Holt's), and while it's great, there's more to the United States during the 19th century than just that. Any input would be appreciated.

No response. I didn't send it until 8/29. Because there was no available listing of who was actually teaching the seminar until then. I enrolled in the seminar back in May. It was the only seminar both on the U.S. in the 19th, and the only one with no professor listed.

I found out yesterday on the syllabus she handed out that she does not use the campus email as listed on the...the campus website. Uses a yahoo email and apparently doesn't know how to set her campus email to forward emails to...to the yahoo one. And I guess either never checks the campus email anyway, or just...doesn't...just doesn't whatever.

I had a similar problem exactly a year ago with the black "Nationalism/Assimilation" class I took. Not exactly the same; that professor responded that all he had was a reading list for the last time he taught the class a couple years ago if I wanted it. Which I responded that I would really appreciate the reading list (like I Really want to jump into a class titled that cold)...and never got a response from him again. When I got his syllabus, the email listed wasn't even different from the one I had been using. Maybe not very similar, but close enough for me to not want to have anything to do with ethnic studies professors. They're just so...impossibly unprofessional.

Seriously, duBois is not going to turn over in his grave just because you occasionally checked a different email that doesn't have banner ads for free makeup or pizza or std cures along the sides of it. Having been a spoiled college kid himself, he'd probably actually appreciate it.

I tried talking to this professor earlier today. Turned out she was in a hurry to prepare for another class she's teaching, so could I come back at 4-which is her actual office hour anyway. But after ... well, Jon's advice was to talk to her about my umm "concerns" and if she sounds like she's dead set on her direction for the class, then to just drop the class immediately , drop it like a rock. I asked if I could drop it like it's hot. He said I could do that too, but I'm not sure right now if I want to. ummm. Nah I'm pretty sure.

We didn't say much when I just went, just that I'm interested not only in something different from slavery and the notion and expectations of Reconstruction...or whatever...but that I am not comfortable with the aaaaaaaaah I guess "method" of historial analysis. Translated into English, I do not respect that kind of scholarship. I think it's a joke. My experience with academic people related to this study is that they're mind-numbingly, incredibly fucking ignorant of the very history they want to create and guilt trip others into celebrating.

Whether this makes me a bad person, or whether I should just right now save this post as a draft and go back to slinging pizza where I belong...what, am I going to graduate school? With my shitty GPA, not immediately after graduation. Doesn't really matter so much as that I don't want to take the seminar now.

Oh boo hoo it isn't so much about the fact of what I read over the summer. Even if I'd read all summer about Reconstruction itself, or the later 19th century there's no way I'd want to be in that class. I can read and study Coin's Financial School just as much as Gouge's History of Banking in the United States. Not a problem.

If I stay in the seminar, I'm not going to do shit. Not as in some positivist, ...idunno. I didn't get any work done last night after I got out of the seminar class itself. Didn't even go running. I looked and was surprised that it was already 11pm by...well, by 11pm. And that's...that's what I've been doing ever since I got here five years ago. Annoyed as fuck by how stupid this all is, depressed by how completely apathetic and ignorant this place is, and instead of gosh golly bucking down and jumping through the stupid hoops for my work permit, I completely tune it out and do my own thing, whether reading von Mises, or the random discount books the library sells for 50 cents...the last one I got that way being Bagehot's English Constitution. Or Mark Noll's Scandal.

And maybe that means I'm not a good person, it almost certainly proves me to not be a good student.

sigh. Whatever. I'll drop this seminar, already talked to the History advisor...all the other seminars this quarter are full and not admitting anyone else (the others going on right now are 20th century US and American Thought/Culture, either of which can be doable), so to keep fulltime student status I'll take in ...whatever the hell it is I showed up for today, Law and Society in Medieval Europe. Same instructor as the Early Middle Ages, so I know what kinda to expect, and he's immensely respectable. Guess since he's also teaching a seminar on the Middle Ages/Medieval History in the spring quarter, I can do that. Popeasaurs are cool, it won't be that bad.

Snickering Was Well Under Way

at this article. Gee golly how can we get the federal government to denigrate ALL of us, and kill an assload of our citizens? I know!!!

umm.

This is gonna call for skill.

Skills I don't have. Liiiiiike. Like I am so superbly... Like I am going to show up to my professor's office hours tomorrow and tell her "Wow gosh golly I don't care about .... well not I don't caaaaare, but I really really don't have an interest in studying slavery."

Oh wait no not slavery but I have no interest in to "investigate enslavement int he United States from the enslaved person's perspective...examine the events of Reconstruction...explore scholarship on Reconstruction in the United States with a particular emphasis on the experiences of formerly enslaved persons...assess the relationship between a conception of slavery on one hand, and an expectation of Reconstruction on the other."

That's taken from the syllabus. Also on the syllabus are now my bored scribbles, drawing random shapes on papers being apparently one weird ass thing that both I and my dad do...hmm. Anyway.

I was told all summer long that senior seminars were basically that you kinda do your own thing and turn in a research paper at the end of the quarter. Since it's only 10 week quarter, we're not expected much, just to do it, basically. Specifically took it in the fall so that I could have all summer to do my own study and not show up for the first class breathing through my mouth.

And I did, maaaaaan. I got books from the library, I bought books, I read them, I like, like, I thought. 'bout stuff. No, I did not finish Holt's tome, didn't even get a quarter of the way through, but you probably haven't either.

If there was another week in the summer break I'd have tried again to understand this as the first time was...just not happening, after getting into Rothbard's Panic of 1819, and getting suspicious of Remini's assurances that the Bank...

Oh wait, but these have about as much to do about slavery as the price of tea in China.

And the reading list has ....aaaargh it was soo annoying sitting there and "oh yeah we're going to be reading from the perspectives something something former slaves."

oh. Okay, cool...Frederick Douglass is totally down for his...he's got cred. Booker T was only a little kid by the time he was freed, but still got cred..oh wait. Booker T isn't on the reading list. oh but that's okay!

Because W.E.B. duBois is. Okay, booker t no, booker t, the assimilationist in the *rolls eyes* black assimilationist-nationalist spectrum, this guy, he we don't read, the former slave. But duBois, the never was a slave, mixed, well-raised, college professor who didn't even live in the South, not even on the nationalist end of things far as I understood as he was just simply opposed to booker t...yes. Yes, he we read.

Couple other books, one by a guy in a black regiment (did not bother asking which side), and one by a chick who was...a nurse or some such in the same regiment. Totally cool, man.

I'm not reading this. hoooooooooooooooooooooooo no. I did not sign up for an introductory sociology class.

So far, I have no reason to think that I'll get to do my paper on anything remotely close to what I want to do--there's no way I can just jump into Reconstruction not even being familiar with the Polk administration, this isn't the Protestant Reformation here...and "19th century US" (the only limits we knew of when we signed up for the course; me also since it turned out from reading her syllabus that she does not at all check the email listed on the campus website for her...'cause I never got an email back.) seminar is only offered this one quarter this one last freakin year I want to be here...so. So so so. After I talk to her, well no her office hours are late in the day so before that I'll find out who else is teaching seminars either this next quarter or the spring quarter...the only one that seems maybe remotely that I can do or want to would be 20th century US, which is right now this quarter, just Thursdays.

But...but...*whiiiiiiine* ugh. Who cares about the 20th century? Too many people, that's who. Gah, what? Goldwater? oooooh yeah get some literature up on dat shizzle.

