prix fix

Why did I spend more money on my cup of coffee than the super yum bran muffin I ate this morning? Doesn't it seem a little wrong to spend more on something that offers little to no nutritional value, is probably bad for your overall health, and just makes you feel gacked out?

townhall

Yesterday, I went to a memorial and community meeting regarding the shootings at the blue house. It was really amazing to see all of the community support. I find it interesting how tragedy binds a community together moreso than anything else. The community meeting was surprisingly supportive as well. I had anticipated a lot of victim-blaming and pointing fingers at the electronic music scene, the presumption of drug abuse, blah blah blah...but it wasn't at all like that. I truly feel that it was because the mayor and community leaders stood up in the beginning and stated repeatedly that they separated the "scene" from the actions of one individual. Had they not made such a bold statement from the onset, the meeting probably would have had a completely different tone. Particularly considering the discussions I had overheard before the meeting started from a group of women whose compassion clearly didn't extend beyond their white picket fences and/or to anybody who doesn't fit into their idealized notion of acceptably normal. Their asshattery just made me feel jaded. But luckily they were the minority and it made me really glad I live in a progressive city like Seattle where acting police chiefs and community leaders take stands on gun control (stands that I support clearly) and supporting non-mainstream communities.

********

Yesterday, seven people were killed in a shooting spree at a party in Seattle. I heard about it fairly early when my sister called me to see if I had been to any parties the night before. I hadn't, but what's scary is that I've been to a party at that particular house before. I have spent a little time with some of the people who live there. And my fella, sadly knew at least one of the people killed and some of his very good friends were very close with him. Not surprisingly, the news immediately latched on the the fact that it was "ravers" at the party and are trying to associate the tragedy with the party culture. Which is stupid. That would be like blaming people for wanting a hamburger when some mentally unbalanced person decides to shoot up a restaurant. It's just an incredibly sad situation and the fact that it's affecting people I care about...sometimes the world just feels irreversibly fucked.

out of sight, out of mind

Why do we let our insecurities and irrational mental baggage get in the way of enjoying the moment? While I know that two people can never have the same level of interest in one another at the same time, I still do the freak out when I feel like I'm the one with the scales of interest in the other hanging heavily in my corner. And this stupid battle between my rational, thinking self and my irrational, feeling self is flaming the fires of my anxiety. Not that any of this is unique or new. I've been around this dancefloor before; but it has been quite a while and I am definitely feeling like I've got two left feet and no sense of rhythm. What particularly sucks though is when I realize that I am doing things to act out that nobody could pick up on because they are old habits from the past that managed to stow themselves away like a hobo riding the rails of my old hangups. Ahhh well, I just have to keep reminding myself that this is the price for the moments I'm enjoying.

whoah

This is funny for so many reasons... Your True Love Is a Capricorn Why you'll love a Capricorn: Hard working and driven, a Capricorn will work overtime to win your heart. Be prepared to get wined and dined, even once you're convince that your Capricorn is the one! Why a Capricorn will love you: You don't rush things. You know it will take a while for a Capricorn to trust you, and you can wait. Social and outgoing, you can introduce normally shy Capricorn to a great circle of friends. What Sign Is Your True Love?

v for veritable brilliance

I don't often gush about movies but V for Vendetta is probably one of the best movies I have seen in a long time. Not only was it overtly political and critical of government and media, morality, intolerance...but it was beautifully shot and wonderfully acted (well except for Natalie Portman's often craptastic accent). Stephen Rea was brilliant and whoever played V, stupifyingly awesomely amazing. My favorite part was the five minute alliteration in the beginning of the film...ahhh, so incredible. Great great movie. I highly highly recommend.

time and a place

When I went to the ER on Tuesday to have my strep confirmed (since I don't have a regular doctor), a girl came in with a bunch of her friends and the police. It became pretty clear pretty quickly what had happened to her. But the strangest thing was how it was all handled. They didn't take her back to a private room right away, she sat out there for quite a while. And the police officers were questioning her friends right in the waiting room of the ER, right in front of myself and my friend. And they were also questioning her friends right in front of her. I really can't think of anything more inappropriate and unprofessional. I tried really hard not to be an ear hustler, I made a serious effort not to get sucked in to watching the whole thing play out like some episode of Law & Order SVU, but it was really difficult when they were standing not more than fifteen feet away from me and not really trying very hard to be discreet. I can't imagine what it would have been like if there were more people there and they weren't trying not to notice what was going on. It was appalling how insensitively it was handled and whenever stuff like that happens, it makes me really wonder why people are surprised that most women don't report rapes.

mono-phile

I don't have mono...instead I have a raging case of strep-throat. And a few more days off of work.

s.o.s.

