for a beautiful person

and i felt the echo in the specks of your eyes
the last traces of her still chilling in your own private spaces

into an annotated tableau

you
thinner than you would like to remember
chipped around the edges
but still
mama's favorite warrior
sayin' to no one in particular
(but everyone in particular)

'you got me so sick with your sadness
i tell ya
it must've been raining the day you were born'

(but not really meaning it this time)

the warm air curling around your words
each soft curve upon hard angle
(like a woman's defiant body when she's angry)
swallowed by a dark hypnotic empty
until i couldn't remember if they existed at all

and a distant train whistle
notes trailing behind a timid fingernail
drawn through a widening leadened wake
signaled another cross-country freight
rumbling
deeper into the night.

A Long Overdue Basketball Post

Okay, so I haven't said anything about USA Basketball because I've been busy in my Happy Place, rocking myself in the corner of my closet and banging my head against the wall. It all comes down to this--we're Americans and in America, we live and die by the dollar sign. Yes, we could have probably put together a more functional team. Maybe even pulled some unknowns who haven't/can't make it in the NBA but have excelled in European basketball. But how many jerseys would have have sold with NBA scrub names? How many people would have tuned into the games if we had sent the likes of Brian Cardinal, Michael Redd and Scoonie Penn? Winning the gold and upholding a tradition is not as important as showboating but then again, aren't we a country built upon showboating? Anyway, I don't really care enough to rant about it. In the end, there is only one person who should shoulder the blame: George W. Bush. Because he's an idiot and the whole world is rooting for us to fail in every aspect now. In better news, I love team Argentina. Manu. I love that guy. He's adorable.

The Dampier Trade

Oh hell yeah! Damp never really had his heart in Golden State. He was awesome last season, and that worked out for us as far as trade value. I was grumpy for a whole week when I thought he was going to NY for Othella Harrington and Nazr. That was bullshit. But now...Najera is a banger whose style will totally complement Jersey Surfer Boy with an Irish Temper, Troy Murphy. Laettner will be dealt for his contract. And we got draft picks. DRAFT PICKS! Which the Warriors will blow, but hell, it theoretically ensures the future of a young team.

I dreamed a whole basketball conversation last night. I was talking to someone and I asked him, which team do you think will have the biggest turn-around next season? He said Golden State. I said Utah. Kirilenko, Boozer, Mehmet and Carlos Arroyo?? That'll be a fun team. In the dream, I also thought that all this talk from the Warriors about re-signing Jason because he's the cornerstone of the organization was fluff to build up his trade value. JR is a crowd-pleaser who is limited in his defense, and a very streaky offensive player with a questionable outside shot. Half the league is made up of serviceable 2-guard scorers. They're easy to find (and draft). They need to trade JR for someone solid with the intangibles..

People I'd rather have than JR (logic not abided):

Jason Terry (at least he's more consistent and can shoot the 3ball)
Pau Gasol
Bobby Jackson
Tayshuan Prince
Z Ilgauskas
Corey Maggette

WHY CAN'T WE HAVE GINOBILI?????

I love him.If we had him, I would quit my job and spend home games sitting behind the Warriors bench and playing with his hair.

I had another dream a few nights ago where I won Fantasy Basketball and got a voucher for a free Volkswagon. I went to the dealership to see if I could get a Touareg, and then trade that and my car in for an Infiniti FX hybrid. Which doesn't exist. But it did in my dream.

In other basketball news, I'll be flying up to the Bay Area in November to watch the 2nd and 3rd Warriors home games. Utah and the Clippers. Good times.

Queer Eye for the Straight Girl

Brian is rabid about getting me on this show. His evidence:

"We have a Teletubby sitting in a baby rocking chair that she pulled out of the garbage bin and a TURTLE in the dining room, and an elliptical machine with a sequined cowboy hat hanging on it in the bedroom."

We have to tell them about a big event that's coming up so Brian offered:

"You had that big thing* where you 'pretended' you were coming out. We should just say you're coming out. Colin would be happy to email them and tell them that you're a lesbian, with the fleece vest to prove it."

[*our friend Andrea surprised us with a visit from New York, so I told everyone I had a very serious announcement to make, and they had to be at my house at a certain time, in order for her to walk in and surprise them. Colin had bet money that I was coming out because, "lesbians love drama."]

Brian's requests of the show:

"Bring equine tranquilizers or somethin' cuz this bitch ain't gonna let you throw out her stuff without a fight. And can you figure out a way to keep her pants up? Get her butt implants or SOMETHING."

On one hand, I would love the makeover they do to your place. I've been saving up money to redo the lighting design in my condo (Brian: "the lighting is SURGICAL"). On the other hand, I don't want to be the butt of a reality tv joke. And I don't want them going through my underwear drawer, and other, more private drawers.

But on the other hand, free stuff.

But on the other hand, they throw out my random, eccentric stuff.

But on the other hand, free stuff.

How spoiled are we when our biggest quandary in life is whether or not to apply for a reality show?

Fucking Americans.

The Idiots at Princeton Review

My cousin brought some vocab flash cards to my grandma's bday party yesterday, so I was flipping through them. I got to the word "Condecending." I asked her, Did you type these out yourself? She said, No. They're from Princeton Review.

Maybe they should learn how to spell before they try to teach kids how to master the SAT.

Anyone Want to Send Me Your Handwriting?

I love looking at people's handwriting. It's an artistic and truthful form of personal expression--artistic because it comes from the subconscious, and truthful because it inherently unveils people. I'm especially intrigued by handwriting at the ends of the spectrum, from the completely indecipherable to the inhumanly symmetric. I notice that what muscles a person subconsciously chooses to use can also affect the script--normally, I use my fingers more than my wrist to guide the pen tip, creating tight, angular script, but when I'm writing more creative things, I notice I use my wrist more, creating softer, sweeping characters (though overall, my handwriting is aesthetically atrocious).

I collect signed old yearbooks from around the country because they contain fascinating collections of different types of handwriting. But I think I'm going to put out a call for handwriting samples for artistic purposes. I don't know what I'll do with them. But I would like to see a wide range of handwriting meshed together as an analogy to life, showing the wide range of people and personalities and expressions co-existing on a single plane.

Have a Great Weekend Everyone!!!

I'm off to the Bay Area with my brother for our grandmother's birthday party this Sunday. I got her a necklace designed by a famous Chinese glass artist, and Michael got her a can of hairspray (Me: You got her HAIRSPRAY?!? Michael: JULIA. She will LIKE it because she will know that it comes from Michael's heart.)

Peace. Respect. And don't set the hamsters on fire.

Personality Typology

Much is usually made of the Myers-Briggs method of personality typology
(to find out your personality type, take the test at http://similarminds.com/myers-briggs-jung.html)

I'm an INFP , in case you're wondering. Which makes me...a total pussy.

But in my life role as an observer, I've noticed other correlations between certain things and personality types, so I'd like to present the 3AM Wanderer's Worthless Method of Personality Typology Test.

1. Cats or Dogs?
2. Starbucks or Coffee Bean?
3. Mac or PC?
4. Forest or Ocean?
5. Sun or Rain?
6. Morning or Night?
7. Summer Winter Spring or Fall?
8. Waking or Sleep?

If you're a CSPCneitherSMwhateverW...you're an anal-retentive prick and most people hate you.
If you're a DCBMbothRNwhateverS...you're a pro-marijuana hippie living with a nudist tree colony.

Everything in between...I don't know. Make up your own shit.

I'm DCBPCFRNFS. Though I like cats and dogs and forests and oceans equally.

8/26 Recap

I had an hour and a half to kill after work before my acupuncture appointment so I let my bro watch the South Park movie while I read. About 20 minutes in, I had to turn it off when Brian came home and my brother goodnaturedly said to him, "Suck. My. Dick."

I am wasting my life at this job. I don't mind what I do when I have stuff to do, but the problem is that I'm either going at 110 mph or .002. Without projects, I can finish a week's worth of bullcrap admin work in a matter of hours. And then I just sit there. There doesn't even seem to be enough internet to surf anymore. I'd rather work part-time so at least I don't feel like I waste so much of my precious life trying not to nod off, but they are insistent on having me there full-time. Just in case. And I'm the only one they're strict with about coming in on time and leaving on time. Even though everyone else comes in late and leaves early. I like this company and I like the people but if I don't get my ass going and get writing and get over this thing about my refusal to market myself, I'm going to go nuts under these damn fluorescent lights.

This post is from Sunday, 8/15/04; I finally finished transcribing from my notepad.

When the Universe Echoes in Your Head Does Venice Beach

Every once in a while, I allow myself some slack in my creative endeavors and get to do one of my favorite activities. I hit a crowded place on a Sunday and fill up a whole tiny notepad (like the ones detectives carry in movies) with observations, thoughts and the usual stream of conscious erraticism that spasms through my brain.

Today, I hit Venice Beach. I walked the entire stretch, scrawling in my notebook until it was filled. Here is a narrative of my afternoon, probably intolerably confusing, recorded and represented by the contents of my notepad.
***************************************

I like the warmth of black people. The assumed intimacy, for better or for worse.

there's some guy in front of the Titanic store (they sell Cowboy hats and somewhat European looking men's clothes). He's doing a male tribal dance of sauve masculinity set to drum n' bass music (aka the male stripper dance), flexing his pecs and holding "sexy" poses. I want to laugh but I'm afraid because he seems really serious about this. I'm curious how this guy can go home after hours of doing this and take himself seriously. He ends every dance by flashing a business card next to a matching large poster of an ad. I think I get it. This is the male interpretive tribal dance of advertising? Fuck, man. Is this what our civilization is coming to?

