|
|
I'm The One That I Want by Margaret Cho. I was so disappointed that I couldn't make the book fair at UCLA last weekend with my friend Tracey, so she thought to buy the book for me. I missed the one-woman show when I lived in New York, but Tracey and I went to see the film last fall in Santa Monica. If you want to know how much my friends rock, Tracey even had it autographed:
Erica
Good luck in New York!
-Margaret Cho
. . .
I'm also still reading Simple Indulgence: Easy, Everyday Things to Do for Me by Janet Eastman. I'm such a dork, I keep reading the quotes and ideas, but not doing the journalling portion.
__________
|
| "..." |
"Someday we'll find it
the rainbow connection
the lovers, the dreamers and me
alllll of us under it's spell."
-Kermit THE Frog
__________
|
|
Stuck in my head:
"Boogie-oogie-oogie get down."
Thank you, Disco Stu! (My favorite Simpsons sight gag-cum-character.)
I heard Britney Spears' "Bottom of My Broken Heart" while making a selection from the feminine hygeine aisle at Wal Mart and exclaimed, "Fucking Britney Spears...Gah!"
That's one of the videos I had to watch about a million times to select snippets for the web site and the enhanced CD single. Ever hearing it again is too much, too soon.
__________
|
|
The Simpsons, The Sopranos & Armistead Maupin's Further Tales of the City. I didn't even realize there were making another one, I just happened to see it listed. I'm going to have to finish the book series now, as I think I've only read through the fourth book and this mini-series is based on the third book.
__________
|
|
While you're visiting the Gallery of Regrettable Food, don't miss Meat!. This one in particular made me laugh until I couldn't breathe. "Sometimes meat likes to dress up and feel pretty."
Swanson Parade of Lost Identity -- women who, in probably their only 15 minutes of fame, were for the most part known only as Mrs. HisLastName.
. . .
Co-Author of The Rules to divorce! So you can't manipulate a man into marrying and staying married to you? Perhaps you have to come into it as two individuals and show who you really are from the beginning? I guess this means that no amount of growing your hair long, pretending not to be smart or funny, and "training" a man will make for a happy marriage.
. . .
Ever wonder where that dollar bill's been? Mine was in Chicago two months ago.
. . .
__________
|
|
Another Elvis dream (I'm doing the Memphis section of my color scrapbook now, but I haven't got to Graceland yet), this one cannibalistic.
What started out as an autopsy to discover THE TRUTH, turned into Elvis Stew. It was rich and beefy. Ewwwwwwwww!
__________
|
|
Why is it that the same personality quirks are taken as crazy and stalky by some, while loveably wacky by others? Is there some litmus test for this, so I stop wasting my time?
__________
|
 |
now I'm blogging what I'm eating, whoa.
Still literate as of 9/29/2000 12:20:01 AM
__________
|
 |
just what I needed...another dorkblog.
Jeepers, creepers, I last used my peepers on 9/29/2000 12:24:59 AM
__________
|
 |
My trip photographs, they're better than expected. Now to get them all organized, it's only been a year!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Saturday, December 02, 2000
10:34 PM
 starting my holiday baking. Tomorrow I go to Dorothy's to make a ton of cookie dough and, we hope, some finished cookies. I got a head start last night. It was really surreal to do something as domestic as baking cookies while watching Fight Club. It's just not a milk and cookies kinda movie.
Salem tries to get in on the hot baking action.
The checkerboard cookies. They're pretty easy to make and look so fancy. This year I just didn't feel like making the 9 square checkerboards. It's really hard to cut 18 nearly-identical strips of dough.
This is the pan of shortbread cookies before they were cut. I prefer this kind, with the fluted edges, it looks fancier when they're cut.
Here the shortbread are ready for packing and giving.
These shortbread were made according to the instructions in a new cookbook I bought (since all of mine are in San Francisco). They were made inside a cake pan, the edges pleated with a fork. I prefer the way I did the other ones, but I didn't think of it until I made the second half.
. . .
The Boy had his last two soccer games today, one at 8 and one at 2. I am the notorious sleep through anything woman (except the morning screaming litany, actually), so I didn't go to the first one. I had been up until 5 redesigning this site, Erica Jackson and John's site. I didn't do any of the revisions on my To Do list, of course, but was inspired to do a ton of different things. Unfortunately, I designed the section pages for content I haven't yet put up. Go figure.
After the game, we stopped at Pic 'N Save to get Christmas cards, or, rather I did. Mom and The Boy sat in the car while I shopped, she admonishing me to make it quick. Not going to happen. Pic 'N Save on a Saturday afternoon in December? Fuggeddabodit! It took me 20 minutes just to find someone to let me into the restroom.
I also wanted to get tins and/or boxes for the cookies and a few odds and ends. I ended up finding some Star Wars and DragonballZ stuff for The Boy, resisted the temptation to buy myself the Planet of the Ape (WTF? why now?) dolls, and managed to find some hair clippers. I can't seem to find mine anywhere and I'm too broke and tired of straightening mine.
An aside: I had a long, irritating conversation about my hair recently (all I did was mention I was cutting it back off) with someone I thought was a friend, but just has that glib ignorance only a white man can afford. FYI -- I don't keep my hair cut short to scare you because you're white or male or otherwise insecure and narrow-minded. I am allergic to the straightening chemicals and don't see the point in passing out from the pain, just so I can have hair that still isn't considered acceptable. What is "militant" or "lesbian" about letting my hair grow the way Mother Nature intended? That's prima facia discrimination, if you ask me.
