Enjablog

How weird is this…? The Supreme Court on LJ… -j.

“I just figured since you were going to marry the internet you would know where to look.” -roy

CSPAN Radio — “Everyone who makes less than $100k should have to go join the military. If you’re 23 or 24 and working at some supermarket for minimum wage, you should be going over there to protect the people with money.” -Some dude from Chatanooga, TN who owns his own carpet cleaning business. Hm… who do you think he would have left to work for him? Just old people who are poor?

Mix 107.3 this morning: Do you have an ex-box? You know… a box where you keep stuff from your ex-significant other(s). Does your SO know about it or would you tell your SO? What do you keep in it and why?

Free ice cream:
Ben & Jerry’s today
Baskin-Robbins tomorrow

Cookie Monster’s Bulimia Nervosa

Yes, cookies *are* good. But too much of anything
is never a good thing. Instead of bingeing and
purging, try to regulate your eating habits.
Maybe instead of having two dozen cookies, you
could have two. Also, you should slow down
your eating. Chew each bite several times
before swallowing. Eating more slowly makes it
easier to tell when you are full. And don’t
worry about body image–people love you just
the way you are, googly eyes and all.

Which Sesame Street Muppet’s Dark Secret Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

A more detailed entry on this weekend, though it’s not any more interesting than the other one. So whatever. Did the happy hour thing on Friday. Somehow the group grew to about 15 people and by the end of the night everyone was wearing Krispy Kreme hats. It was great. Played some exceptionally bad pool, kicked some furniture, then skipped out.

Saturday was museum day. They had a girl scout thing going on, so the place was a madhouse until about 3 o’clock. Not to mention the part where they switched which of their internal organizations was in charge of the info desk, and they never contacted me even though I emailed 4 times and called 4 times trying to find out who was going to be in charge and what I needed to do to transition over and stay at that museum. In any case, now that I’ve gone through the rigorous (read: painful) 6 weeks of training for the other group, I just need to go through customer service training before I can officially work again. It’s a friggin’ volunteer position. Let me do my thing and you can do yours. Sheesh. It should not be this difficult to donate my time. I’m thinking about going to the aquarium to volunteer instead now. This is getting to be not worth the hassle. I could go scuba diving every week and swim with the fishies. Seems slightly better than being nice to people. Anyway, hung out with ITP after that. Watched some movies, went to Chipotle, ate cookies. It was a good night.

Sunday, braved DC with ITP to attend the pro-choice march. Played the part of lemming, met up with my mom, and wandered around. It was an interesting experience. The crowd was filled with people wearing shirts declaring “This Is What a Feminist Looks Like,” “The only Bush I trust is my own,” and other various slogans and phrases. There were chants each time we passed pro-lifers protesting the march, “Pro-Life, that’s a lie! You don’t care if women die!” And I think I’ve seen this on bumper stickers before or something, but there were a bunch of people carrying signs saying, “If you can’t trust me with a choice, how can you trust me with a child?” That, going up against the oversized signs set up by the pro-lifers declaring, “God hates you” and the enlarged picture of an aborted baby. Anyway, there were the police barricades separating the two sides. It was a pretty peaceful gathering, considering the number of people and the amount of emotion on both sides. After that, we had some time to kill before heading over to the Improv, so we hung out in front of the Brickskeller until they opened. Went in, ordered, had the waiter come back to tell us that the drinks we ordered were not available. Oh yeah, and also the food we ordered wasn’t available either. You lose. Try again. After that, off to the Improv to see Margaret Cho. The first few minutes were talking about the march, so that was kinda cool. Then she did her thing. She’s funny, but she sure is one weird chick. Oh and also on the stalker front… SPJ spotted a person in attendance who works at a certain bar that this group frequents on occasion. Friday may have been one of those occasions… But anyway. Headed home, traded stories with the roomie, ate some cookies, and time for bed.

Monday. Still trying to schedule my life. It doesn’t help much that I haven’t had a typical week since probably around last fall. But I will still try to compartmentalize my life and see how that works out for me. That’s about it for now. Might even get around to reading tonight. I will finish a book before the end of May. Yeah, reasonable goals. That’s it… :) -J.

Pink duct tape anyone?

friday - happy hour at carpool with the people and stuff
saturday - museum shenanigans. beaurocratic nonsense. bulletproof monk (bad). chipotle. october sky(good!!).
sunday - march for women’s lives, brickskeller, margaret cho.

tired… going to sleep so i won’t be cranky at work tomorrow. might actually write something about what i did this weekend when i have time. hah. when i have time… :) -j.