(why does everything end in, 'wanna go home and fuck,' with you?)

He saw her watching. Taking everything in.

-Where're you from?
-Minnesota, she said.
-Oh. I have a friend in Minnesota.
-I'm not actually from Minnesota.

It's a different community out her in Venice. There's a lot of soul. I like it. Here, you can be invisible. No strict rules of behavior. Total immunity to be yourself. For me, it is to observe. To absorb. To appreciate.

(Craig's List is an internet hippy community)

This blinged out black kid wearing nearly all powder blue head to foot walks by with this tall, beautiful girl in tiny daisy dukes. Three black guys pass by, going in the other direction. As they pass, neither party makes eye contact--despite being highly aware of each other, they refuse to admit the other's presence. When the kid with the girl is a few yards behind, the three guys immediately talk with bravado and in detail about the nasty things they'd do to that girl, like this was their egos' needed ritual to show disrespect towards the Alpha male and to reconfirm their masculinity.

I find indecipherable handwriting to be intriguing. It is like a code that only a select few can interpret.

I'm looking at Matthew Perry and a pretty dark-haired girl. His body, though lean, is long and gangly, like a boy's body still stuck in that awkward high school phase. What stands out about him is the obvious care he takes with his skin, but his hair is mildly thinning.

It always freaks me out what kinds of things people carry in their purses. So I go out of my way not to look.

I'm watching a band. The guy with the maracas doesn't even look human. With his long shaggy white hair and beard and floppy green hat framing a rubbery red face, he looks like a muppet.

Go out anywhere where there are people and you will see vibrant, beautiful, ALIVE people. How can this not make you absolutely fall in love with this world?

this dancing couple glows with happiness. I can't stop watching.

People from the midwest have a more narrow focus to their psychic scope, a hardness to them. They are more aware of the need to be aware of physical survival due to the cold climate, and it's prevalent in the way they carry themselves. People from the west coast don't really have to worry about physical survival because everything is so easy. You can probably find examples of these disparate temperaments in animals living in warm and cold climates as well.

The toothless psychic. She freaks me out a little. I mean, she's toothless. What is it about people who are toothless that makes a person so uneasy?

Psychics? I believe in the ability to see. But I don't believe in the business of telling everybody. It kind of really pisses me off actually. They're messing with a lot of people's hopes and life paths when they claim to be able to see everything about everybody. It doesn't work that way. Psychic ability is a focused connection. You can only see certain things for certain people, and you can only interpret as far as your own personal perspective. Psychic communication is a private, intimate affair.
(For the Rules of Psychic Intuition, see 3rd Post from Jan. 26th, 2004)

a 6'5 fat guy wearing an Iverson jersey just doesn't look right.

Watch couples walk. Sometimes the guy is pulling the pace to a quicker speed, walking in front of the girl, and sometimes they are shoulder to shoulder at both slow, ambling and quick, focused strides. Says a lot about the balance in the relationship. Some guys naturally do it. Just try not to allow him to walk in front. You know what? Open a door for one of those guys who insists on setting the pace a little too fast and walking ahead of a woman. It really fucks him up because he's used to and depends on a role of dominance.

I bet if I sit here long enough, I'll see someone I know. I ALWAYS run into people. It's what God blesses me with -- reconnections.

My parents really don't want me around black guys. But you don't understand. The first person I ever loved, ever felt connected to as a baby was black. And my consciousness at the time wasn't developed enough for me to have retained anything more than a fuzzy, swimming notion of that person.

My mom never understood why I love flea markets so much. It's not that I was looking for items to purchase and bring home. It was more that I wanted to look at other people's things, to find clues to put together someone's life story and to figure out how these people experienced life.

I am alive. I can feel the warm wind blowing against my cheek and my skin breathing in the goodness of it and I know it's a blessing to be alive.

People shouldn't keep pets just as accessories. It's not nice.

That's the 7-Up guy.

Some people just look crazy. I don't mean the obvious ones. The average ones. That look like every other person. Except there's something very unpredictable in their eyes.

Ah, this African American woman working as a psychic. You're the only one of them here who actually looks spiritual.

The Robot Man. Big, black, ripped. He looks like he was delicately sculpted from a block of dark chocolate.

What happens to all the people you meet in life? I know my #1 question to God when I meet him will be...what ended up happening with every single person I ever met? I want to know where life took them. Every one of them. Even the ones I had only fleeting interaction with.

I get a kick out of seeing really tall and lean people. It reminds me of the awe I felt towards trees when I was little.

I think I know why I'm fascinated with Ben Wallace's body. I feel like if I were a giant who could grab him by the waist and wave him around, he'd be like one of those crazy-sculpted He-Man action figures.

Black guys have the nicest butts, hands down. And I'm not even a butt girl.

This couple is having sex on the beach. Why do I always catch people having sex?

Fucking for love
Or fucking for money
Or fucking for fuck's sake
It's all still fucking.

Excuse me. Why do you look so sad?

I was dying to ask him. I watched him walk by and I realized I could either run after him, or never see him again, and thus, never find out why this man looked like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.

There are the boys who figure things out faster--that a guy should go out with the fat girls because it's the fat girls who can be pressured into putting out. And then they end up being fathers at 15.

I'm searching for the stranger with the eyes that I will recognize.

I told myself there is fun left to be had; the sun had not yet set .

When the sun sets and the throngs leave, and it's just you nestled between the sky and the sand with the ocean lulling you to sleep, it's like paradise here.

I Finally Died in My Sleep

In my dream last night, I was at a trade show with my dad in a big hotel. I worked for a government agency and I got word that there was a bomb in the building. It was in the daycare room and there were mothers and children all around. We didn't want to alarm them so we didn't evacuate the room. I find the bomb, which is this thing that is the shape, size and color of an egg with the shell made of a styrofoam-like substance. As I was opening it, glimpsing a black plastic-like interior, I remember thinking, I have to be careful because if I'm not, all these people will die. Then I felt my body jolt, like the wind was punched out of my body from the inside. I was still holding the egg thing and was really disoriented. There was a man in a dark suit standing to my right, and we made eye contact. He leaned towards me, his head close, and said, you opened the bomb and it blew up, killing yourself and everyone in this building. But we spliced your life and are giving you another chance, gesturing with his head towards the egg thing. Apparently, I had died and come back to life, but as far as my memory went, time was still continuous and I had no idea that in the space between what I felt was just a matter of seconds, I had been blown up and experienced death. When I woke up, I was still trying to wrap my mind around having died, having had such a HUGE EVENT happen without any conscious experience or memory of it.

Love, Friends and Parenthood

Have you ever noticed that, when a friend of yours is in a bad relationship, you can almost see her life fire burning so much dimmer? It's like in science class when you put a jar over a flame to restrict the oxygen and the flame turns into this sad little blue nub.

A bad relationship doesn't necessarily have to be one that's tearing-the-trees-out-by-the-roots combative. Sometimes it just involves personality incompatibility--by being who a person inherently is, that person makes the other feel unhappy or inadequate or lonely.

When I have friends in bad relationships, it kills me. I know how brightly their inner light can burn and when I see it dimmed that way, it really upsets me. But it's so hard to tell someone that maybe the person that they really like or love isn't right for them, or to get them to take their unhappiness seriously and not be so willing to sacrifice themselves.

I think that when you really care about someone, you never want to see them get the short end of the stick. It's like how my mom always tells me, there's rarely perfect balance in relationships--only settle down with someone who loves you more and is more devoted to you. Of course she'd say that. It's just like, I want to see all of my friends and loved ones be with people who absolutely worship them, because I think they're all wonderful people. But again, it really pains me to see someone I care about not be completely happy, or settle down with someone who is self-centered and isn't generous about making her happy, and isn't even at the very least, putting in the effort to try.

There's only so much you can say. You can give them advice to really examine the relationship, you can point things out, but ultimately, it's their decision. And when you think they're in a position where they might get hurt, it hurts so much to stand by and let them learn their lesson. You can't protect the ones you love from everything, and you can't live their lives for them, and sometimes, it sucks to feel so helpless.

This is why I'm afraid of parenthood. I know that with kids, you would give your life to protect them. You want to tell them what's good for them and what's bad for them, but ultimately, there are so many lessons in life that some they will have to learn for themselves the hard way. You can tell a kid not to touch a hot stove, but until he puts his hand on it and gets burned and realizes that the reason for not touching it is because it's painful, he'll only think of it as a distant idea rather than a reality. So much about parenting is about standing by and watching your kids learn about life, knowing that they need to stumble and fall sometimes in order to get back up and walk taller, but it's a heartbreaking experience to see them have to fall.

I watched my parents deal with the hard realization of being human--having to deal with feeling inadequate because they weren't able to protect my brother and I from everything that has hurt us in our lives. I have seen my brother learn so many lessons the hard way, face so much cruelty from small-minded people and find his place in a world where people seem to speak a language that he can't quite grasp, and it kills me that I can't protect him from everything that has and will ever hurt him.

I know they say that raising kids can be the most rewarding experience a person could have. But they tend to not mention, it's also the most heartbreaking.

Thought of the Day...

Remember in high school, when Halloween came around, there were certain guys who ALWAYS dressed up like women? Usually the jocks. What's up with that?

My favorite scene from Punch-Drunk Love...

"NOW GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE PERVERT!"
"DIDN'T I JUST FUCKING WARN YOU!?!"
"N--...that's that."

i LOVE philip seymour hoffman.