Linguistics Died

in me, having just tried to start reading an article about e.e. cummings and deviant morphology. Blasphemers. Leave that curtain, and the man behind it, alone.

Breaking Up

No more regularly scheduled Matt Drudge Sunday nights on the radio.

*cuts self*

Know What's Awesome?!!

uno- spilling your Benadryl/generic dephenhydramine bottle all over the bottom of your purse, where there are pennies and coin and string hanging around.

doso- picking the pennies and coin and string out of the pile of benadryl tabs in your hand before you put them back in the bottle because you are broke and are not gonna buy another bottle.

tesay-movies that give me vertigo

quatro-minatro-movies that give me vertigo and are stupid. movies that have about a five-to-six minute long "Muslims are people too" montage

cinco- casual dialogue among the two stars in the movie about basketball so as to show their roots and approachability. extra awesomeness when either shack or Kokey is called a "hater" by the more ethnic and therefore more "real" star.

шесть- missing about 20 minutes to hanging out in the bathroom, ready for puking from vertigo and generally getting head back together

seben- coming back to movie after about 20 minutes and having the sense that I didn't miss anything. extra points for having the "baaaaad American ambassador guy" pop up, look sick at the sight of the dead bodies (which was SOOOOO FUNNY LOLZ) and be a meanie to the main characters by like, representing the asshat politicians that somewhat started the whole template for the plot in the first place.


ocho- fight scene with main actor girl. ooooh and bonus points for life for the knife-to-the-crotch fight ender. take that! patriarchy!

devyat- dumbass MoVal audience applauding main actor girl as fight ends. Not when the fight ended, nor when she got all gender-paradigm-conscious on us, but the few more scenes in between where guy is already dead and she keeps stabbing him. Like, in the back of the skull and such.

decem- how easy it was to throw in that knife-to-the-crotch scene; not just because the girl really didn't do any other up-close fighting, and the "Stupid white guy who's so stupid he was able to get on the mission in the first place even though no one likes him and he's NEVER useful" character was looking kinda good from fighting as best he could once he had to, but because as soon as you think that that's pretty fucked up (I would imagine a gut-cut would be worse maybe although less 'cool'? *shrug*) you can think back to nothing in the movie, at all, but the vague news stories you hear about how shitty they treat their women. take that! actually-fucked-up-patriarchy!

undecim- the ending line, equating "Us" with "Them."

zwölf- realizing that some members of the clapping audience probably Need an ending like that.
tredecim- going to imdb to look up the movie and reading a summary of some show called "Dexter" on a cable station. Looks...not so much a bad show, but a show that isn't good.

Totally awesome.

I Can Bastardize History Too

okay okay okay. If the War between the States was "the second American Revolution,"

then the Revolution of 1776-1783 was the first civil war in America.


awwww hurts, donit?

Assignment

The other options were like, read Cold Mountain and answer "why did Southerners support or oppose the War?" and uh...take two union and two Confederates (Maybe I should have asked if where Copperheads would fit.) , discuss their uh, contrasting manner in which they war blah blah who cares, and then an opinion on how stupid that method is.

This is the one I chose.

The Tarnished Hero

Of all the heroes of the Civil War, none has drawn
more attention than Robert E. Lee. for the first century after the conflict Lee
received unabashed praise from all sides. More recently, his performance in the
war has become a matter of considerable controversy. Drawing on the essays in
Gary Gallager, Lee The Solider, and the discussion of Lee in The
Confederate War, write an essay that deals with the following issues:

• The reasons for Lee's popularity in the years immediately after the war
  
• Problems raised by Lee's critics in the last half of the 20th century
  
• Lee's performance at the battle of Gettysburg
  
• Your own assessment of Lee's contributions to the war and its
  aftermath

Oh and Re

Re "oooh ooooooh the Constitution is a proslavery document."

uno. You don't like the 3/5th clause? Okay, then the slaves are counted as five-fifths. Now there's the House at 40% Southern instead of about a third, with more power than if less slaves were counted. I'm sure y'all can find another reason for your low self esteem, being the reason for which I have to give you free pan pizza at Dominos.

doso. Or count them as zero. To which the South does not join the Constitution and continues on as their own independent confederacy with just trade connections to the North if at all. Civil War instead erupts over Western lands, if Jefferson buys still the entire Louisiana Territory. Or if he doesn't, I'm sure.

tresay. Under the impression that the 3/5th compromise was exchanged for the South having given up on requiring 2/3 of the House of Representatives for a quorum on economic legislation...ooooooh. Plus the prevalence of the Whig Party in the South, kinda negating the gain in Representatives anyway...needing a 2/3 quorum woulda protected slavery much more than a handful of congressmen.

quatro-minatro. the 1808 delay of slave trade legislation. Oh yeah, 'cause black markets don't operate when it's still profitable but against the law. Price of imported slaves goes up, no one's got time to build canals that lead to heaven.

cinco-mininco. Frederick Douglass eventually came around to this side. So...you don't wanna disagree with Frederick Douglass do you? You racist.

I'll Take a Pass on the Pun

I want the Foner to come in already. It was suggested reading by the Civil War professor (first class itself is tomorrow) and because he didn't advise me on what to read over the summer, I guessed good and already read 'bout half of it back in July.

Only 'bout half 'cause all the nonstop quotes proving how much the South was looked down on by the North "oooh for them to civilize, we'd have to bring tools and and like, like show these poor stupid ignorant evil Southern souls how to work them" got kinda old.

Uh yeah but twenty years later the assimilationist-"civiliationist" manner of uplifting freed blacks and now currently just blacks in general...oh yeah that was no good because it assumed that the white Protestant norms of behavior and work ethic was better than theirs.

Idunno what pisses me off more; that I can still remember that argument against the Booker Ts, or that I still ended up failing that class.

I got nothing against Foner himself, most of that book was quotes, long extensive quotes. Such as the "Slave Power/Terrorism" quote I put up here a couple weeks ago. He just strings them along.

What will make me laugh, laaaaugh as if I were a fat man with a huge belley, will be when the CW instructor tells us that the war was basically about slavery; I'll start smoking if he points to South Carolina's secession statement as proof. At the end of Remini's Andrew Jackson and the Bank War he lists where the federal government's surplus came from.

The surplus came from four things: the lack of a national debt, the tariff revenues, land sale revenues, and the general prosperity of the nation.

Hmm okay now only land sale revenues makes sense. I don't get how lacking national debt causes a surplus, and not just prevents debt. I guess it's like Calvinism; I see it but don't. Land sale revenues, that's cool, Clay's plan for sales to be hiked up for his American System wasn't implemented, so I can assume that it was just a bunch of people buying land and then the "sales tax" or whatever...
General Prosperity sounds like ... sounds like nothing. General prosperity only means that .... oh wait it means nothing. Unless income is more than spending, there will be no surplus. iiiis that what happened? Did spending decrease? How? Who was responsible for that? When did this spending get back on? awww wait I forgot government spending isn't "spending money" it's people doing good things. Yaaaay!

And then the tariff. That's uh...that's great. That's really great. Thank you, states that had to pay out the ass.

It Wasn't All Henry Clay

"Indeed, it is very possible that a substantial majority of Americans approved of the Bank, favored its recharter [in 1832], and opposed Jackson's removal of the government's deposits from the Bank in 1833! If this is true, then the magnitude of Old Hickory's accomplishment in destroying the BUS becomes even more impressive. Statistical evidence to prove overwhelming popular support for the Bank is by no means conclusive."