I won the google game!
1. Happy earth day
2. Check out google
3. Email me

so, I have given up my blogging boycott to get a new e-mail addy…I know…I’m a sell-out…unprincipled money grabbing geek…nothing new in my world, but maybe one day something REALLY REALLY REALLY exciting could happen to me and I will have a voice…oh, I do have my website which I’ve been redesigning that can be my voice, but I have nothing to say…and I would have to leave the house or my office to have something REALLY REALLY REALLY exciting happen, right? alright…I’ll check in once in a while to make sure you all are playing nice…

The neighbor lady has a real problem and I was hoping that maybe I could get some advice: you see,over the past thirty years,she had three sons that she named Gregory and they all passed away — one in 1970,one in 1983,and one in 1994. Now,during each of their lives,she lived in three different states and what she wants to have is all of their remains exhumed and re-buried in Pennsylvania…but not only in the same plot but ALL THREE in the same coffin! I told her that it was a bad idea and she shouldn’t even consider doing that because you should never put all your Gregs in one casket…

Also, I don’t know this person, but angeldesignpro had this icon doober up and it made me laugh:

Consider: Attending the March for Women’s Lives, projected to be the largest political gathering in a generation. April 25th, Washington DC.

If you can go: http://www.clickbackamerica.org/petition1.php?id=21

If you can’t: http://www.clickbackamerica.org/petition1.php?id=22

From the why we march page:

I marched for choice on the Mall in Washington, DC in the spring of 1992 while visibly pregnant. The anti-choice people on the sidelines were really appalled when they saw me. They screamed at me, shouting things like “How can you be pro-abortion when you are pregnant?” and “How can you be pro-abortion when you wouldn’t have one?”

I responded that I was not “pro-abortion” and no one else really was either. We were pro-CHOICE, and THAT was why I was marching. I was having a baby by choice, not because I was forced to, and not because my only other option was a butcher knife or a coat hanger on a dirty table with my life in the hands of some hack.

I will march again, now 12 years later, this time with the daughter that I was carrying then marching with me. I want her to have choices too. FOREVER.

Gail Gordon,
VA
—————————
I march because my only choice was an abortion done on a kitchen table in a dirty house, with a single light bulb that glared in my eyes as I looked at the paint peeling off of a dingy, yellowed ceiling.
I march because I did not know the name of the man who drove me to this location or returned me to my neighborhood, or the name of the woman who held a pill to my mouth “so I wouldn’t feel anything”.
I march because the man, whose transparent attempt at disguise failed to prevent me from realizing he was the man who owned a warehouse in my neighborhood.
I march because the memory of the night I cried from pain, fear and loneliness while my insides burned as if on fire as I lay on that table is always only, ever,a heartbeat away.
I march because I lived after being dropped off 3 long blocks from my apartment building, and could feel the blood running down my legs as I trudged home on a dark, hot, summer night.
I march because when I was taken to the emergency room a compassionate physician knew what questions not to ask.
I march because I lived.
I march because, sadly, there is no other choice but to march.

Noreen B , RN
MD

SPJ sent me today’s LOTD: friend-crush, which made me look up the other article that I saw a while back, but I can’t remember where/when/from whom. Sounds vaguely like something someone may have forwarded to me around val-day, but I could be wrong. Anyway:

What she doesn’t know will kill you
by Matt Brochu
November 21, 2003

You met her a few months ago, and somehow she managed to seep into your subconscious like that ‘Suga how you get so fly’ song. Just like you have no clue who the hell sings it, you don’t know why she’s there. But she is, whether you like it or not. You know her cell phone, her room phone. You can dial her Aunt Doreen’s house in West Springfield (where she goes to do her laundry every two weeks) faster than you can peck-out 911. But she doesn’t know.

Her screenname, that generic one with her first name followed by three to five random numbers or UMass, has its own category at the top of your buddy list. Not only do you know what a ‘Buddy Alert’ is, you’ve rigged your computer to play ‘Fat Guy in a Little Coat’ from ‘Tommy Boy’ every time her screen name changes from gray to black. Then her away message comes down, and you have a decision to make. To IM or not to IM? These are the ridiculous games that you play on a daily basis. But she doesn’t know.

She’s it. All right, so maybe not ‘it’ it. Not necessarily Ms. Right, but closer to Ms. Right-up-there-with-Anna-Kournikova-and-Lizzie-McGuire-on-your-list-of-people-you’d-give-anything-to-be-stranded-with-on-a-broken-down-elevator. But it’s about more than that. When is it ever about more than that? Never. Not like frilly white dress, overpriced catering, embarrassing drunk in-laws more, but closer to UMass sweatpants, two D.P. Dough Roni Zonies, a futon and a movie you have no interest in seeing more. But she doesn’t know.