(On a related note, go see Happiness if you've never seen it. It's one of my favorite movies. It's deliciously WRONG.)

Click at your own risk...

This link is from my friend Tom's site. He's an internet guru I met at Sundance a few years ago and...well...fuck, man. You guys are messed up.

http://www.newgrounds.com/lit/horror.html

A great post from Margaret Cho about feeling alone in a crowd and about the benefits of listening to someone with a different perspective.

http://margaretcho.net/blog/iguessnot.htm

If I had my way, I would be able to talk to everyone I ever meet who intrigues me, and take my time with comfortable conversation to ask them about their lives, their experience of life and what they love, hate, fear, etc. Just so I can understand a wide range of individual, separate life paths and really feel where different people come from. I think that maybe it's hard in Los Angeles, because people are so wary and suspicious--they expect that you want something, or that you will use what you learn about them against them, or worst of all, that you are trying to manipulate a false intimacy a la Fatal Attraction and will end up going nuts and cooking their pets.

I've never cooked anyone's pets or taken advantage of people or disrespected the details in which people have been gracious enough to share with me. But I have to say that when you meet people and they open themselves up to you so that you can understand their lives, how they think and the places they've come from and survived, you really can't help but love people. It's a beautiful intimacy, to understand someone.

I honestly don't see myself ever settling down into a relationship or marriage because I don't really have a lot of sexual motivation or desire to funnel all my love into one sector. If I love someone, male or female, I consider them like family and will do anything for them, but it's a blanket love--if I respect you and think you're a good person, I'll care about you; but I won't want a whole lot back because I don't want expectations of commitment that I can't fulfill. I think my basic nature is that I want to love people and care about people and understand people, and obviously, I want people to reciprocate along the same lines, but I never feel comfortable with people getting close to me, and then getting upset because I go out and am in general, just in love with mankind.

Addendum: It's the disappearing acts. I'm prone to disappearing for stretches of time and not returning phone calls/emails because I just need to be alone and to have things really quiet while I recharge. And I feel guilty about it a lot, but it doesn't change the fact that I need it.

For August - No More Sex Life

One year ago, my roommate, Brian, moved in. He was quickly inducted into the experience of a Michael Summer Break Visit, which resulted in Michael's infamous post-it on my fridge, "For August - No More Sex Life."
( See 8/25 Posting.)

Michael is staying with me again. And Brian just came into my office to mention that one year later, Michael's here again, it's August, and still...no sex life for us.

Gosh. That's really sad.

8/24 Stream of Consciousness

I'm exhausted from having my brother for a week and a half. It's not that I don't love him fiercely, but he's so high energy that it takes up so much energy to give him my undivided attention and care.

I fell asleep at work today and dreamed someone shot me.

In the afternoon, I went to see an eccentric, hippy-ish but adorable podiatrist who looked like a Pacific Northwest trail guide transplanted into a sterile doctor's office in the middle of polished Los Angeles. I loved it! He was working on me and asked me about my experience in PR/Marketing. I said I'd be happy to do some PR work for him and asked if he was looking for a freelancer as opposed to a full-time person. He said, "I need a freelancer. [pause, turns away] I need a freelancer for my wife." I was taken aback for a moment cuz I thought he was saying, he needed someone to sub-in as his wife and I thought, WHAT THE HELL??? (Yes, the collective hindsight of my wait-a-minute moments of obliviousness with creepy old men has made me very jumpy.)

But then he went on to say that his wife was starting up a practice and would need PR.

This world confuses me. I don't know whether to be really onguard with people or really trusting, because the world definitely keeps me guessing.

My physical therapist is the bomb. (I know you love your gyno, Amber, but I bet my PT could kick your gyno's ass. Yes, I am seven). She makes me laugh and makes me feel less bummed about my back, and reminds me of those great times back when we were all kids, when things were still simple, and how comfortable it felt to be around other kids who you absolutely trusted because they were still young and so open and just decent.

God. LA can make a person feel so cynical and spiritually isolated. But for every hundred people I meet who are the selfish, self-centered kind, the ones who are always taking advantage of other people, are motivated by ulterior motives and are, just generally, people who don't appreciate or care about other people, all it takes is interacting with one decent person to make me feel good about people again.

This is the thing that I hate so much about religions. You can meet the nicest, kindest people at churches. But you can also meet the most judgmental, closed-minded people. And sometimes, those really nice and kind people are also the closed-minded ones, and that really confuses me. If you go to a place of worship to feel ultimately connected to a greater power and your fellow human beings, then how can there be any place in your heart, your soul or being to feel condescension towards anyone or anything? I don't understand it. That people have the ability to turn their kindness on and off, to be capable of withholding kindness from anyone in dire need. It makes me feel socially retarded, but I really can't understand how that works.

I would love to go to a church to meet good people, but I can't stand the dogma, the potential for small-minded human judgment and oppression. I just want to meet spiritual people who believe in the power of kindness without trying to influence me to feel power over anyone else. I honestly think the people who are kind are our angels, because small reminders that they exist are enough to stave off anyone's feelings of drowning in existential loneliness.

I think I'm feeling good because I've got my brother here whose gear is stuck on kind, and I got phone calls today from Rie (a good friend getting married), and the boys from Starbuck's (calling from the store).

It's really people who will get you through life. I love that they say that prayers are mysteriously but scientifically proven to have positive healing effects. It's the love, the good will, the sharing of kindness that re-energizes someone who has been cut off from the collective soul. That's something to never lose sight of...that we are never alone, and in times when we need help most, the universe will bring about others to help. Most days, no matter how crappy I feel, all I need to see is the smile of a child, so pure and so illuminous with vulnerability and trust, to remind me that there is so much more to life.

An Open Letter to a Spam Sender

Dear Mr. Tweeter:

Thank you so much for your kind email today (Subject: Make your scallywag massive!); I can't tell you how much it means to have a stranger take such interest in my vanity and be willing to help me make the improvements necessary for me to be an outstanding member of society. You have hit the nail on the head when you asked me if I dream about adding inches to my scallywag. In fact, just yesterday, I showed my mother my scallywag shortly after we exited our shower together, and she said, "Julia, you have a beautiful scallywag. But you know what would make it a GLORIOUS scallywag? More inches." The universe must be synchronized, or God is looking out for me, because I opened up my inbox this morning and like a miracle, there was your email!

My only concern is that you say your product only adds 2-3 inches, and I'm afraid that 2-3 inches would still leave me with a below-average sized scallywag. Do you have a maximum strength version of your product? Or prosthetic accessories that can be purchased along with your product? I would not need anything drastic--Lord knows that I don't want to go around with a bigger scallywag than those on the people I date. But just a big enough scallywag to give me a respectable bulge in my pants.

I would greatly appreciate more information on your product, as I think this is the very thing that could improve my quality of life! By the way, would you happen to know CuM_N_YoUr_PaNtS? He sent me an email yesterday (Subject: Horny Housewives Need Big Cock Now), but I accidentally deleted it instead of spam from that damn Christian Dating site that somehow got a hold of my email address. Sick motherfuckers. Anyway, I wanted to introduce him to steve b who sent me an email (Subject: Sluts Love Horse Cock). I thought those two might be able to join forces and help each other out.

So please get back to me ASAP. The more I think about it, the more I'm feeling inadequate about my scallywag.

Yours truly,
Julia S.

8/23 Recap

Some quick notes before I'm out for the night to watch Love Actually...

-Check out Jamie Taylor's blog http://jwt92.blogspot.com/ . He's an eloquent old soul who writes great poetry and has a lot of wisdom and insight for someone so young.

-Speaking of new sites, Amber has created a web shrine to...Terri's boobs. http://terrisboobs.blogspot.com . The fact that I don't find the fact that she made this site to be disturbing, is in fact, disturbing to me.

-I'm reading My Dark Places, an autobiography by James Ellroy (LA Confidential), detailing his mother's brutal murder, his turbulent life after and his efforts years later as an adult to investigate her killing. It's a really quick read--it'll probably have taken me no more than 7-8 total reading hours to finish by the time I'm done--but really intriguing and haunting. He's really candid about his own personal hell; this book is ridiculously disturbing but so incredibly psychologically interesting. You have to give him props for his willingness to share. I met him a few years ago when he and Curtis Hanson were promoting LA Confidential. I was there to interview Curtis, who introduced me to him. I remember him being really tall with an intimidating presence. He was a nice looking man from a distance, but when he cast his gaze on you up close, there was something unsettling about his eyes...they were so penetrating and haunting that to this day, I don't remember anything else about that night or interview but I still remember his eyes.

-I'm also reading The Dive from Clausen's Pier by Ann Packer, about a girl's life after her high school sweetheart fiance is paralyzed in a diving accident. It's a really rich novel about love, obligation, sacrifices and the choices a person needs to make for the sake of his or her own life journey. I highly recommend it.

-Dubya needs to SHUT. THE FUCK. UP.

Today's mood: gottatrunkfullaampsmuthafucker

An Artist's Guide to Having a Muse

1. You don't get to choose your muse. With real muses, the gods of creativity will hit you in the face with this person. All you know is that you are suddenly electrified, with feelings and a fascination that you don't quite know how to place; and the only way to release the sparks zapping around in your head is to create something utterly brilliant in the name of your exalted inspiration.

2. Never get too close to your muse. Your muse is a magical projection, cloaking a mortal human being. Do not befriend your muse, date your muse, reveal feelings for your muse TO your muse, and most of all, sleep with your muse. It will be like the clock striking midnight, leaving you with a pumpkin in place of the carriage and a half finished piece of brilliance never to be worked on again.