-Robert V. Remini, "Andrew Jackson and the Bank War" pub 1967

aaaaaaaah. HAHAHAHAHA. Statistical evidence to back up what I just said, even though statistics can be smudged around anyway, do not exist. Even though I am the badassest most-renowned auctoritas on Jackson and this entire book is simply an addendum to one chapter out of the three-volume bio of Jackson that I did.

I Was In Nevada

and standing around a bunch of Jews, on purpose, being bored because I was the other person in said group who did not speak Hebrew nor could even parse out any words or even cognates, being embarassed because I sat next to my abba and that happened to be near the tree roots which had some sticky tree, goop on it well scratch that the goop was now on the back of my brown pants Horaaaay.

Did I mention I was bored? Yes okay it was a parade for...whatever reason cities have parades, and yes okay my sister was playing in the marching band and yes okay it's the one who makes "that's my sister" noises around me and others but Gawd they're boring. And I don't know anyone that either my stepmom pointed out, or that my abba made fun of and I was starting to get frustrated by being around really really subdued, mid-to-late 50s aged liberal...people. It's not like I...well I guess even if it were Rivercide I wouldn't have anyone to talk to anyway either. But still.

моя tyotya (and now I'm losing the spelling, le boo hoo) mentioned later that day about how there were children running around the hotel they were staying at. And it was explained to her that people move in there and live. Like, live-live. When she asked how people could do that, how they could live like that, I didn't offer to enlighten her. I could have just innocently mentioned how in California it's against the law to stay now in one hotel/motel for more than I think a month, so now, instead of blight and oh em gee these poor children living in a motel all their young lives, oh em gee these poor children have to up and fucking move every month or so. If they're not lucky enough to be in the same school district, sometimes they get their paperwork caught up and don't miss more than...idunno, gosh a couple days? Maybe a week? Possibly the move can be made like, on a Friday and the kid's back in school for Monday, but then if the parents(singular) is on top of things enough to arrange that, they're probably not gonna be in motels too long anyway.

Oh wait I forgot public schools are super awesome evil. In no instances are they the civilizing factor the only of such in a child's life. Well. I shouldn't start on that; mine was the government sponsored and ran CPS repository that sits in between a county jail and a dog pound (so those liberated government-educated, unwittingly pathetic womyns can get all their ah, errands done near the same bus stop, I guess.)

What was I...oh yeah the law about not living in motels longer than whatever amount of time allowed. Perhaps it's just a county ordinance, I wasn't too keen on reading up on my future real estate prospects like those once I moved out of Orange County. But I do remember hearing about it when I worked for CPS. Turned out that "parents" too stupid to either not piss off a social worker or hide their real abuse tend, oh so strongly tend to be too stupid to give a forwarding address additionally. Shocked I was not really. More so pissed off at the sw of a couple days ago, helping a little girl of maybe six change into clean clothes in the restroom.

*Me washing my hands*

sw: blah blaaaaaah clothes! Clean clothes! Get changed!
girl: ...

oh fuck the dialogue. I don't remember exactly what the little girl said, mostly six year old babble. idunno why she was taken in...mmmm right now a year later I'd guess that it was just that the sw showed up and the ah, domocile, was so filthy and the kid likewise so much that Ron Paul just lost five votes.

Anyway, the fat sw (I think redundancy cancels out an oxymoron) was trying to get the little girl to change into clean clothes. And...a lot of sws have their own kids. Ranging from late twenties to old as dirt, these womyn are used to little kids changing they've had their own kids, blah blah.

Fat sw told the girl something about socks. Oooh we got you clean socks, put the second sock on. The little girl mumbled something about her sock that she had on like "I have one sock on."

And it wasn't so much of ...well it was. I don't want to be a social worker. I look at that "profession" like I see teaching /federal babysitting. I like kids too much to want to be one. At the same time, I have a perspective on 'tha system' that I'm arrogantly certain that 90% of sws do not have. I've been on the other side of their interviews that were supposedly conducted in the strictest confidence. I've been six years old and told to change out of my dirty clothes that earlier that day I thought were about on the upper level of acceptability.

And you know what would just boggle Fat sw's fucking mind? The idea that a big fat teacher looking, dinosaur face (I don't know how there were so many womyns in that office with a face like a stegasaurus; if I ever did drugs I'd swear I was tripping and thinking I was in the Land Before Time), blonde ugly butch-chop hair with no makeup and an ass wider than her torso was long, barking at me in a fake nice-civilized-upperclass tone of voice how to change my clothes...is frightening to a six year old. Pass the boooooooong, fucker.

The little girl in the disabled bathroom stall probably thought she was in trouble; not so much for her lackadasical clothes-changing, but in the whole "taking a ride with a stranger" when she went with the fat woman in the first place. Idunno. But the sw's reaction to "I have one sock on" was just "put your other sock on, we have to get you changed" and then whatever gurgling noise she made at the other social worker standing in the stall with them.

YES. TWO. What, the little girl had a knife or something?

How about "That's great, let's get the second one on and you'll be all set."

Couple weeks later, or a couple weeks before, that little girl's mom shows up as Ten years later at reception. Her sw wasn't in. It was a Friday. County workers; so 50/50 chance that she had a three day weekend. Mom can't see anyone, can't get shit done except show me how little it takes for me to forsake common sense because I rely on a paycheck to live, instead of the Truth.

Mom: Well, here's my situation though. My daughter's 16/17 and ran away from the group home/foster home she was just moved to. I know where she's staying, I know she's staying with this *considerably older or violent drug dealer or rapist or something* guy. The group home/foster home hasn't called in a report yet. If I go to where she is and get her, it'll count as an unsupervised visit, and I'm not allowed unsupervised visits and the judge if he finds out can *blah blah totally fuck me over something something been doing everything else right*...what do you think I should do?

Me, did not say: What the...what the fuck? GET YOUR FUCKING CHILD, DAMMIT.

Me, actually: uuuuh. That's a tough situation. *looked to the other receptionist who rambled on about leaving messages with the group home or ...something.*

And of course, after the scared chronologically 40-something, mentally 14 years old woman left, the receptionist and I had the God damned gall to act annoyed by someone so badgered by everyone else telling her what to do that she was helpless. From her shitty parents, to the part of her that hates herself and her child, to eventually the Department of Public Social Services. Child Protective Services branch, specifically.

And what I really hate about Nevada. About sleeping under my dad's roof. Er, under their floor in their basement/library room. Seeing pictures of my sisters in the second grade magnet'ed onto the fridge, their Jewish-Israeli birth certificates on the wall. Seeing pictures of my grandfather who died like, idunno 30some-odd years ago and choking on the part of my throat when the referents "I have a grandfather" form in my head. The oddness of being hugged by my dad, which I don't think either one of us is used to.

What I really hate about Nevada, is that I can't get this stuff out of my head. The shoebox only two thirds full of pictures, the remaining third of which I threw away when I realized that they were all of people from high school who just happened to let me take their picture.

What I dislike about standing around watching parades witha group of oldish Jewish people is that no one would have gotten the irony of the monument to Le Guerre Monde



being right behind us as we looked forward into the street where trucks with politicians' names on the sides were carrying at two miles an hour said politicians or representatives (Northeast Nevada can't command Obama yet) literally throw candy out at people into the streets, for the youngest subjects to scramble to pick up.








Quoth my sister-in-law: Seriously. Why do we study history. It's in the past.

Suddenly An-guh-ry

Scroll down to European Persecution. And then the blurb titled "Execution of Mennonites."