I promise, I'm still alive. But barely. A mono exposure might have finally come to fruition. But the good news is, I am no longer just "hanging out" with my new fella...we have moved up in the ladder of ambiguous relationship status and are now "going out." And he met my sister. So, there's that too.

annual gush

So exactly one year and several hours ago, I moved back to Washington. It's been an amazing year actually. I've gone through some of the most profound changes of my youngish life. Some I had no control over like sliding head first (with no head protection) into my thirties. Some changes were consciously implemented like finally allowing myself to deal with some fairly difficult things that I had stuffed into a catachasm of perpetual avoidance. I started to truly live on my own for the first time, I finally accepted full responsibility for the life I'm making for myself. In the process, I've realized that I have the capacity to love myself as a whole, which made loving other people better and more rewarding. And I'm lucky to have so many wonderful people in my life to love, my family, my great friends, my gentleman friend... Despite my fickleness, flair for the dramatic, and often unexpressed appreciation, I'm in a very good stage in my life and coming back to Seattle was one of the best decisions I've made.

update

Though I haven't REALLY figured anything out for sure...it appears that one of the bitter middle-aged porcine human stains I work with was responsible for the whole changing of the myspace. I asked one of my friends to do a little detective work to find out who it was. Although I have a strong suspicion I know who did it. And if it turns out to be her...well then I probably won't do anything but think about mean things to do to her in retribution.

guttural

Body: Type your FIRST REACTION when you hear these 35 words:

1. I need: sleep
2. Sex: from what I remember, is pretty fun
3. Relationships: make my brain hurt
4. Your Last Ex: just bought a house
5. Power: corrupts
6. Marijuana: is a sign that god is a woman
7. Crack: should be kept in your pants and not your pipe
8. Food: should be cooked
9. This President: should have OD'ed in the 80s
10. War: for oil and corporate cronyism is FUCKED!
11. Cars: shouldn't be bigger than a boat
12. Gas Prices: are much cheaper outside of the city
13. Halloween: is the best holiday EVER!
14. Politics: is where evil congregates
15. Religion: is used to justify intolerance
16. MySpace: got me in trouble at work
17. Worst Fear: rejection
18. Marriage: only comes as a pass/fail option
19. Fashion: makes me happy, except for some 80s revival shit.
20. Brunettes: are better
21. Redheads: get freckly
22: Work: is giving me an ulcer
23: Pass the time: pass the dutchie
24: Football: is boring
25:One night Stands: should be reserved for being out of town
26: Pet Peeve: speling erorrs
27: Pixie Stix: are a gateway drug
28: Vanilla Ice: don't hate. You know you liked him.
29: Porta Potties: stink like poo.
30: High school: is a distant, suppressed memory
31: Pajamas: are super comfy
32. Wood: better with Viagra
33. Surfers: have nice tans
34. Pictures: better in black and white
35. First Love: is a lot like hindsight.

message in a bottle

I am seriously starting to hate my job. Not only are the supervisors seriously underlaid micromanagers with poor social skills...but the corporate bullshit is almost more than I can stand. I totally got busted using the internet at work last night. And I'm not sure how. I guess they have all of the internet connections monitored or something because somehow they broke into my myspace account and changed some of the settings. Which is fucking bullshit. They totally hacked my account. I can't even imagine what would have happened if I had been checking my bank account...would they have been able to access that as well? Stupid corporate dicks. This combined with the fact that studying for my registry exam is not going very well, plus the fact that I am starting to really dislike at least forty percent of the people I work with (though I'm still deciding if assholes are attracted to lab work or the lab turns people in assholes)...I think these are signs that I should start looking for a new line of work.

futuristic

Last night at work, I got a glimpse of my future and it was not good. It apparently has really bad hair and an annoying laugh and the tired look of resignation.

gesture life

*blush**giggle*...I got a two-fer the other day, a surprise and irises, flowers that are second in my heart only to the orchid. *le sigh*

so bad

I love a good cheese-fest, I really do. Some of my favorite movies are awesomely bad, like Showgirls. But last night I watched the most craptastic movie, Ultraviolet. Oh man, it was BAD. The shameful thing was that it had potential to be way cooler. Before watching the movie, we talked with this guy who was seeing the movie for the second time and he said that if we treated the movie like a fashion glossy then it would be a good. But that was a lie. The fx were bad too. There was even a fight scene that reminded me of Flashdance, in that the stunt double was clearly somebody else. But the one redeeming thing about the movie was that they had a great wardrobe with cool accessories, sci-fi movies that obviously reference Christianity always seem to have kick-ass wardrobes.