Since when did "to protect and serve" become "to bully and humiliate?"

The only thing that can really make me lose it--my Achilles Heel--is the abuse of power by authority figures. Injustice and unfairness, as much as they terrify me, make me crazy with rage.

When a person grows older and faces all the things that frightened her as a child, she comes to realize that many fears are irrational, rooted in the limited perspective of a child pulling away from an existence defined by utter defenselessness and dependency. I had thought that I had confronted all my major fears and understood the realities/irrationalities of them, until my run-in this weekend with a nice, hick-town police officer who found the courage within himself to bully a defenseless woman on a dark road in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. Bravo, Mr. Police Man. Your friends must marvel at the size of your cojones.

I have one thing to say to him, before I write an official complaint letter mailed certified to every single person up his chain of command (and believe me, I DO have the time and tenacity):

If I ever see you again, take off your badge and let's see what you've got. You think the law makes you a big man, when you're a little runt hiding behind a ten cent piece of tin. Next time, we'll do it again but just you and me--two regular people--standard playground shit. I've fucked up overgrown bullies with more significant lives than you and I'm not afraid to take the truth to where it needs to go to take away all your toys that make you feel big. I'll tear down that flimsy big man facade and reveal you for the angry little boy you are who's taking it out on the world because you're pissed that everyone's got it better than you. I may be afraid of the law, but I'm not afraid of any coward who hides behind it. Without your badge, the only way you're gonna get me on the ground is by beating the crap out of me or shooting me, because there's something inside me that will ALWAYS make me bigger than you.

"Would You Date A Guy Who's Bi?" Part II:
The Most Amusing Lunch Hour a Girl Could Ask For


So I ran into that one freaky lawyer again. No, not the good-freaky lawyer. The bad one who was cute and coming on strong, but who I didn't want anything to do with when I found out he had a girlfriend. And then he ended up telling me that he had given/received blowjobs from guys. (Read Part I: The March 19th Posting)

So I run into him and we're small-talking and he cuts to the chase... "What are you doing tonight?"
"My brother's in town."
"That's too bad. I thought maybe we could get together."
[I smile, amused, and say...]
"I don't know what your deal is yet."
"What do you mean?"
"Last time we talked, we were gonna get together, but then you told me you had a girlfriend, and then you told me you go down on guys."
"As I recall, you were the one who had a problem with me having a girlfriend."
"So how is she?"
"She's out of town this week."
"Of course she is. So you still playing around behind her back with boys and girls?"
[game on! A long brooding pause. Finally, he says...]
"I'm an open-minded person and I like to experiment and try everything at least once, but I can say that I really, really don't find sleeping with men that attractive."
"Last time I talked to you, you were getting blowjobs."
"I'd say I've progressed a little past that since we last spoke."
"How so."
"I've given a few and I got fucked once."
"Oh yeah? How was it?"
"It was fun."
"But you're not attracted to men."
[he doesn't answer. I say...]
"I think the idea of two guys fucking is hot."
"Oh yeah? You ever watch?"
"I've only seen video clips. My roommate's into tits and I watch gay porn. How funny is that?"
[His eyes instantly look mildly feverish]
"What if I came over and I fucked your roommate while you watched?"
"Are you serious?"
"Yeah, totally."
"No way."
"Why not. It'd be really fun. For all of us."
"Because it's weird."
"I think you'd like it."
"You're not coming over."
"Why not."
"Because my roommate has standards."
****************

That's when I had to end the conversation because, obviously, the conversation was getting really weird. I mean, it started off weird, but it was going off the charts. This guy is totally clean-cut, normal-looking, intelligent, abercrombie-ish cute (if you can look past the intellectual-commando litigator swagger). You would never suspect he was such a cheating bastard. I get such a kick out of how open he is about this stuff, but I guess I bring out the honesty in people. Haha, this guy is gonna be the governor of New Jersey someday.

Cute.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5756809/?GT1=4529

More Intensity

Ah, yes. "More Intensity." The pivotal line of one of my favorite scenes in Lost in Translation, a film so simplistic, it's (brilliantly) near-bombastically cerebral in its dissection of the complexities of communication. Intensity, the inherent human trait, the syntax of the very instincts that successfully dragged human beings through the annals of evolution, has become an almost esoteric expression diluted by a phlegmatic society adamant on a collective Paris-Hilton blase-ness serving as a way of life. Somehow, I really don't think this is what the ancient Eastern Zen Masters had in mind.

What has inspired me to speak so pretentiously, you ask? Well, I'll tell you. Right Said Fred. Yes, Right Said Fred and its tongue-in-cheek one-hit wonder about being too sexy to do anything or be anything, managed to divert my attention from the difficult quandary of whether I wanted to eat a cup of yogurt before I worked out or after, to my annoyance at the way society sends mixed messages about people taking life by the balls and ripping them out its throat via its tiny little pink asshole.

When I played sports when I was younger, the hardest thing was walking that fine line between throwing myself into a competition to challenge my body and my mind's ultimate potential and willpower, and adhering to what the coaches deemed "lady-like competition" while fighting the attitude of many of the participants that sports were just a form of afterschool social club (aka orgy of conformity and viscious cattiness). Maybe the problem in my day was the lack of prominent pro women's sports associations, so the most us girls could aspire to was getting a varsity jacket and being called a "dyke" behind our backs. Nevertheless, I found girls' sports to be as much about the politics of gender roles as about athletic competition.

The best games I ever played were when we felt entitled to go all out and assert our full potential. It was all about the game. We weren't girls playing sports. We WERE the competition. For those few hours during the game, the win was all that mattered. We could hate each other off the field and have plenty of shit to say about each other, but on the field, we were parts of a whole and we respected each other for the role we each played, and in those intense stretches, outside of life and death, we shared the strongest currents of willpower and emotional bond.

I love watching the Olympics because the women competing are paradigms of athleticism and focus; they are proud of their intensity. But I'd like to throw in something to think about. These women who made it to the highest level of competition are not only outstanding athletes, but have managed to stay true to themselves and their focus despite the social pressures that cause so many talented female athletes to drop out. Yes, all athletes face external pressures coming from a variety of sources. But women really have to develop a great deal of inner strength and personal pride to work against the invisible gender barriers that society unfairly holds dear.

I think the biggest shame that playing girls' sports taught me, was that even in an arena in which intensity is appropriate, it wasn't encouraged enough and due to peer pressure, it was often discouraged. I think this attitude is reflective of a bigger problem in society, in which women, other than in certain arenas such as performance arts, can't go all out and do things to the extreme--ie. show extreme displays of anger, joy, sadness, aggression, etc--without being deemed frightening or crazy. Intensity is equated with extremes which is equated with instability. It is the nuclear explosion, the small seed that can wield so much power, that its power must logically be destructive.

I am an intense person. In sports, I went in shoulder first into every catcher; I crashed the boards for every rebound and I dove for every ball. I have five knee surgeries to show for it but I always found my way back to the competition. I fought for my teammates on the court, even took punches for them, despite absolutely hating some of them for the backstabbing things they did to me off the court. And now that I'm older, I know that intensity doesn't dissipate with age. It's still there and those who are closest to me have felt it, simmering under the surface. It's in the things I do, my writing, my work, my philosophies, my relationships. But I know I don't feel comfortable showing it to people, thus my love of and my need for stretches of time in which I have the freedom to be alone to allow myself to encompass the full potential of myself.

I love being a woman, but for better or worse, we are the underdogs. Yes, society dictates to men how they have to maintain the ideal of being the strongest, the smartest, the best. But to say that men have it equally as bad as women in terms of gender roles is like saying that a championship basketball team that has to play as well as it did the year before, has it as rough as the last place team whose best player has to play blindfolded JUST BECAUSE he plays for the last place team. One is hampered by the pressure of meeting high expectations while the other is blighted by imposed impediments.

That said, I believe that while men may be the physically stronger sex, women are the internally stronger sex. We have learned to sprint with braces while others ran free; we have learned to fight with daggers while others fought with swords. And despite these challenges, we have succeeded. We have faced the amorphous shadow of grievance nicknamed "human suffering," tasted it, and learned to give it a name and use it as an ally. And when the physical battles are not enough to defeat certain enemies, it is the spirit of the woman who knows how to weave the suffering into the fabric of the universe, so that, like children, we can be soothed by knowing that everything in our world is still where it should be, and all is not lost.

You give a boy a cape and a plastic helmet and he thinks he's a superhero. But everyone knows that just by believing things doesn't always make them so. I have seen a "man" crying on the floor, screaming about the pain of a minor injury like a spoiled child with a paper cut, and I have seen a woman with sharp, jagged bone piercing through bloody skin, asking if she could walk off the field rather than be carried, for the sake of her dignity. And you ask me to buy into chimerical social constructs?

I'm sorry, but HELL no.

Fuck you, misogynistic men who perpetuate this cycle of women being the lesser sex. You are the very ones I have seen bawling on the floor, demanding to be taken care of. And fuck you women who allow this cycle to perpetuate--those who flaunt your lack of self-worth through boastful promiscuity and pathetic caricatures of sexual dominance; those who turn on other women and destroy them in hopes to be the only one left standing in a barren, antagonistic landscape; and those who sit by passively, squandering your potential and letting your life add up to less than the sum of its promising parts. You, who do not make the most of yourself, who avoid the challenge and do not live and love intensely to the most of your potential, are the ones who lose the most in this brilliant but short-lived game.