Uno muh-nuno: Mennonites did not lead the...arrrrgh they didn't go to North America first. That was the people, the Puritans, England.

Doso: Menno Simmons, all the Mennonites, and every. Single. Anabaptist group. Denounced Muenster. A lot of them even tried to backtrack from having been in favor of communal living

Tresay:

by Catholic authorities in Ghent in 1554.

oooooh noooo no those Catholic authorities!! Yes, no mention at all that bringing down the city was an entirely ah, "bipartisan" effort. The Catholics and Protestants (don't remember which at the time) ah, "reached across the aisle" on this one, to you know...restore order.

"Order" being not beheaded for not wanting to be married to van Leyden, the guy in the picture.

Because aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

Not to Gloat...Well, Actually, Yes.

"Here, talk to my mother."

Me: "длфшлвшйю" (No idea what I said.

I was thinking about how my mom was calling her mom-or her first husband's mom, er, her adopted mom now that I think of it...shit, someone's babymama-to ask her for money, as it had worked last time, and that even though she was technically my grandmother, I...hmm. I don't know, but money was involved, or needed to be involved, so I ...I don't know. It was just a foreshadowing of the other times I'd be traipsed out so she could pity money out of people. )

"Do you go to school?"

"Yeah. Umm. Second grade."

"That's good."

I held the phone against my ear just long enough to make damn sure I remembered both her response to the crazy idea that I was in school (as opposed to working as a bricklayer or something, Idunno) and how damn old she sounded. Daaaaaamn old. My mom was sitting in a rocking chair that was supposedly worth millions because it said "Pacific Bell" on the seat of itsweartoGod...I imagined her adopted mother who I'd been told was Cuban even though I hadn't seen a distinctly Cuban person before (this was before she had to ransack her photo albums for...probably birth certificates, and I saw pictures of the lovely Cuban lady who beat the fucking shit out of her adopted daughter and her twin brother, well perhaps not the "fucking shit out" but left them crazy enough for me to have to deal with them, anyway...also the first time I saw a picture of my dad, who allegedly did the same thing) as a little bony, decrepit woman in a black dress with white trim, rocking the same way my mother was. Or rolling a joint, whatever. I didn't imagine her holding a phone though.

Idunno if she sent money or not. For all I know, that well dried up, or she died... hmm.

Hmmmmmmmmm.

Now right now I wonder 1) if my legal grandmother is dead or not--the same semi-curious way I wondered about my dad about that barely over a year ago, not so much curious out of a concern for them but out of a desire to know for sure that I can finally stop caring, and 2) who the fuck was that? Was that even her adopted mom? Was it her adopted mom's sister?

Fifteen or sixteen years later I'm in Northeast Nevada, trying to follow native Hebrew for what I would think would be stops for either entire words or at least ideas, or any phrase I recognize a second time as I walk up the steps of their basement after my dad called my name (or at least it sounded close someone's name, and the girl with a similar name wasn't responding, so I figured best out of 2 or something).

" *Hebrew noise, my dad extends cordless to me* Do you vahn to talk to your gran dmother?"

"Wuhl...yeah, okay....umm....lakjsdfl;asd....hi!"

"Heh-looooooow! Is this Friiiiiiitiz?!"

"Yeah."

"How are yooouuuu?!"

"I'm uh....hahahaha, I'm good, how are you?"

While my dad gets up from the stairway and walks back to the living roomforeshadowinglolz, I both, try to think of something to say to a 90-year old woman the sight of whose likeness I see in my middle sister (exact same eyes) yet otherwise I really don't have much to say to, and trip the fuck out. Because...well. Just because I guess.

"Deeed you know that you have a gran'dmother?!"
My gosh. I can hear her smile. I think she repeated the question and added "in Israel" or something.

"Uh yeah I guess...*my stepmom's name* told me about everyone in Israel, yeah."

"What?"

"Huh?"

"Ummm...hmmm."

"Uh. *Stepmom's name* told me. Umm."
Pretty sure I shouldn't say "umm shit" to my grandmother, at least not the first time I talk to her anyway, I somehow hand the phone back to my dad.

"Huh huh huh....blah blah hebrew noises Yeah, Americantza."

More Hebrew noises, still can't tell where words start and stop, hangs up the phone.

"She tought you were saying that *my Aunt's name* was the one who told you about Israel. You confused her."

"*Aunt's name*? Yeah, that would confuse I guess."

"Yeah, I told her dat you're an American and have problem communicating."

"Ah well."

A Tale of a Terrible Scribe

I believe now there is a general preparation in the minds of the people to look to 'the overthrow of Terrorism' as the ultimate result of our movement. I am struck with the facility with which this word has come into use in the documents of both Democrats and Republicans. Terrorism is now indissolubly incorporated in the political nomenclature of the country, and will be inscribed indelibly upon the historical page. We must make the most of that word. It is not necessary that they who use it should ever know who taught it to them--the name and the thing--but the incessant use of the term will do much to open the eyes and arouse the energies of the people...Let it appear that it is Terrorism which we wish to restrict and curtail; that it is Terrorism whose demands we resist, whose growth we will put down.

-Joshua Leavitt to Salmon P. Chase July 7, 1848
Oh wait, did I copy the word "Terrorism" in there? hahaha. I meant "Slave Power." And not Republicans, but Whigs. Oh well, close enough, I guess.

Found

(this is 'bout a week old...sue me.)

I’m gonna get kicked out of the library for laughing my ass off.

What is at stake...is whether the Republican party can learn to make "a distinction between the conservatism represented by Senator Goldwater and his supporters and the conservatism that conserves...Goldwater's brand of conservatism has its most recognizable American roots in those thinkers, quite numerous in this country, who imagine conservatism to be almost identical with economic individualism.

HAHAHAHAHAHA BUT CONSERVATIVES WANT A FREE MARKET LOLZZZZ!!!!

from "The Paranoid Style In American Politics" by Richard Hofstadter

Copy-damn-right

Because I'm a freaking artist, that's why.

Semi-Random

It's so hard to concentrate on what's been on my mind when I have wolfsheim playing. They're so "everything's gonna be all right" sounding.

"...was enthralling," he said. I can hold enthralling conversation. I guess so, while I'm "only" 23 and still have long hair and for now a body that doesn't look completely useless to a man. I hope he has enthralling conversations with his wife. Or at the very least, that they don't bicker.

I would kinda wonder why I didn't like hearing about that person. And then I realized-or perhaps it clicked suddenly that if I blame her for it, then that's at least more closely resembling of logic-that I blame her for a friend losing me. But even that doesn't hold much when I realize I'm only thinking about that friend because I have no other reason to feel sorry for myself.

Dammit. I act like such a goofus around that person. That person I don't even...gaaaah dammit, man. I don't want to act like a goofer. It's annoying, and not what I .... gah.

The weirdest part about the video for Wolfsheim's "Hurting for the First Time" has to be when that guy is suddenly standing around, umm, arranging his junk while talking to some girl. It's like "oh wow, Peter Heppner yum oh gosh he's so cuuuuute and there he is again and. Whoa that dude's grabbing his stuff. Umm. I don't like this video anymore." Somehow I was able to figure out the name of the movie the video's taken from; it sounded pretty lame.

So before.

Lazeys

No one's posting something I want to read. Guess I'll have to make something.

I think the newest secksyest thing in the freaking world is that part of this video where Peter Heppner says "dream I had of you" and then takes a drag off his cigarette.

Wolfsheim. Like Depeche Mode, only more likely to be straight.

