Culture
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Super Sad True Love Story
The first week back at Post-Human Services is over and nothing terrible happened. Howard Shu hasn’t asked me to do any Intakes yet, but I’ve spent the week hanging out at the Eternity Lounge, fiddling with my pebbly new äppärät 7.5 with RateMe Plus technology, which I now proudly wear pendant-style around my neck, getting endless updates on our country’s battle with solvency from CrisisNet while downloading all my fears and hopes in front of my young nemeses in the Eternity Lounge, talking about how my parents’ love for me ran too hot and too cold, and how I want and need Eunice Park even though she’s so much prettier…
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What’s Wrong with this Picture?
I’ll tell you what’s wrong. It’s a Porsche. A Porsche Cayenne. Since when did Porsche get into the dorky car market? I thought Porsche was supposed to be sexy and fast and a fantasy car. This is SO not sexy or fantasy. Not sure if it’s fast. I saw one while I was out on my walk the other day, and I confess, I died a little bit inside. Porsche is driving fast at night under the full moon, top down. It’s tight corners and Risky Business and sex and loud music and fun. It’s hanging out at the ocean and smelling the salt air and hearing the waves. It’s…
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September 11 ~ Remembering Mr. Abad
Here we are again, and it’s September 11. Clearly this date will never be the same for any of us, just a simple day, perhaps a birthday or a wedding anniversary. Instead, we will all be brought back to that horrible morning in 2001, the day our lives changed. Back in 2006, I pledged to take part in the 2996 project, in honor of the 5th anniversary of that tragic day. Everyone who signed up was given a name of someone who died, and we promised to find something out about them, and write a bit about their lives, so that people will never forget them or what happened that…
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Good Book
I heard about David Plotz’s “Good Book: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, and Inspiring Things I Learned When I Read Every Single Word of the Bible” on To the Best of Our Knowledge, and it sounded like an interesting read. The premise is that Plotz was at his cousin’s Bat Mitzvah, and it was a long one, and he got bored, so he picked up the Bible and started reading. He opened randomly to the story of Dinah, Jacob’s daughter, who was raped by a young man from a neighboring town, who then wishes to marry her. He and his idol-worshiping father go to Jacob to ask for Dinah’s hand. …
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Skin Care Products
(Image found here. I did a search for ‘skin care’, and I was so horrified by what I found, that I couldn’t do anything but take a generic looking graphic. What was so offensive? Dozens, hundreds really, of pictures of white, mostly blonde, women in their 20s. One black woman, also in her 20s. One white man, also in his 20s. Skin care in your 20s is sunblock and zit creme. Totally not what I’m talking about here, in my mid-40s.) In your teens, your beauty regimen is all about nice hair and what color of eye shadow matches your top. But as you get older, it turns into skin…
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Bereavement
A couple of weeks ago, I was talking to one of the women on my Meals-on-Wheels route, Joan, and she told me that her doctor had put her on anti-depressants because she was depressed. She tried them for a day, and didn’t like the way they made her feel, and stopped taking them. I know that one day wasn’t enough time to determine whether they would work or not, and she’s not likely to find out. The thing is, the reason that she’s depressed? Her son died. He fell on the icy steps this winter, and broke his neck. She is understandably devastated. But she gets out of bed every…
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Curses!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPPMnYaCRTs[/youtube] After my walk this morning, I was cracking eggs into the pan for breakfast, when my work phone rang. Curses! Eggs don’t wait, what if this turned into a long complicated phone call, and my eggs overcooked! What to do? Well, no worry, because the phone call lasted about 30 seconds, my eggs were fine (much to Genevieve’s disappointment), and all was right with the world. But in that split second, when the phone was ringing and I was looking at my eggs, the following popped into my head: Mojo Jojo: Now to have some breakfast! [He finds only one egg in the fridge] Mojo Jojo: ONE EGG LEFT?!…
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Macabre Humor
There’s an old wives’ tale that deaths come in threes, especially the deaths of famous people. So, I’ve decided to have a sick sort of game, where anyone who is interested lists three people you think will die between today, June 1, 2010, and the end of the month, June 30, 2010. They don’t need to be people that you wish were dead, but they should be people that most of us would know without Googling their name. So, in the comments, give me your guesses. Three famous people you think will day this month. If someone gets all three correct, I’ll send the police to their house, because you…