8/18 Recap

My brother arrived for his 3 week stay. He got himself a job as a volunteer at John Kerry's Campaign office! He'll be doing admin stuff but the good thing is that he'll be working a floor above my office, so I'll be close by if he needs anything. He'll be walking to work a lot so I just wanted to say: Those of you who have honked at him while he crosses the street? DON'T. It scares him.

I bought a tent off a woman on Craig's List. It's pretty much new and I got it for $60 so I'm glad, even though I don't know how much a 3 person tent is supposed to cost. We're going camping this weekend and it's my brother's first time.

I took him to a Moroccan restaurant tonight to celebrate his job and because we wanted to try a new restaurant (he actually wanted Ethiopian food, which I eat once every few weeks, but I told him I'd take him there next week). I think couscous is a gift from the gods. I love that stuff. But the bill came out to be $53 for two entrees and I thought that was way overpriced for okay food in very small portions. The dining room, with all its couches and incense, reminded me of this sex club I went to once where I saw this magazine editor that I had once had drinks with, in a disgustingly compromising position. I don't think I will go back to that restaurant.

In other news, work was intense today so I managed only 2 blog entries. If work is going to start cutting into my blog time, I'm just gonna have to quit. No, I'm just kidding. Oh, god. Please don't take away my sweet, sweet paychecks.

Today's mood: Michael Makes Me Happy

The Most Serene Republic of Shets and Giggles

Following a link on Mr. Spencer Watson's site (http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi), I created a mock nation for some simulation game.

Let me acquaint you with my nation (the computer wrote the description based on my answers to a questionaire. My FAVORITE line is the last line):

Name: The Most Serene Republic of Shets and Giggles
National Motto: "Do it like the monkeys."
UN Category: Inoffensive Centrist Democracy
Civil Rights: Good
Economy: Reasonable
Political Freedoms: Excellent
Location: the South Pacific

The Most Serene Republic of Shets and Giggles is a tiny, devout nation, remarkable for its absence of drug laws. Its hard-nosed, intelligent population of 5 million have some civil rights, but not too many, enjoy the freedom to spend their money however they like, to a point, and take part in free and open elections, although not too often.
The enormous government juggles the competing demands of Religion & Spirituality, Law & Order, and Healthcare. The average income tax rate is 29%, but much higher for the wealthy. A very small private sector is dominated by the Trout Farming industry.
Crime is moderate. Shets and Giggles's national animal is the volkswagon bus, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests, and its currency is the children.

Quote of the Day:

Why would I cry over a boy? I would never waste my tears on a boy. Why waste your tears on someone who makes you cry?

-Kirsten Dunst

(Okay, I apologize for a quote by a former child-star, but I read this and I thought it was kind of funny)

It's Time for a Vacation

I just paid off most of my estimated taxes for the year so now that I'm short on cash, I spent yesterday afternoon looking up vacation spots for young singles (as you all know, I prefer to travel alone, for a variety of reasons). Apparently, this activity so exhausted/depressed me, that I went home and slept for 13 hours.

Some great great resources for you guys:

Contiki Vacations (www.contiki.com) offers travel packages for 18-35 year olds. That means, you don't end up surrounded by the elderly and families. A friend of mine went to Europe with them and she said it was awesome; she met a lot of cool people and hooked up a lot. The bad news, from what I gather on their message boards, is that you end up with a lot of dumb 18 year-olds who have never been away from home (aka expect stupid drama and babysitting), and predatorial 35 year-old men asking said 18 year-olds if they have boyfriends.

They own a resort on the Greek island of Mykonos (http://www.contikiresorts.com/mykonos/). It's like year-round Spring Break in the Mediterranean. I, personally, would rather be on a tiny tropical island with all of the male Olympic athletes (which was what I dreamed about last night, thus, staying in bed for 13 hours), but I guess this is second best.

And this brings me to the fabled Pink Palace, another beachside resort in Greece, which I read about in college (www.thepinkpalace.com). It's supposedly the most debauched place on earth, where young people from all over the world come to drink, party and have lots and lots and lots of sex. And wear togas. This place seems a little too much for me; I'd like to at least pretend that I'm on a normal vacation. But it's the place I recommended to my coworker, who saw me looking up the Mykonos resort and was trying to convince me that we should go together and pass ourselves off as a swinging couple to get more sex. I really didn't see how that arrangement would benefit me, considering his reasoning was that, if we encountered a hot couple, he would use me to lure away the boyfriend so he could get with the girl. He offered, "But you'd have a pimp" as a benefit, but unless I'm getting some major money and bling, I think this deal rather sucks.

Fuck You Mercury Retrograde
(this very special fuck you offer is good for August 9th thru Sept. 2nd)

Things that have malfunctioned this retrograde:

My computer
My laptop
My computer at work
My alarm clock
My Site Meter
My Blogger (the publishing side. Any of you guys getting a crapload of error messages too?)
My vibrator
My car CD adapter
My CD burner
My IPod
My company's telephone system
My attention span

This has been a BAD one.

By the way, what is with me and catching people have sex? I went to Venice Beach yesterday and there was this trashy middle-aged Hispanic couple just going at it missionary style in the middle of the beach. Nevermind all the kids running around nearby. Account of my Venice Beach excursion to come.

I HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY!!!!

Girls, girls, girls. And I know you're girls because gay boys have standards.

Why are you arriving at my site by searching "Zach Braff Shirtless" on google? Do you REALLY want to see Zach Braff shirtless? Seriously. Let me give you a moment to think about that and gather your shame.

Court TV has published the phone transcripts from the Scott Peterson case. Here's a link to the latest transcript. He's really elusive when he's talking to her. I wonder what he means when he's talking about the things that he's already told the police and the family that he can't tell her about, but that will all make sense when Laci is found.

http://www.courttv.com/trials/peterson/docs/wiretap0108a.html

This story is morbid, but still, I giggled.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5693657/

This site is really entertaining:

http://www.defamer.com/

It combines my favorite internet people (psycho)-watching activity - Craig's List Missed Connections - with celebrity gossip/rants.

Hey Whit, read the Zach Braff post...

Remember when we saw him on that Scrubs panel at the Museum of Radio/Television a few years ago? Remember when he told that story about nurses stopping him at a restaurant and saying they were really big fans of the show, and then the other people on the panel made fun of him by saying that he just told that story so he could mention starstruck nurses? I remember thinking, this is a guy who will totally turn slutty when fame gets him what he can get.

Well, more power to him. Love the art, not the artist.

As a supplementary note, I saw Michael Moore this weekend. I was sitting on a lawn people-watching and he and another guy were walking by, deep in conversation. At first, I didn't recognize him. I glanced over and saw a sloppy fat guy in a hat and glasses and my first thought was (I swear to God), "That guy looks perverted." Then I suddenly realized who he was and as he walked by, I noticed that he was grotesquely fat (he was wearing sweatpants). He looked like the kind of guy that a girl out alone would steer clear of and avoid conversation with at all costs.

Again, it doesn't take away from his brilliance or my admiration of his determination and focus in his films. But it just reminds me that it's important, in how we view all people, to separate what they create and accomplish (as well as our admiration of those things) with the people themselves. Confusing these things is a tragic setup for unnecessary and unfair disillusionment and disappointment.

I've been cooped up working on the supernatural suspense script. It's a story about a woman who can't allow anyone to get close to her, who has to face a ghost connecting her to her past life in order to go on with her current one. Before I begin every script, I feel out a playlist comprised of songs that immerse me and help me visualize the beginning/middle/end of the character's journeys and the emotional themes of the script. I also make a soundtrack of the music I would pair with certain scenes if I were directing, in order of the story. It really helps me stay in the world of the script and unfold it with more depth. The mix for this script has a lot of music that's really creepy and haunting when I'm listening to it in the darkness, with the only light in the room coming from my computer screen, so it helps me write a scary ghost story. The soundtrack is made up of songs that are haunting in a human, existential way, and it helps me hang on to the character as she weaves through the script, uncovering what is her past in a previous chapter of her human history, and thus, allowing herself to become whole.

This script's soundtrack:

1. Harmony -Clinic
2. Your Ghost -Kristin Hersh
3. Into the Night -Angelo Badalamenti
4. At Least We Tried -Moby
5. Shine -Operatica
6. Unmarked Helicopters -Soul Coughing
7. Little Drop of Poison -Tom Waits
8. Eyepennies -Sparklehorse
9. Inertia Creeps -Massive Attack
10. About Her -Malcolm Mclaren
11. My Life -Dido
12. Weather Storm -Craig Armstrong
13. Sweet Song -Blur
14. New Favorite Thing -Alison Krauss
15. A Rush of Blood to the Head -Coldplay
16. Haunted -Poe
17. Exit Music (For a Film) -Radiohead

If you guys have access to a jukebox site (like Real Rhapsody), put together this playlist. I really like it!

I dropped by Starbuck's today to see if I could catch Holly. The last time I saw her, she told me her mother had had a series of aneurysms and was in a coma. I saw her today and she told me her mother passed away last week. Man. My heart goes out to her and her family, and my prayers are with her.

Appreciate life and the ones you love, guys. You can never ever say I love you too much.