Today makes the second night in a row where I've taken two benadryls in the hope of falling asleep immediately instead of actually ... well my plan has been to just sleep and, I guess just stop thinking. It kindof worked last month when my allergies were acting up and the benadryl just barely was able to keep my throat from collapsing. Or some such dramatic shenanigan, idunno. Point was, that 2 benadryl meant I'd be asleep within half an hour. Perhaps now I'm just ... well right now my eyelids are gettin heavy. But I'm sure that's just because I'm blogging right now.

I swear to an effing Popeasaur that the next place I'm moving to on Saturday, shall not be vacated next year. I'm staying there unless I move to either Nevada or London. Or wherever the hell Boyfriend is. I hate dealing with people and their slow ass moving skeeeyollz.

Oh yeah my allergies. Bout month and a half ago I sit at work and my hands start itching. And then my eyes. And then like...wow I have a zit. Inside my lip. Oh wow it's been 10 minutes and now the zit is three times as large. And I'm still itching. My scalp. Behind my knees where I still have the (recessive? Fuck if I know) red swelling from Years Ago when the same thing happened. And the bathroom. Oh good God that was the worst. *deep breath* So, being a girl, and the tp going...tharr. I guess the skin Tharr was affected by the allergies too so...yeah. The itching was there too.

Coworker comes in to replace me, takes a look at me and says to clock out and go to a hospital. I say I'm fine, and call Inostranitz to pick me up sooner 'cause I gotta get to a hospital.

Yeah, I went to the emergency room. Oooooh I just lost all my LP street cred. And I had so much before so, too.

Get to the ER with Inoz. Given a form to fill out. Inoz, not knowing either English to really read the form, nor my personal info, can't to anything. I can't even like, my hands are swollen, I took my ring off...can't even just tell him what to write because he doesn't understand English (quite a trend there, I know) so I take it myself and scribble all over. Instantly wish Boyfriend were on the same fucking continent since he knows this stuff and could easily fill out most of it for me. Beat triage, probably because of my Yes answer on Having Trouble Breathing question. Crack some joke to the nurse about how I don't mind people coming up to me and grabbing me (she was taking my temperature or something) since it's how I usually enjoy my Friday nights anyway. I somehow see myself in a mirror and freak out at how ... haha, freakish I look. Try to tell Inoz to sit somewhere outside so he doesn't see me anymore than he already has. Get the double shots in the fleshy bootey area which tell me (the nurse, not the shots) that they're supposed to immediately bring down the swelling and itching, blah blaaaaaaaah sit around for about half an hour more wherein the itching and swelling gets really really worse, I guess the apex or something, whatever.

Given a prescription for teh drugs, go to what later I find out is an uninsured store, fuck up some other parts of the scenario (the scenario having changed to not paying full price for the drugs), get pissed off/annoyed away from the campus health center...

And then two weeks later I relapse. On the way to work that morning I'm waiting for my food and start noticing that I was starting to force myself to breathe deeply. By the time I'm home from work that really isn't any worse, until I realize that it's happening again, that I'm also going to have to probably pay the entire cost of the ER visit plus that the prescriptions are not going to be covered/reimbursed, plus the idea of having to go to the campus health center again and write a check out to that bitch, plus that the meds are out and I don't want to go to the ER again because I just...I can't afford it again.

Oh yeah I was looking online for a substitute for one of the prescriptions I had that had run out. And from there I called a friend about going to Drugstore to buy it, not realizing the difference between "generic" and OTC drugs, that they're not the same thing. So I started freaking out, and then somehow all the other stuff came up to my pwetty widdle head and that--I guess--triggered the allergies to heighten up.

Embarassing story short I got Benadryl and it mostly worked in that I was able to sleep off and suppress the allergy symptoms. And got an extension on my Early Republic essay.

Uh yeeeeeeeah.

I was told the other night that my failing at work as a manager is that basically, I do not imititate the verbal theatrics of my co-managers (priesthood of all believers and all that) to get things done. Instead I pay attention to the person and how was it put....

"you give your reason for why they need to do this thing. Elsa on the other hand, she shuts everyone out for just two minutes and then...then decides. Does not listen to anything else."

Yeah sure I'll do that. While I'm in this state, the phones are ringing for another two minutes, and the drivers have already left or simply given up on having to do anything in the first place...and I have to start all over with "hey this needs to be done."

Last night sucked.

13 Years Later

I was in front of a tv in the mid 90s. So....let's declare it, 10 years old? Yeah 10.

It was, if not that show that had Nancy Glass, probably Inside Edition with Bill O'Rielly. Oh yeah, hardcore.

Maybe...yeah I was at my apartment. But there's a bunch of shit going on. My mom's talking and hanging out with everyone, everyone being her boyfriendy guy's brothers. There's beer for the Mexicans in the Raiders clothes (I didn't know they were a football team until I was in 7th grade I think), probably beer for the mom, and pot at her "oh so necessary andpulledoutofthedumpster writing desk" piled high with future archives of pre-destroyed lives.

Boyfriendy guy's brothers...maybe only one. Gang....homies? Dealers? Type of people. I don't know.

There was a fat brother of boyfriendy who once told her (assuming she didn't make this up) that he cut some chick up and then fucked (raped?) her. And every time she'd tell me about this she'd make a gutting a fish and then arm waving fucking motion. Like I had any idea what she was doing until I saw rap videos in high school. I got pissed me off at that guy not because he may have did that but because it gave depth to her already self-shallowed repetoire of being a disgusting bitch. Maybe he only cut her a little bit! Whatever, the motherly duty was done and I was warned to not only, go downstairs to their apartment and make a drunken gringa ass out of myself but also tell everyone who'll listen and tell everyone else that yes, Fat Guy definitely did kill someone. I'da been without a clue, otherwise. I bet he told her that (again, if he really did) in hopes that it would just shut her the fuck up. Ha haaaaaaa......aaaaaaah he was probably an asshole anyway.

and this particular night I'm focusing on the tv. Maybe that's why I can't do two things like that at once, watch tv while on the phone or IM or anything while on the phone, I'm self-trained to just...anyway.

Inside Edition being the trashy garbage I couldn't have avoided watching even had I known it as such at the time, there was a "segment" on cleavage. Oh oh ooooooh cleavage is all the rage in Hollywood *5 seconds of some movie star lady walking around, then some model on some runway*

I looked up at....fuck I don't remember Boyfriendy's name. It was a stupid name, for a stupid person. It might not have been a real name. I remember it was cutesy. Johnny, Roachy, something. Ah, Roachy it is.

I looked up at Roachy who was on a seat about...2 feet or so next to me (not on a couch with me, but in a different chair facing the tv) and asked him point-blank what cleavage was. Never heard the word before, no context I could get from the commercials.

"What's cleavage?"

Roachy wasn't very smart, at least that was the only reason at first that I thought he didn't answer me. He also wasn't wearing a shirt. Was it hot outside at 730pm? Idunno. Maybe it was, it was the second floor. He also worked out or so, I guess to the point where, hey at 730 or so pm in Anaheim, why not go shirtless?

So...setting his beer down (etiquette, you see) and with a concerned concentration on his face, Roachy puts his Mecksycan hands on the sides of his pectorals and uh...shoves his lumps. Together. aaaaand count to 3 quickly. Click. Un-shoves, doesn't even look at me, gets his beer back.

Let there be cleavage on the medium-dark hairless Mexican guy. Fiat cleavagus somethingus somethingus. Done and done.