re-rearing

Jealousy...that strange and fickle emotion has been playing its little groundhog game again, popping up its head and checking for a shadow, deciding whether or not to stick around and cause trouble. I loathe when I feel myself going down a predictable emotional path, especially when that path inevitably ends up being chalked up to to some emotional predisposition associated with my reproductive organs. In other words, I am being such a fucking girl right now. And that's just plain annoying.

broken record

So I've had a singular thought running through my head for the last twenty-four hours. Is it better to cut yourself off at the knees and be a little disappointed now or try and follow through on something and run the risk of being hurt later? Thoughts?

thai'd up

OH THE HUMANITY! After-work drinks and food cooked to a very high temperatue Thai pu-pu platters available at a super low late night happy hour prices make for a very uncomfortable morning after. My head hurts, my tongue is seriously burned badly enough to have blisters and a white coating (though that could be from the drinking...), and I TOTALLY drunk dialed last night. I haven't done that in a long while actually, not since I first moved back out here and reintroduced myself to the "party scene." But I drunk dialed, and I'm this close to being mortified...but it's making my headache worse. Maybe when I wake up again.

between insomnia and insanity

It's four am and I am completely awake. I've spent at least the last two hours tossing and turning, hoping that the sleep fairy will at least mistakenly drop by with a little fairy dust (and seriously, I'm just hoping for fairy dust...or at least a flippin' Ambien). But I hope in vain because I'm awake, wide awake, and mostly because I had a nightmare. It was fit for a Hideo Nakata movie, or at least a cheap American rip-off. Although, embarassingly enough, myspace totally made an appearance in the nightmare, I guess my addiction is complete...damn TOM!!!. Besides that, in my very own nightmare, where I get to subconsiously write the script, I was a total horror movie bimbo...too dumb to figure out the simplest things like "don't open the door, don't go upstairs, don't go running in the woods without your bra and in high heels!" Except in this dream it was more like, "close the internet browser you dumb whore!" And also in my dream, Microsoft Windows sucked just as much ass as it does in reality because it wouldn't work properly on my dreamscape computer either.

I am convinced that parking garages were developed to bring out latent stupidity in people.

one tequila, two tequila

HAPPY CINCO DE MAYO!!! IE-Yet another appropriated holiday turned into yet another reason for people to get shitty drunk. You Are a Lemon Margarita Sour, tangy, and overpowering, you tend to give people a jolt back into reality. While you don't sugar coat things, you're honest - which is actually quite refreshing. What Flavor Margarita Are You?

tax man

Being sick is often a blessing in disguise. I was exposed to various contagions throughout the week, Seattle is having the worst funky flu season this year. I could feel my body trying really hard to not get sick, but by Friday I was definitely noticing the whole "feeling like poo" thing peaking. So I cancelled all of my weekend plans, including a visit from some Canucks who I have been missing like crazy. And I finally got a decent amount of rest, in the last two days I managed to get at least twenty hours of sleep. And I got to take a bath, a real bath with rose scented bubbles. And I somehow rested enough to develop the motivation to do my taxes and take care of other financial headaches I'd been avoiding...and I cleaned my apartment, to include DUSTING! So thanks to the disease carriers in my life, unwittingly they helped me out. And if I do develop mono, well losing those last fifteen pounds will be a whole lot easier.

throwing the baby out with the bath water

We all have really strange patterns of behavior, particularly when it comes to how we interact with other people. And some patterns are probably positive and well-intentioned. But let's face it, we completely focus on the shitty patterns...the things we do to scare a person away or freak them out a little bit. And even though I'm trying very hard NOT to indulge myself in my internal script on how to make myself crazier than usual because now I can involve somebody else in my mania...it just happens so quickly and easily, like putting on a super-comfy pair of sweats with the threadbare knees and jagged hems. I blame my brain, overly analytical and far too cerebral. I can never let those stupid sleeping dogs lie; I just have to poke poke poke at them until they wake up. So when you introduce somebody else with the same penchant for poking and analyzing every situation to death...well, it's doesn't seem like such a good thing. Except that it really is a good thing, which makes me really REALLY not want to not overthink it. But dammit those sweats sure feel good.