My computer was dying a slow death the last few months and being the lazy person that I am, I've been procrastinating about getting it worked out. Alas, it finally collapsed last week (thank you Mercury Retrograde, you fucking bastard!). Some virus took it out. My email was especially messed up. I have no problem viewing email from the hotmail browser at work, but if I download messages at home, my inbox won't always let me view it. The techs ended up having to wipe everything out, but the good news is that it seems better. The bad news is that I lost a lot of stuff I had in my inbox that I hadn't gotten a chance to read because of the problem with my Outlook Express. So if you've written me in the last two months and I didn't write back, drop me a line. Hey Jamie...I got your message...sorry I'm so bad about returning phone calls. I'm famous for my disappearing acts. I wasn't able to open your Vietnam poem but I really wanted to read it. Can you send it to me again? Hope your move to B.C. went smoothly! And congrats on doing the reading. Very nice! I'm really proud of you and I'm sure you did really well!

This Article Made Me Salivate...


http://in.rediff.com/sports/2004/jul/27condoms.htm

Vanilla Sky

...sucks. I just watched it last night. I've been putting it off because I absolutely loved Abre los Ojos, the Spanish movie that it's based on, and I just had a feeling that Hollywood would seriously fuck it up. Luckily, I wasn't disappointed.

First of all, those who know me know that my boredom threshhold is incredibly low. Survival in life for me means the constant feeding on things that have variety, things that are new. So for me to watch a movie more than once means that it's brilliant enough and thought-provoking enough that I can see, analyze or contemplate something new each time I watch it. I watched Abre los Ojos three times at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor during the two weeks it was there, and rented it once (that infamous holding period that lasted for months around the time that Vanilla Sky was released). The movie itself is great; I really like Amenabar, who also directed The Others. He does psychological creepy and high metaphysical-concept really intelligently and artfully. In this film, all the metaphysical and sci-fi elements are tied in really well with the themes surrounding personal vanity and ego destruction, both from external societal and internal Freudian forces.

Unfortunately, Vanilla Sky was a cartoonish bastardization of this film. I actually watched it twice (the second for analytical purposes); Tom Cruise's performance wasn't as gruesomely obvious and predictable on second viewing, but Penelope Cruz is annoying as hell. Yes, she plays the exact same character as she did in the original. But I don't know if it has to do with her poor grasp of the English language, or the fact that her face is grotesquely tiny and mildly rodent-like, but her character was incredibly annoying and made me want to hit the mute button every time she was onscreen. I usually like Jason Lee but his acting was really stiff and caricatured. Where the hell was the directing? Was Cameron Crowe just calling it in? There were so many actor beats in the film that had jagged, artificial-feeling transitions. Even Kurt Russell was stiff. I felt I was watching the actors doing their first run through off the pages. Even if Crowe was going for characters that seemed mildly artificial and stiff because this was an artificial world, it didn't quite work because the acting was still poor even before the "splice" point. Cameron Diaz was the lone bright spot as far as acting. She was very natural, very erratic, and very scary.

I hate that the movie bombarded the viewer with exposition. All the exposition about Life Extension and about how Cruise's character's subconscious deviated the world he had built was fairly insulting. I was really starting to get upset at how dumb and superficial they were assuming the audience would be. In the original, the exposition was so subtle that the viewer had to really work (THINK) to put everything together and understand the ramifications of not only this technology, but of the choices this man had made with his life and of the consequences. In Vanilla Sky, everything was spelled out and then underlined twice with a fat red marker. Even the music was so overbearing and obvious during the major plot points, they may as well have scrolled subtitles along with the music: "NOW WE ARE SAD...WE ARE SAD BECAUSE DAVID IS THE TRAGIC HERO WHOSE TRAGIC FLAW, VANITY, HAS BECOME THE SOURCE OF HIS DOWNFALL. HIS BITTERNESS OVER THE LOSS OF HIS GOOD LOOKS HAS CAUSED HIM TO LOSE THE GIRL HE WOULD HAVE HAD BEFORE THE ACCIDENT DISFIGURED HIM SO NOW HE IS RUNNING...RUNNING... TRIPPED...INTO A PUDDLE OF HIS OWN DISPAIR. DO YOU SEE HOW THE SONG 'SWEETNESS FOLLOWS ' IS IRONIC BECAUSE SWEETNESS WILL NOT FOLLOW? IF THIS SCENE SHOULD MOVE YOU TO TEARS, DO NOT HOLD BACK. LET THOSE CHERUBS OF GRIEF AND COMPASSION BURST FREE FROM YOUR TEAR DUCTS SO YOU CAN WEEP INCONSOLABLY FOR OUR WAYWARD HERO." Oh fuck off, Cameron Crowe. I'm fully capable of hitting my own head with a craphammer.

Whatever. I'm tired of talking about this movie. I hate it when people in this industry take something that was deep, artistic and thoughtful and translate it to the equivalent of a children's book for adults.

I Laughed, I Cried, I Vomited: A Link to be Savored

http://porktornado.diaryland.com/albumcover.html

You ASSHOLES.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/08/12/samesex.marriage.ap/index.html

Subway Loses Next Spokesperson

http://www.wftv.com/news/3643877/detail.html

Four Times in an Hour? According to Swingers...No Dice

I unenthusiastically gave this guy my number because he looked like Tracy McGrady without the lazy eye and I figured, even though we would obviously have nothing to talk about, I might be able to convince him to give me a glimpse of his shirtless body without having to put out.

But about two hours after I gave him the number, he started calling compulsively to see if I wanted to hang out with him when he got off work. I missed the first three calls because I didn't hear my phone but when I picked up the fourth one, he opened the conversation with, "Why didn't you answer when I called?"

Cuz you're a fucking loser.

***************************
Embarrassment: The Gift that Keeps On Giving

I drove by a former student of mine today. I tutored him for the SAT last year and according to a friend of his whom I also tutored, he had a crush on me. This kid was a cool kat--nice guy, really chill, in a band, flunked the SATs because he really couldn't give a shit.

Funny story... I was at a bar in February with a bunch of my cousins. I was getting bored out of my mind and wanted to go home to write, so my cousin's fiance tried to entertain me by offering to be my pimp. I told him that there were only 3 signs that I've never made out with and he said he'd find them for me. I noticed a guy who looked familiar in a cluster of people close by. He looked exactly like my 17 year-old ex-student with a cigarette and a drink in his hand. I asked my cousin's fiance (who was closer to the group) to ask if that guy was [name withheld to protect the guilty] because I thought he was a student of mine. My boy asks and my student looks surprised and says he is. I yell, "I happen to know for a FACT that you're not old enough for that drink in your hand." He's really happy to see me and gives me a hug, but in the middle of it, my cousin's fiance butts in and says, "Hey, do you want to make out with her? You should totally make out with her." I could have KILLED him. Call me vanilla, but I'm just not old enough and depraved enough yet to find 17 year olds sexually enticing. Unless that 17 year old is named Aaron Carter. (good god, I hope you all know I'm just kidding).

Steve the Lawyer, that sweet Pisces with the soft lips, on the other hand, was another story. That was a fun night. Those pictures turned out awesome.

I just realized why I hate Christmas music. It's because of how commercialized it's become. Music is an expression of the soul. It's the expression of Truth. It's a disservice to humankind when it is bastardized. These songs that have been passed down through generations have lost all their meaning when you've got pop bands doing contemporary versions of the song, eviscerating all meaning. I admit that I like a handful pop songs, but there are certain things that have been bequeathed to us by our ancestors and forefathers, that are the very fiber of what defines culture, that should be considered sacred.

Music that is passed down through generations, is passed down because it conveys emotional and spiritual meaning; it means that particular piece of music has the power of gathering, unlocking and liberating inner emotions. In this day in age, when we have computers creating the music and kids who don't even understand the sacred language of the song putting out a version that gets mass airplay, it's hard for these songs not to lose meaning. So every time I hear a Christmas song on the radio or at the mall, I get really bitter. Christmas songs that were once a communion of the religious and spiritual, that were sung together in spiritual faith in a revered place of connection, have become synonymous with commercial brainwash. When a person hears a Christmas song, like one of Pavlov's dogs, he doesn't feel the magnitude of the cumulative shared emotional experience of our forefathers. He only understands that it's time it's sale time in the department stores because the holiday shopping season has officially begun. Nothing scares me more than the idea that our world no longer values the intimacy of human bond and the happiness of being knowing and accepting your inner being.

I'm reading:

While I Was Gone by Sue Miller

I'm listening to:

Operatica "Shine"
Operatica "Volume 1"
Handsome Boy Modeling School "So...How's Your Girl"

I recommend all of these. I've been in such a good mood since they collectively came into my life. (Operatica is opera meets dance/electronica. It's freakin' AMAZING)

No Cowbells For YOU...

Yes!!! Send Chris Webber AWAY.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=smith_sam&id=1856243

I have only one trade scenario to offer:

LA Lakers - Lakers send Vlade. Kings send The Crybaby. Pros: Vlade arrives back in Sac and, "Just kidding," we find that he was only doing what was best for The Kid (Peja) and the team. In an ingenious plot, Vlade has managed to rid Sac of the Hobbling Ego that will never ever ever carry any team into that Press Conference at the end of the Tunnel. Peja is reunited with his beloved "I Love It When You Call Me" Big Poppa. Fueled by the summer disaster of nearly losing Vlade, he goes on to have a superstar season. Remember last year when he carried the Kings after Bobby J. and CWebb were out? When the Kings played like a team and didn't have to run things through the Ego down low who could barely make it up and down the court? Yeah. A "team" with Chris Webber is like a "romantic" dinner with a big steaming pile of crap in the middle of the table--it's disqualified by its very definition. A championship will never happen as long as Webber or anyone else believes he's going to be the one to deliver the championship. Vlade, Peja, Bobby, Bibby, Miller, Christie, that rookie who looks like Christie and a Webber-less supporting cast means a team without the "Me" and a promising run in the West. Meanwhile, Kobe and Chris Webber, who by heaven and hell absolutely deserve each other, have to share the ball and the locker room. A bidding war ensues and Fox wins the rights to the reality show that follows Chris and Kobe as they learn that there is life on earth beyond themselves. The following season, Fox brilliantly joins the forces of Chris and Kobe with that of Paris and Nicole, sending them off on an iceberg to Antarctica. No cameras, no show. Just a gift to the rest of humankind. Cons: What cons?!? In my head, this trade is already done.