My response, which I have carved into my brain forever lest I should ever forget such a life lesson.

"Oh. Okay." Head turns back to the

"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING TO MY DAUGHTER?!?!?!"

"Uh...she asked what cleavage was."

Like, the most random of ten fucking seconds she saw what was going on with me, the mom I guess sees Roachy shovin his lumps and starts yelling about how he's molesting me right in front of her.

I....don't have an ending or conclusion. She just embarassed the hell out of both of us (it's not like he grabbed me), and because he was buzzed and I was too entrenched in the idea that causing a commotion was the gravest sin I could commit, neither of us said anything and of course after that I was uncomfortable around him. Oh shit, is he gonna define another word??! The horror.

This Is Why There Are Comparative Adjectives

"Here, talk to my mother."

Me: "фывафв щшг стугьа" (No idea what I said. I was thinking about how my mom was calling her mom-or her first husband's mom, er, her adopted mom now that I think of it...shit, someone's babymama-to ask her for money, as it had worked last time, and that even though she was technically my grandmother, I...hmm. I don't know, but money was involved, or needed to be involved, so I ...I don't know. It was just a foreshadowing of the other times I'd be traipsed out so she could pity money out of people. )


"Do you go to school?"

"Yeah. Umm. Second grade."

"That's good."

I held the phone against my ear just long enough to make damn sure I remembered both her response to the crazy idea that I was in school (as opposed to working as a bricklayer or something, Idunno) and how damn old she sounded. Daaaaaamn old. My mom was sitting in a rocking chair that was supposedly worth millions because it said "Pacific Bell" on the seat of itsweartoGod...I imagined her adopted mother who I'd been told was Cuban even though I hadn't seen a distinctly Cuban person before (this was before she had to ransack her photo albums for...probably birth certificates, and I saw pictures of the lovely Cuban lady who beat the fucking shit out of her adopted daughter and her twin brother, well perhaps not the "fucking shit out" but left them crazy enough for me to have to deal with them, anyway...also the first time I saw a picture of my dad, who allegedly did the same thing) as a little bony, decrepit woman in a black dress with white trim, rocking the same way my mother was. Or rolling a joint, whatever. I didn't imagine her holding a phone though.

Idunno if she sent money or not. For all I know, that well dried up, or she died... hmm.

Hmmmmmmmmm.

Now I wonder 1) if my legal grandmother is dead or not--the same semi-curious way I wondered about my dad about that barely over a year ago, not so much curious out of a concern for them but out of a desire to know for sure that I can finally stop caring, and 2) who the fuck was that? Was that even her adopted mom? Was it her adopted mom's sister?

Fifteen or sixteen years later I'm in Northeast Nevada, trying to follow native Hebrew for what I would think would be stops for either entire words or at least ideas, or any phrase I recognize a second time as I walk up the steps of their basement after my dad called my name (or at least it sounded close someone's name, and the girl with a similar name wasn't responding, so I figured best out of 2 or something).

" *Hebrew noise, my dad extends cordless to me* Do you vahn to talk to your gran dmother?"

"Wuhl...yeah, okay....umm....lakjsdfl;asd....hi!"

"Heh-looooooow! Is this Friiiiiiitiz?!"

"Yeah."

"How are yooouuuu?!"

"I'm uh....hahahaha, I'm good, how are you?"

While my dad gets up from the stairway and walks back to the living roomforeshadowinglolz, I both, try to think of something to say to a 90-year old woman the sight of whose likeness I see in my middle sister (exact same eyes) yet otherwise I really don't have much to say to, and trip the fuck out. Because...well. Just because I guess.

"Deeed you know that you have a gran'dmother?!"
My gosh. I can hear her smile. I think she repeated the question and added "in Israel" or something.

"Uh yeah I guess...*my stepmom's name* told me about everyone in Israel, yeah."

"What?"

"Huh?"

"Ummm...hmmm."

"Uh. *Stepmom's name* told me. Umm."
Pretty sure I shouldn't say "umm shit" to my grandmother, at least not the first time I talk to her anyway, I somehow hand the phone back to my dad.

"Huh huh huh....blah blah hebrew noises Yeah, Americantza."

More Hebrew noises, still can't tell where words start and stop, hangs up the phone.

"She tought you were saying that *my Aunt's name* was the one who told you about Israel. You confused her."

"*Aunt's name*? Yeah, that would confuse I guess."

"Yeah, I told her dat you're an American and have problem communicating."

"Ah well."

I Think Tonight

while I was working off the clock to hopefully mitigate the calls I'm sure to get in the middle of the day tomorrow for being there so late that I had to work off the clock in the first place, and checking the money out of the "closing" driver (in scare quotes 'cause I got to do all the work tonight), I asked a question.

"Are you a coworker, or are you someone I have to work with?"

...

So the owners of well....well the signers of my paycheck were out most of the past few days at some conference or convention in some fancy hotel. Motivation, information bullshit, idunno. Meanwhile, 2 people at StoreA quit, the semi-important duty of preparing the weekly schedule changed hands amongst two people who basically co-fired someone else, a customer managed to con $40 out of StoreB aaaaaaaaand and lecture me about it because "if you were worth your salt as a manager..." something something and then I don't remember the rest of what she said 'cause it was hard to hear over my sighing and my neck pivoting.

I was telling the boss right above me (she doesn't sign my check but she's the one who will call about tonight) that the owners don't care about X problem she was nervous about them having just seen because "Problem X is all over, in every store. It's probably in Storen which I'm in the other half of my day."

And I'm sure even up to the CEO of the entire brand. This brand is so fucking huge, there is no way to develop any one branch.

Pfffffft. Yeah. Like I know what I'm talking about. I've never even seen a corporate representative of the brand. But at least I know that if I were any higher up within this company than I am already (meaning, just simply meticulous and dictatorial but in a good way--as it always is, right) I'd just get even more discouraged; or think no no man, I can make even these higher up parts better.

gaaaaaaaah what the fuck ever. If I really do that I imagine myself to wake up one day at 44 with three cats and a Bachelors I never used.

Course Not I'm Not Gonna...Of Course Not.

First name, Middle Name, Last name.

That's the way I want to address him. But why?

Why his full slave name, and not "Sir" as I addressed my the abba? Well for one his last name is hard to spell and yes, I do pride myself on never having spelled it wrong. Doso, I already knew that it really was my dad and not mistaken identity. Then also I guess that he's my two oldest brothers' dad, but not mine plus before I was born, so I have no relationship or tie to him that would normally obligate respect. Now that I think (for the first time about this, admittedly ), perhaps I should stick with Sir. Perhaps not as maybe-accusatory. Ain't broke, don't fix it and all that.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck. Even with controlling for my newfound-obsessiveness with the past, I think I can honestly say that I just want others like me to have the same bitter joy that I have. And that goes for my brother who would rather smoke pot and hide behind our mother's skirt of denial than face the reality of who the abba is, who he was, who he wasn't, who she was and wasn't, and who he could be.

Eddie, on the other hand, I suspect he has a similar outlook.

Before I contacted my the abba, I talked to Eddie about it. "Hey dude you know that one guy when you were maybe 5-8 years old and he beat you and your mom as a kid and left you with a little sister with a dgooo nose and not-as-white-as-your skin to remind you...is it cool if I like, talk to and associate with him. Oh and btw can you drive me to the airport once in a while when I go to the house of this guy?

Well. I'm not that slick. But

If he were bothered by it, enough to express any such that I could detect, then I wouldn't have gone through with it.