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Thank You
To those who have given their lives, or had their lives taken from them (as Andy Rooney said on 60 Minutes), in defense of our country, in defense of our liberties. Thank you is so little, yet it is all I can think of to say. Thank you also, for the sacrifice of their families, who never again will hear that beloved voice, feel that cherished hug, see that beloved face, of their husband, wife, son, daughter, father, or mother. Aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, grandchild, friend. The relationships broken apart by war are endless. The reality of war profane. I hate it. I think we all hate it. None more…
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Three Cups of Tea
A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has. ~ Margaret Mead In 1993 Greg Mortenson was the exhausted survivor of a failed attempt to ascend K2, an American climbing bum wandering emaciated and lost through Pakistan’s Karakoram Himalaya. After he was taken in and nursed back to health by the people of an impoverished Pakistani village, Mortenson promised to return one day and build them a school. From that rash, earnest promise grew one of the most incredible humanitarian campaigns of our time — Greg Mortenson’s one-man mission to counteract extremism by building schools, especially for girls, throughout the breeding…
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The Ultimate Urban Legend?
(picture found here) From Wikipedia: An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or, more accurately, a contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of apocryphal stories believed by their tellers to be true. As with all folklore and mythology, the designation suggests nothing about the story’s factuality or falsehood, but merely that it is in non-institutional circulation, exhibits variation over time, and carries some significance that motivates the community in preserving and propagating it. For a hundred and fifty years, hearing the words, “Donner Party” has meant one thing. Cannibalism. I’m not sure when people learn about the Donner Party in other parts of the country, but if…
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Friday Randomness
Diving right on in here… I am sick to death of TVs every-damn-where. (If you’re not supposed to split infinitives, you’re probably REALLY not supposed to split a word in half, but I don’t care. Sue me.) I hate going to restaurants where they have a TV set up, and it’s happening at more and more places. Some decent places even. Not that Carls Jr is what I would call a decent place, but really? TV? And California Pizza Kitchen, and so many other places. There was a nice pasta place down the street, and they put in a big TV, and then it closed. Wonder if the TV did…
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March Forth!
Today is National Grammar Day! To celebrate, I’m freely cribbing a list of grammar myths from Grammar Girl, for your enjoyment. Full credit to Grammar Girl, though I might add a few comments here and there… Grammar Girl’s Top 10 Language Myths: 10. A run-on sentence is a really long sentence. Wrong! They can actually be quite short. In a run-on sentence, independent clauses are squished together without the help of punctuation or a conjunction. If you write I am happy I am glad* as one sentence without a semicolon, colon, or dash between the two independent clauses, it’s a run-on sentence even though it only has six words. 9.…
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Healthy Choices
I recently read a book that I thought might be good for the parents of any teen. Especially girls, but boys as well. It was recommended to me by a friend, who was particularly impressed by the section on how dieting does NOT work, and that especially in teens who are still growing, it usually leads to the body ‘resetting’ at a higher weight. So teens who diet are likely to end up weighing more than they might have otherwise. Any teen thinking about going on a diet might think twice if given this information. This books appears to be mostly common sense, but completely against what the consumer culture…
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Strange Fruit
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZyuULy9zs[/youtube] Strange Fruit Southern trees bear strange fruit, Blood on the leaves and blood at the root, Black body swinging in the Southern breeze, Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees. Pastoral scene of the gallant South, The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth, Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh, Then the sudden smell of burning flesh! Here is fruit for the crows to pluck, For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck, For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop, Here is a strange and bitter crop. I had never heard this song before, nor did I know the story behind it. I was listening…