Excerpts from Dinner with My Mom

Mom: I always accidentally bite my tongue when I eat. Is that an illness?
Me: No. It's stupidity.


Mom: This guy at work asked for a raise. He said he's embarrassed that he's working full-time but still needs his family to help out financially. If he had just asked me for a raise by listing everything he contributes to the company, I would have probably said no.

Me: I need to ask for a raise. "I limit my nodding off strictly to afternoons. And sometimes the mornings. But I always wake up in time to answer the phone."

Mom: That might work. Maybe your boss has a sense of humor.

Me: I'm serious. It's what I do.

Speaking of fucking around with people, here's a little trick to do if you're ever hanging out in Los Angeles.

So let's say, you're hanging out at your favorite mall food court when in walks your favorite celebrity.

(For the sake of example, I'll use the name "Tom.")

You walk up to them, look surprised and then really joyous and say, "Tom! What's up, man!"

[give him the Cool Brutha Handshake. No, not really.]

"Whatcho been up to?"

*the celebrity will respond joyously and pleasantly as he racks his brain, trying to figure out who you are. Inevitably, he'll respond quickly, "Nothing much, how are you?"

"Nothing much.You know, same ol, same ol'. I haven't seen you since that party up in the hills last year. You look GREAT! You still working out a lot?"

[small talk, small talk bullshit]

"Alright, listen, I've gotta run but it was great seeing you. Tell Mary Ann I said hi!"

***************

The key is to act like they should totally know you, like you're an old friend and he's the asshole for not remembering your name. If you pull off the confident, friendly, I'm so excited to run into you thing, you'll see their face light up like they're really happy to see you too, even though in their eyes, you can see they're totally confused cuz they don't know who the hell you are. And it's also important for you to be the one who's "gotta run," cutting the conversation short. No more than a few minutes and a few pleasantries.

It's kind of funny.

I love Koko.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5649239/?GT1=4529

I think the fact that we can teach a gorilla to communicate is amazing. Once that first step towards establishing a frame of reference for communication is made, everything else can fall into place. It's that first step that sets up understanding that's key. Like how European settlers were able to establish communication with the American Indians, which has always fascinated me. I know I'm obsessed with communication and its means and possibilities, but I feel like the same principles in which we can find a common ground of understanding between humans and a gorilla can be used in finding a common ground with autistic people, or those whose perceptions exist differently from the majority.

They say that my brother is an extraordinary case because he's PDD but can understand the connection between emotion as the murky, amorphous shades of color, texture and feeling from within, and the two-dimensional symbols which they are represented by and referred to within communication. But it took a long time, and a lot of patience in trying to figure out what symbols meant to him and what meanings he attached to things, in order to flip that switch that made him understand what was represented by what. It all comes down to that first step, that first epiphany regarding relationships of symbols and what they represent, when we realize a=1, b=2, etc., forming some sort of constant for interpretation, then everything else can be deciphered.

By the way, English was created by idiots.

My family was in town this weekend so the weekend was really tame. The highlights:

-we went to Irvine for my cousin Austin's 6th birthday. We were playing a game he got, BeyBlades (?) where these spinning tops things have to knock each other out of a plastic ring. I told him that whoever loses 3 times has to do a lap around his street (he lives on a court so it's not so bad). I lost so I had to do the lap. I told him I can run faster than Kobe and he didn't believe me so he said he would time me. He insisted on counting "in his brain." So I did the lap which took no more than 30 seconds and when I hit the "finish line," he was totally impressed. He said, "Wow! You took...11 minutes. You ARE faster than Kobe." Kids, man. I love kids.

-While my brother and I were waiting for my parents who were seeing a Chinese chiropractor, we found a Goodwill store. He got a $3 Bush CD (which I thought was overpriced for Bush) and I got 13 books for $7.96. God bless Goodwill.

-We met up with my mom's friend and her son for lunch. Her son asked me how I like living in LA. I said, "I hate it." My brother, enthusiastic to join the conversation, pipes up, "Oh I know why, Julia. It's because 1. People are impatient. 2. They drive crazy. And 3. GAY." I'm like, WHOA WHOA WHOA. NOT Number 3. I think he misunderstood me when we had driven through West Hollywood on our way to lunch and I was telling my parents how this was the center of the gay community and look...all those beautiful men...two by two...those amazing bodies........*sigh*........it makes me want to cry...... Sometimes I forget that I have to be very careful about the things I say around Michael because he's so literal.

- I was sitting next to my mom during lunch. She's not the most attentive person, so I kept taking things off her plate and eating them when she wasn't looking, confusing her as to why her plate was empty when she'd just served herself something. At one point, she served herself a dumpling. She put it on her plate but was more engaged in the conversation with her friend, so while she was reaching to put the serving spoon back, I speared it and put it on my plate. She picked up her chopsticks and went for the dumpling; she looked at her empty plate, confused for a brief second before picking up the serving spoon and getting another one without really concerning herself with where her dumpling went. She put another one on her plate, her eyes fixed on her friend. As she was putting the serving spoon back, I speared the second dumpling from under her arm and put it on my plate. She put the serving spoon back and looked down to find her plate empty; I could tell she was confused and a little worried, wondering if she had actually gotten a dumpling or if she was in the midst of brain deterioration. Her friend asked her a question so her attention got pulled back into the conversation; she reached for the serving spoon and got another dumpling. She put it on her plate and I speared this one too, putting it on my plate as she put the serving spoon back. As she animatedly told her friend some gossip without looking down at her plate, I watched her absently poking her chopsticks at the place on her plate where the dumpling should have been, trying to pick it up without looking down. Finally she noticed that something was amiss and looked down to find her plate empty, and a mound of dumplings with stab wounds in the middle of mine.

My review of Collateral:

Tom Cruise puts in a solid bid for the Best Running Oscar, while Jamie Foxx is in the fight of his life against getting cockblocked. This movie was low on suspense and high on lack of sense. For example, Tom Cruise chases Jamie Foxx through the streets of LA. Now what made that white boy think he could catch a black guy? Furthermore, what made Tom Cruise's assassin think he could find his mark, an Asian guy, in a crowded Asian dance club? Hell, I don't think even I could find a specific Asian guy in a crowded Asian dance club. Unless maybe...if he were wearing a blindingly white shirt and had a glaring spotlight on him. Oh wait, he WAS wearing a blindingly white shirt with a glaring spotlight on him? My bad.

*******************

Today I had a shitty day. Shitty in that, the weirdest things kept happening. Weird unpleasant things. But that's okay. You know how they say that when you lose money (like lose your wallet, or money falls out of your pocket), you're actually kind of paying off that great wheel of fortune to prevent something really bad from happening? Well, I think sometimes when you have shitty days and weird things happen to you, and by weird, I mean like, things that bystanders point and snicker about, you're putting a down payment on being protected from something really bad, like being maimed in an accident.

I also want to confess about something that I found kind of creepy from last weekend. I was at a club downtown and this guy started banging a girl in a dark corner nearby. He and I made eye contact and he recognized me as the girl he had tried to talk to earlier in the night. So he points at me and growls, "You..." Grinning with his eyes fixed on me, he hits her harder and more deliberately as if to say, "This could have been you." I left soon thereafter. It made me feel really dirty.

Today's mood: Afraid of full moons and black cats

Peja is demanding a trade: http://msn.foxsports.com/story/2643502

Obviously, the kid misses Vlade.

So I just about salivated over the thought of one of my favorite players, the best pure shooter in the NBA, going to a team with a quality big guy.

Here are my scenarios:

1. Miami - Miami sends Eddie Jones, Dorell Wright and a 1st rd draft pick. Pros: Can you imagine that team? You've got the big guy with the inside game (Shaq), the Kamikaze who can pass or penetrate (Wade) and the pure shooter (Peja). This team will FUCK. YOU. UP. Sac gets another pure shooter. Dorell is a project, but he's young. Cons: Eddie's ridiculous contract. Eddie is old and injury proned. Miami gets the better deal.

2. Portland - Portland sends Shareef, DA and scrub for Peja and Christie. Pros: Shareef has made it very clear he is not putting on a Blazer uniform, so Portland has itself a "situation." Christie, while an club favorite, has been shopped around this off season. Assuming that Bobby Jackson is healthy next year, they get another scorer in DA, but will miss Christie's defense. Nevertheless, Shareef bolsters the frontcourt exponentially more than Ostertag will. Portland's starting 5: Mighty Mouse/Van Exel, Christie, Peja, Zack Randolph, Ratliff. They're young and competitive, with weapons on both ends of the court. Cons: Shareef plays the same position as a little crybaby named CWebb. They could move him to the 3 spot, but that's what pissed him off about playing in Portland. He's a post-up guy who is too good to come off the bench.