Liar. Just not openly. No unsolicited updates on the State of the Bastardy at best, and yet another huge breach of trust between me and him. And since it was by the time David had already burned his bridge, everyone else I grew up with, at worst.

But none was detected. He just said go for it. Your dad, your conscience your life, y'know. In fact, he basically gave me the same reasoning I had when faced with David's "Huh huh I googled our dad he has another family in Minnesota" escapade of a few years ago.

"If my dad wants to find me, he can. I'm right here. Since he hasn't, I just assume he doesn't, and that's his choice. Aden, I think someday I'll just run into him at random and Aden, either I'll want to punch his lights out, or just tell him how I grew up, all the shit I had to deal with."

That's almost to the letter how I felt. Whether from premonition or anxiety about unaccompanied (and generally unapproved) interstate travel to "a land unknown," I wondered about the possibility of "randomly running into" my dad in Tennessee. Of course...I imagined that he'd recognize either his features or his ex-wife's in me, be shocked, and approach me. Perhaps identify me as Joss Hislastname instead of her maiden name. How would he really know, either way? Regardless, the main thing would be that, through neither volitional nor pleading exertions of mine, the disenfranchisement of non-identity and the shame from such that, decrying as "archaic" the social construct from which it comes cannot yet fool us into shaking off, would be unilaterally repealed by one of the few true co-legislators (co-conspirators?) on earth. Perhaps it's nothing to those who have never needed to need this.

Anyway, all I know is what he said out loud was very similar to what I told myself under the same hypothesis.

But is Eddie prepared? Could he handle knowing him, to see him? To be relieved, and disappointed? If he is, how am I supposed to know that? If not, when will he be?

Will he at all? If not, what is he lacking? Why then would it appear then, that some people are good enough to know their dad, and yet others no?

Do I mean to imply that about myself, that I somehow "deserve" to know more than and compared to others; that all of my mom's progeny were born deficient and undeserving yet I the youngest, somehow suffered enough to remit her (or my?) sins, before any of the older three?

No. That's silly. How did I make my leg grow back.

No Really So

I was walking out of the library sometime last week or the week before on the way to get food, pass the belltower, when he approached.

These guys with the clipboards. I almost called them paperclips. Well I did, but then realized that that wasn't the proper referent for the .... for the thing. Anyway. I can't stand these people. I don't want to buy their shit. I don't want to "help them out with their scholarship"

because there IS NO SCHOLARSHIP. You're just a newspaper/magazine subscription salesmen. and hardly even that, as you have to pretend to be just some lil'ole gumshoe tryin to pull hisself up by his bootstraps and gosh golly it's just a little subscription you can have sent to bald kids who can then make you a card....

"Scuse me, Ma'am?"

*looking straight ahead, no emotion in voice* "No."

*can almost hear his head swivel back on his neck* "Daaaayum! Does the sun shine for you, lady?"

...

Walking back again the other way towards Greek class another one.

"Scuse me are you a student?"

"No." *still not looking at person*

"You're not a student?"

"Nope."

"you're not a student, and you got a backpack, and books wi'choo?"

*surprised that he caught on that much* "Nope, not a student."

If the sun weren't so bright in my eyes I would have turned to him and mentioned what tends to happen when you ask stupid questions. But then I also remembered that this was still Rivercide, and he's probably gonna call the store to try to get free Sprite later anyway.

Yesterday I had to go on campus to return some library books (for a change) and buy pepper spray for a girl coworker

Stupidest thing to do, really. Like she's gonna have it in her pockets at all times when she's walking around outside? Or is she gonna not do that because she's wearing tight clothes (nothing against that, if I had her figure I probably would too...well maybe not the tight jeans, that's just never comfortable) and instead keep it in her purse wherein of course any rapist/mugger/drunken assshat Rivercide native will certainly wait for her to panic and fumble around amongst her keys and makeup for her pepper spray.

And I read the label on the back before I gave it to her. Uno, it might not even be legal for her to carry it if she's not over 21--I'd be suprsied if she were 19-- and if she even uses it she might be screwed 'cause there's probably some stupid ass law that says they can't be used. Not to mention it's questionable effectiveness and ... what, is she gonna practice with it?

Still, it's better than nothing, and could potentially instill in her a sense of responsibility.

...? Responsibility for ... Idunno. Anyway, not what I came here for.

So I'm on campus to buy that, and have to pass by the belltower and there's some assface who dun gone and sealed himself off on a spot of grass with a sign about DON'T GO TO HELL FORNICATORS ADULTERERS LIARS DEMOCRATS (it wouldn't surprise me) THEIEVES FAGGOTS LIBERTARIANS (which I would expect, actually) and yelling.

Yelling!

...

Yelling!

...!!!

It was funneh. He's got his back straight, in a suit and tie, coke-snorting glasses, leaning into the crowd on the other side of the sidewalk yelling

"EEEEEYouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu....are so naughty

DOUBLE YOU TEE EFF HE SAID NAUGHTY

"so naughty in your wickedness and lustfullness you're FULL OF LUST"

I think he was actually addressing some girls who were dressed quite uh..."fashionably," particularly for it being UCR where I guess if you're not some whitewashed Azn bro-ho then you're some hairy shrew (I think personally I'm aiming for the hairy whitewashed look, but that's another...uh...TMI I think)...but yeah.

This was not the idiot last quarter with the American flag with the list of people on Jorge Bush's shit list....who was involved in this little replication of the 16th century debate between Martin Luther and Erasmus:

Assface of last quarter: BLAH BLAH BLAAAAAH JOHN WESLEY SAID

Stupid fat girl, screaming just as loud: JOHN WESLEY WHO IS DAT? WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT

Like...as if Stupidity and Arrogance had a kid, and that kid punched me on the side of my head. I didn't know who to laugh at, nor when to cry at myself.

I coulda gone to Santa Cruz.

So no, this was not the same guy. He was just leaning and trying to ... not yell I guess, but to kind of coo at us.

"ooooooooooh you're such a sinner aren't you. oooooh the fires of hell are thoooo hawt." Or something like that.

And today.

Gosh today. Let me unzip my backpack (pervert!) and get out Exhibit A:

Exhibit a is a flyer I found taped to some phone, company standing up things. I have no idea what they are, but they are next to the sidewalk. People put gum, ads for rooms available, stupid emo-skater stickers, blah blah, and this flyer. Pink 8 1/2 x 11 inch. It's a pretty color.

GASSTRIKE

@ The Mobil on the corner of Dumbass Street [hey, I know where that is] and the 91 FWY. This Sun. 3/18 12:30PM. Come join...

WE NEED YOUR SUPPORI [with the T cut off, so I'm guessing it's a copy]

and then it just gets stupid. Beyond what is already up there since

Eins: The Mobil on the corner of Dumbass and the 91 is about 12 miles away from campus. The campus itself is basically taking up the first 2 lanes of the freeway that leads the hell out of Riverside. No UCR student is gonna have to try to avoid that one.

Zwei: The flyer itself is so placed as unless they cause a crash, no driver will see it. Just some hippie ass who already is biking anyway, or me who's just annoyed.

Drei: "Come join..." us in ignoring something. So I guess the linguistics major didn't make it to the flyer-writing meeting.

Vier: I have a feeling that there's something spelt wrong, though there's nothing that I can see.

...

and then it just gets stupid.

Alphabetical gas strike (start's St. Patricks Day)
1st week--avoid any station that begins with the letter A thru M
2nd week--M-Z!

Spread the word!!!