She’s gorgeous, but gorgeous is an understatement. More like you’re startled every time you see her because you notice something new in a “Where’s Waldo” sort of way. More like you can’t stop writing third grade run-on sentences because you can’t remotely begin to describe something … someone … so inherently amazing. But you’re a writer. You can describe anything. That’s what you do: pictures to words, events to words, words to even better words. But nothing seems right. More like you’re afraid that if you stare at her for too long, you’ll prove your parents right: that yes, your face will stick that way. But you wouldn’t mind.

You wouldn’t mind that the questioning, “Hello?” on the other end makes you want to smile and throw up at the same time. You wouldn’t mind worrying about what to get her for her birthday and spending $300 when you only have $17.50 and a Triple-A card to your name. You wouldn’t mind that she left your TV on and the blaring infomercials wake you up at 4 a.m. … because it gives you a chance to watch her sleep. You don’t mind that you’ve slipped up twice when you were hammered and hinted at how you feel, but she was too drunk to remember. So she doesn’t know.

Sure, she’s pretty, but it’s about more than that. You two connect. Anything you throw at her, she can throw right back. You figured out what’s going on in that predictable head of hers in under five minutes, but something tells you her heart would take about five years.

You remember everything she’s ever said to you, and when that freaks her out you blame it on your photographic memory (which is a lie, you have a 2.7 GPA). You can’t remember your teaching assistant’s name, and you can’t remember that your Puffton rent check was due four days ago, yet you remember the middle name of the kid who tripped her in fifth grade and gave her that cute little scar on her shoulder. Maybe it’s because you actually listen when she talks. When do you actually listen? Never. But she doesn’t know.

But she has a boyfriend. The kid is a tool, and you are not. He has no redeeming qualities, and you have about 38, even when you’re hung over. You could kick his butt, and you’ve never been in a fight in your life. He treats her like crap, and you would treat her like the princess she believed herself to be on Halloween in 1988.

But she loves him. He wouldn’t know what he had even if she slapped him across the face and dumped him, but somehow she still loves him. And somehow she still doesn’t know.

Then, out of nowhere, she slaps him across the face and dumps him. She comes to you. You’ve been there before, so you seem like the smartest guy on earth. She cries, but your corny half-joke, half-compliment somehow gets a smile out of her that almost makes you feel ashamed that you’re the only one around who gets to witness it. It looks like you might make her realize that all guys don’t deserve to have rocks thrown at them.

But nothing changes. She doesn’t know. You get that library elevator feeling in your stomach that she’ll never know. You get that feeling that you’ll be forced to write a cheesy Collegian column about her that makes “Sleepless in Seattle” look like “Girls Gone Wild.”

You go to sleep. You wake up. She doesn’t know. You’re not in love. You’re not obsessed. You blame it on the fact that you just need to get some, but still, it’s about more than that. It would just be nice if once in your life, things worked out the way you wanted them to.

So ___________, it’s about time you know*.

Now cut this out, fill in her name, and give it to her, coward. Just let me know how it works out.

Matt Brochu is a Collegian columnist.

And I’m back alive and well. Went to Boston this weekend with ITP. Wandered around Harvard Square, bought a pair of shiny new shoes (well, less shiny, more maroon with orange shoelaces… but you get the gist.), had some tasty slave-free chocolate… Got to meet a bunch of ITP’s friends which was really fun. They had a bbq thing and the weather cooperated quite nicely. Went out with a few people after that to play pool. All the bars are *smoke free*. Oh whoa. Just did a search for smokefree places around here and google rules. Smokefree restaurants in the DC area and Arlington. Happy! Anyway, went back for more chocolate on Sunday and then to the aquarium. We got to see the sea lion, penguins, jelly fish, sea turtles, and a bunch of other stuff. (Including the feeder dude who got bit by a penguin while talking about how they’re territorial. Ok, well I didn’t actually see it happen. Like I didn’t see the dude getting hit in the crotch with a cue ball. But I was there. If I didn’t spend 90% of my time in the mysterious land that is the inside of my head, I might have seen these things happen.) Anyway, lots of fun. Back, but still not all caught up on my sleep yet. Planning out my next 4 weekends. Been trying to plan a lazy weekend for almost two months now, but I think I’m just going to settle for a lazy day this Friday. :) -J.

Gah… adventures… go today to chipotle either to redeem your free burrito or to buy a burrito and redeem it this weekend. Different chipotles are following different rules. very confusing. go. GO! GO now!! -j.

Ok… so this is a slightly non-mainstream question… but does anyone know anything about alligators and ferrets? More specifically, whether they cohabitate well? Sources/references a must. 10 points to whoever gives me something useful. Much appreciated. Uhm… Let’s just say curiousity and leave it at that, hm? Yeah. That. :) -J.