3. Houston - Houston sends Jimmy Jackson, Reece Gaines and a draft pick. Pros: Sacramento likes Jimmy, Reece has played extremely well in summer league, etc. but more importantly, how SICK would it be to have a lineup of T-Mac, Peja and Yao?!? Cons: Yeah, right. Jimmy is great but getting up in the years. Reece has yet to prove anything in the league. Sac would give up a star for a has-been and a possible bust.

4. Seattle - Seattle sends Ray Allen, Radman. Sac sends Peja and Songaila. Pros: Allen and Peja are the two best shooters in the NBA. So it's an even swap. Seattle would like to get rid of Radman though. Cons: Peja is gonna have a shitty time in Seattle. They've got no big guys. Every single shot of his is going to get contested.

5. Golden State - GS sends Jason Richardson and Mike Dunleavy. Pros: Sac gets an energy guy who keeps the fans excited and gets the merchandise (read: $$) off the shelves. Dunleavy is developing nicely and is versatile. He can play 4 positions and will fit in nicely with Sac's team mentality. Plus, these two can commiserate with CWebb about escaping the horror that is the Golden State organization. Golden State is also in desperate need of a pure / clutch shooter. Cons: GS has no offensive threat in the frontcourt. Troy Murphy is underrated and really bangs down there, but he also plays a lot facing the basket. GS would need an intimidating force of some kind in the paint to pull the pressure off of Peja. Just like in Seattle, every shot of his is going to get contested. At least he has a better supporting cast though, in GS. And he would be the uncontested star here.

6. Cleveland - Cavs send Ilgauskas and Dajuan Wagner. Wagner is a bit like Bobby Jackson when he's healthy. He's quick and can score at will. Ilgauskas, also when healthy, is a damn good center and shoots his free throws pretty well. A lineup of Snow, LeBron, Peja, Gooden sounds like a pretty good start. Maybe they'll be this year's Denver. Cons: Sac has too many big men. They just committed money to Ostertag. Bring in Ilgauskas and you have two very good centers (Brad Miller). Wagner would be attractive to Sac as he'd do well in the run-and-gun game, but they will be missing a reliable perimeter player.

7. LA Lakers - Lakers sign and trade Malone and Kareem Rush. Pros: Peja gets to be with Vlade, so he stops pouting. Sac gets another great shooter in Rush, as well as a veteran presence and another great big man adept at passing. Cons: This is weird. Rivals swapping stars. Again, Malone plays the same position as CWebb, the supposed "franchise player." You see a pattern here? (GET RID OF WEBBER! NO TEAM WILL RIDE TO THE CHAMPIONSHIP ON HIS SHAKY LEGS AND SHAKIER HEART) Trading your star for a guy who will come off the bench? (As Malone would behind Webber) No way. Sac would probably prefer Odom and Rush. But it's not likely they'd be willing to let the Lakers have one of their best players.

8. New Jersey - Nets send Kidd. Pros: Peja goes to the East Coast so he doesn't terrorize Sac. Kidd comes to the West Coast so he doesn't terrorize New Jersey. Kidd is somewhat close to his hometown, to which he has wanted to return. Cons: Both teams would give themselves big problems. Sac would have the best backcourt in the NBA with Kidd, Bibby, Jackson and Christie in rotation. New Jersey would have Peja, who plays the same position as Jefferson, but no point guard. More likely, NJ would want Bibby to be included, but Sac would want Jefferson. A swap of each teams PGs and SFs? Well, it's a possibility. But a highly unlikely possibility.

Great article with Zach Braff about Garden State:

http://suicidegirls.com/words/Zach+Braff+-+Garden+State/


Today I took a ridiculous spill. I went to the chiro this morning and on my way back to work, I stopped by Starbucks to see if any of the gang was working. I was walking back to my car when I tripped about 5 feet away on an uneven crack in the parking lot pavement. This is a slow-motion breakdown of the following sequence:

1. I pitched across the lot, flinging the contents of my cup against my door which I had just had detailed, along with the rest of my car, spraying it with coffee before...
2. Momentum carried me along the projectile of my cup until my shoulder clunked against the side of the door.
3. I managed to gain some footing in an effort to at the very least, not end this graceful sequence by crumbling to the ground, but as I put my weight down on my left foot, my ankle twisted out from under me, and I went spinning the other way, landing on the cushion that is my right knee cap.

Thankfully, an Escalade was blocking the store's view of me so no one really saw, except for the woman in the Escalade, whose adorable son had just thrown a tin cannister of mints in my face a few minutes before while waiting in line. "Are you okay? Are you hurt?" she asked. "No ma'am," I said, crawling into my car. It's just my pride.

I'm an idiot.

Am I Crazy from Being Home Alone, Or Am I Home Alone Because I'm Crazy?

So my roommate has been out of town for a few days. Rather than inviting over all of the internet's sexual deviants and the freaks waiting at 3 am bus stops for debauched orgies and crack parties, I've been rather mellow and tame. But I'm wondering if being left to myself has brought out the neurotic in me.

I wanted to go to Best Buy after work to get some digital 8 tapes. I thought I might go to the gym afterwards, so I was dressed down in warmup pants, a t-shirt and a baseball cap. I was getting ready to go but didn't like my t-shirt. I changed into a different t-shirt and got into my car. But then I realized that I was wearing flip flops, but needed to wear gym shoes. So I went back upstairs and changed shoes. While changing shoes, I decided that I didn't like that my t-shirt was slightly wrinkled from being lumped inside the clean laundry basket. I threw the shirt into the dryer for a few minutes for a quick-fix to ironing it out. It took me another test run, but I figured out that the dryer was broken, so I put the shirt back on. Looking in the mirror, I decided I could live with the wrinkles, but then noticed that my bra could be seen quite clearly through the white shirt. I looked at it for a while, then decided it looked gaudy, so I headed into my closet to change my bra. At that point, it hit me that this was fucking insane. I'd suffered an anal-retentive implosion while trying to make a jot around the block to Best Buy for video tapes.

So I left, got in my car, and headed to Best Buy. Two blocks out, I decided I was lazy and didn't want to deal with the traffic of the less-than-two-miles-10 minute-drive-away store. So I turned back and said to myself, I'll go to 7-11. If they don't have them, I'll get them some other day. I passed by a park and was suddenly hit by the urge to take an evening stroll through a park, something I haven't done since my family did it together back when I was really, really young. I walked through the entrance and immediately experienced the euphoric shrieking of a woman on the swing set being pushed by her lover to the left, and two men on a grassy knoll praying towards Mecca to the right. I sat down in the grass and watched two courts of guys playing basketball. I was noticed by some of the guys shooting around because I was the only girl out there, so they started acting all swoll, quickly glancing over at me when they made a shot or dunk to make sure I saw it, or staring at the ground and looking intense as they ran after the rebound if they missed.

At one point a college girl walked by. She was super dressed up and strutting down the catwalk that was the edge of the courts, demanding alpha attention. Halfway across, she starts whistling and yelling dramatically for her dog, who was only a couple of yards away, never breaking her strut. She was determined to be seen. She got her attention, but I was suprised when she didn't make another pass along the courts. If you're gonna get that dressed up and come up with a plan, you may as well maximize your hoochie exposure.

Heading back to my car, I saw a guy jumping on the plastic bridge of the plastic kiddie-pleasure fort in the playground. He would test it with his weight, and then start stomping on it. Up down up down with his hands on the rope handrail to support his weight, pounding on the bridge like he was convinced it was a trampoline that had morally wronged him. Then he would stop, testing it gingerly with his weight again, before repeating his masculine stomping ritual. He was so engaged with his project that he didn't notice me standing at the edge of the sand lagoon, staring at him. When he finally glanced up, his head jerked in surprise. "Are you trying to break that?" I asked, diabolically trying to keep my tone neutral so he couldn't quite tell if I was a mayhem co-conspirator or someone about to call the cops. He laughed the way my six year old cousin laughs, a reflex of innocence and happiness that bubbles up from the gut. He paused to grasp an answer before shyly saying, "No...it's just that...I haven't been on one of these things since I was a little kid. It's so springy it's amazing!"

I looked at him for a moment, at the guilty smile buried in his mischievous eyes, then burst out laughing.

"It looked really funny. And you did it for like 10 minutes and were so intense about it, you didn't notice anyone watching."

He laughed, lowering his head slightly but not breaking his glance. He had beautiful teeth.

"This must look weird...," he said.

"Oh no. I meant..." I fought a brief tug-of-war with my impulsivity. "It was really cute."

We stood there smiling at each other for a long moment, before I suddenly processed what I had said and panicked. I felt like a deer caught in headlights--I turned around and walked away, settling on tucking myself into a grove of trees by the basketball courts. I looked out at the stars for a little while. Or planes. I couldn't figure out if the dots were stars or planes. Then I started thinking about how those missing-until-the-dumped-body-is-found stories always start out with how the missing person's last known whereabouts was heading to or inside a park, so I left.

I finally hit Best Buy and got my videotapes. In line at the checkout, there were three middle-aged, working-class Hispanic guys in front of me. One was buying a DVD set of Tarzan and a documentary about pirates. I envisioned this guy going home, popping in a DVD about pirates and watching it with the contentment of having his children gathered around him. That vision gave me warm and fuzzy feelings. When you think about all the things that make people happy, all the different, random, unique things that can be drawn out of even difficult life paths that can bring a person contentment, it really points out how there are so many things that could be wonderful sources of peace and contentment that most people take for granted. Like watching a discount Pirate DVD after dinner with your family.

So then I finally made it home. 2 hours and 11 minutes after I first tried to get out the door to Best Buy, which is 10 minutes away. Now I've got a few hours of writing ahead of me and I'm off to bed.