Is it starting Saturday the 17th, or Sunday the 18th?

Why....why why why. Why alphabetical, you dumb fuck? Are there only 26 gas stations in the area, all started up and founded on the ideal that the next letter of the alphabet was their turn? And what of the people who don't know their alphabet, and can't tell whether M counts as the first week or the second? (Don't be so naive as to think that won't happen.) What if a gas station under this proletarian embargo lowers its prices? Not that it would happen, but still.

yeah so.. .universal literacy. My anti-hope.

By the time I got back onto campus there was an anti-war get up near the belltower, complete with a little wall dedicated to "Down With WalMart" complete with pictures of smiling Jorge Bush...and mariachi music. I kid you not. I don't...I don't care the mariachi music when it's ... in context. At a small restaurant where it's blared from the radio inside the kitchen, for such. Or some other place. But then, I don't like music anyway.

I just...want to walk to class in peace. Why do we need all these circuses...and don't even get me started on how dry the bread is tastin.

Uh. I am so tired. But it's warm out and I don't wanna walk my bike home (uphill...gosh I'm so lazy) until it's darker and cooler, but then my friend wants to go out to eat or Sabbath whatever after he gets off work...le sigh.

Everybody's....pissing me off. It's a nice day today.

So I wake up this morning prepared to turn in 4 pages of an assigned 8-12 page essay with the usual "ah fuckit I didn't care about this class blah blah it's never my fault that I'm such a shitty student..." and sail on downhill to campus, get coffee and sit down in the class, wondering where the stack of 8-12 page, super de duper perfect essays is.

And no. Professor writes down on the board the due date for the papers. Next Friday.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK. Okay. Keine Probleme. I can actually add some meat to this little Melian masterpiece, maybe get better than a C for the class.

Meanwhile I didn't bother to do the assignment for the other class. Gah. I'm so lazy. I'm so... I just don't...uuuuuuuuuuuuuh I hate working.

I don't like this

How is it that I was able to sign into blogger just by clicking onthe blogger link? Just simply ... I'm already in. Maybe 'cause gmail's already up? Oh well.

I go now, to turn in a shitty essay. I swear to fuck this is the last time I fuck off the whole quarter. 8 1/2 weeks of just screwing around isn't even all that fun when you don't even have a social life to begin with. Boo hoo.

Or Maybe I Should Just

Maybe it's a test. Patience. Umm. Fortitude. Or faith? There are tests of faith, aren't there? Yeah, sure there are.

I think if anything it's just a regular "don't be a petty slut for a change" type of ...not so much a test as an opportunity. To...ding ding ding...not be a petty slut for a change.

He's not overly attractive in the face, just looks like...like himself. I mean...meh? I just don't really notice him as "dayum fine."

Liar.

I look at his body...usually like, his calves, and general shape, and when...I don't know why every single guy at the store has to do this but grabs the bars over the oven and does pull-ups, it's...I have to look away. I just...information I do not need.

But despite checking him out it doesn't really occur to me that he's oh em gee so hot. He's just...just looks the way he looks.

It's annoying as fuck, is what it is. I do the Right Thing. I tell Lieb about it, how oh so depressing it is that he's on Continent B while I'm on Continent A and there's some other guy "doing Lieb things" like picking me up from work, making me eat food, tellin me about God, but he's not Lieb and if he were Lieb it would be fine and I'd be able to express my gratitude for him doing these things the way I'm used to, the way I want to, but no it's not Lieb it's some .... does it matter who he is? No, it's just Nicht-Lieb.

So I tell Lieb, and I get. A call on the bus stop. An awkward phone call on the bus after using up my phone battery to IM him about it so instead of actually experiencing the emotional...release or whatever of telling him using my voice, I'm rehashing what I just told him as quickly as I could because of the delay in the IM thingie part of the phone.

And European men are assholes, to trust him on it. He's probably just hitting on you because he doesn't see me around (and really, what would that matter anyway? Would just put the responsibility for everything back on me...and really what woman wants to be responsible for her life?).

It's not that I don't believe him, or think that I'm young enough to be naive and think he's just wrong. Just...*sigh*

But then, what did I expect? "Oh Fritz you should totally hook up with him, you'll be 23 forever! I'll always put up with your bullshit!" No. I just...wanted it to go away.

So after a couple days of acting stupid around Nickt, I IMed him what's been bugging me. I don't think he can understand me when I talk to him face to face, unless it's in answer to a question or whatever that he asked or was just talking about. It'd be like, looking up Sehnsucht cold in the dictionary. Or facere.

But online, his syntax is so .... not-conformative to English SVO, that half the time I only get the gist of half of what he's saying. So...whatever. Anyway, as best as I can gather he was truthful that yes he would be interested but knows about Lieb so isn't going to do anything .... he said something about his character and then moved English words around like so many pieces of furniture tossed around in search of missing housekeys that I had no ... no second intentions, he knows I have a boyfriend and ... and blah blah blah. I believe him. I don't have to, but I do.

And now? Now it's like before. I don't really talk much to him so much as he tries to talk to me in English--I was a shitty conversation partner to that Korean girl when I was trying to get college credit for it two years ago, too--which I guess is okay...forces him to go back in his memory for words and phrases he's picked up and use them.

I'm comfortable around him. Not sure in what regard, but...idunno.

With Lieb. It's kinda the same, but better. I told him about this, so I'm not keeping anything from him. It's not like I'm asking guys out and then not telling him about it until about a week after I get stood up. And then not mentioning it or the implications of it ever again.

Oooooh buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurn. Of who...I don't wanna answer that.

Double you tee eff.

All your blogger are belong to the...shit I don't remember how that line goes. Damn, I wish I remembered it, references to video games I've never played are the only way I can make my point anymore.

I just now saw the comments posted in re the last post at the blog that's still linked around places, attention to which was brought ... idunno, couple weeks, a month, ago. I went back there 'cause I thought I had a link to a Latin dictionary up there. Which I don't...what do I have a German one for in that case, anyway?

My little footies are more important than keeping up a blog I hadn't touched in about five months or so, actually. Aggravating stress fractures (I know, that is a real violin playing in the background, the digs are pitiful, but the digs are classy) does not sound like a beneficial trade off for....comments.

Oh

And Keith Olberman. Fuck that, too. Oh ooooh, every Libertarian on Myspace has Olbermann's Youtubed 10 minute commentaries playing on their profile.

Okay, the renewal of the Patriot Act...I could understand the bitching. Because really...we totally need the freedom to bitch about the government that won't stomp the faces that need to get stomped. I get it. Nationalism pretty much failed in America unless you're...unless....thinking....thinking..............

well the ones who are nationalist, sure as hell aren't in the way that the pre-colonial Europe was. Or they are. I haven't read much Amerikan history lately.

So yeah, his Patriot Act whine was pretty neat. But geez, I've seen high school girls whose daddy's don' love 'em (or do, whatever) with more manly composure than this.


I bet once the camera breaks away to commerical, his eyes sparkle and he thinks he really reaaaaallly got his point across to them.

And he probably did. I'd develop this, or try some coherence, but all that crap in the stores ain't gonna buy itself.

daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn. I'm hungry.

I am also in need of rolling my eyes at my youngest sister. But in an "no, it's okay" kind of way. If the worst thing in your life is that oh em gee your mom talks to friends of yours at school while she sees them at the gym...what the hell.

I so don't want any freakin' kids of my own. Fuck that.

aljdflasjdfl;asd..."fuck that." It's literary genius day at Matildah's.