So I'm sorry that you feel threatened or are so shallow as to judge me based on something so superficial. But hey, you're the one who ought to be sorry, since you're missing out on me as a person and as she who gives The World's Best Blowjob. If you want to go on believing I am a black militant (actualblack people reading this and sick of "sell outs" like me are choking on their coffee as they read that -- that's the white devil's legal speed you're drinking, by the way) man-hating dyke, because that's all your pea-brain can fathom, well, then there's nothing I can do about that.
Anyway, I put the clippers back because I wasn't sure if the $7.99 unheard of brand would be OK and didn't really have $16 for the Wahl. I figure I'll check in my boxes again, I'm sure I packed it. I am a bit afraid there is a box missing, as several broke and I've yet to find my Dramarama scrapbook. That would relaly break my heart, but since there is no place to put my stuff if I were to unpack, it all remains in boxes. I lost the packing list somewhere on my trip and forgot to make a copy and send it ahead to my mom. Damn it all to hell.
Wow, there's a strange blend of holiday cheer, Ericaism/feminism and the still unsettled mania from moving across country.
. . .
When we got home today, since we forgot to check the mail yesterday, the mailbox was stuffed with catalogs and cards. I could do without the former, but the latter were all surprises. I knew they were coming, but Netra's cards take forever from South Africa and I thought Pamie would take much, much longer to get hers done, since she sent out a ton. She is so efficient! It puts the rest of us to shame.
(Left to Right) Christmast card from Pamie, handmade card from South Africa (Thank you Netra!), Frosty gift box, Zulu love letter keychain (also from Netra), angel gift box, "African Ecstacy" postcard (Netra, too).
She said she also had a little elephant for me as well, but it refused to get into the envelope.
I say this every year, but wow! The holidaze came quickly this year. I always end up waiting too long to get a job or to get organized to sell cookies this time of year. Gosh darn it!
I blame school, since, by the time it's over, it's too late to get a job or a second job, do your cards and baking or even much shopping. Plus, I always get the flu right after finals, if not during.
Now off to bed am I, so I can get up at 7:15 or so to take the bus to meet Dorothy for the bake-o-rama.
[ link to this ]
+ + +
Friday, December 01, 2000
2:35 PM
going to get tested on Monday. I was up far too late and slept in and now am in those final minutes of freedom before my brother gets home and thus can't go anywhere or do anything.
Although I knew better, I had unprotected sex with at least four partners. In one case, we'd known each other for five years and just came to a mutual agreement; we had no reason to do so, neither of us having been tested in the recent past. I'd been tested when we first dated, but I was a virgin at the time, so there'd been no point, except as an assignment in my AIDS class. It was my Junior year of college, my first year away from "home." One of my roomates and her boyfriend went with me, all of us doing so as if on a lark, knowing the results would be negative.
The other three thought it was cute to take the condom off and plunge back into me, though I'd made my feelings about condoms quite clear. Each had agreed in advance to abide by my wishes, in fact stating that they agreed whole-heartedly.
One of these claimed to be an IV drug user and HIV-positive male prostitute, after we had sex. Of course, he also claimed to be a vampire and pulled a knife and jewel-encrusted goblet out of nowhere with which to drink my blood. He had, apparently, read far too many Ann Rice novels. He committed himself a few days later. I've always wondered if everything he said was a dellusion, or if what I feared most was all-too real. I've been afraid to find out the truth, but really, it's something I ought to know.
Find HIV testing near you. It's often free. I suggest anonymous over confidential.
[ link to this ]
+ + +
Thursday, November 30, 2000
2:10 PM
not the kind of person who forwards or even reads mass emails and I'm terribly late in saying anything about the election. I was just too blown away. This email I received (from Dorothy) really sums up what I found so disturbing.
In America, we're all about the horse race, we so often overlook the bigger issues. In this election, the biggest issues for me were nepotism (and a real sense of the existence of unseen puppet masters, as say, in "Being There") and the Supreme Court. I always worry about the court, as they can interpret the laws any way they see fit. Or look the other way if they don't want to be bothered.
What I also don't understand is this insistence that "liberals" control the media (big corporations control most media outlets) and want to be the thought police and are the real oppressors. I don't see power-hungry, PC liberals heading the FBI or CIA.
Anyone who says that liberalism=repression doesn't have the same dictionary as me. Nor are they living in the same world I am, but then, I have no doubt what the "most-despised caste" referred to below is. No matter how much I genuinely identify as something quite different based on my parentage, upbringing and personal interests/accomplishments, I am constantly reminded that I am not welcome in my own country, that I'm not a "real" American.
Further, I'm reminded of just how elementally race, sex and gender are viewed in this country, because a simple conversation about cutting my hair off leads people to suggest I wear dread locks, because at least that's better than looking like a dyke. How often do people suggest you wear dread locks? Last time I checked, I wasn't any part Jamaican. That I face this sort of ignorance every fucking day, no matter if I live in New York City or here in the boondocks is testament to how far we've yet to go.
I'm not saying Al Gore was the perfect candidate, though I think calling him a child of privilege to deflect that criticism of Bush was absurd. As Fabulana pointed out, you can't help being born rich, any more than you can help being born poor. You do, however, have absolute control over what you do with that privilege. Deciding at age 50 that you suddenly want to be President of the United States when you've done nothing but serve yourself is more than a little fishy to me.
As for the hotly-attested outcome to this "race," am I the only one who finds it more than a little strange that, in an election in which so many people complained beforehand that there was little or no difference between the candidates (and with so many tit-for-tat comparisons offered by the Bush camp to deflect criticism), that the race would be so close and that the deciding state would be that in which Bush's brother is Governor? This is just terribly disturbing to me, almost as if someone wanted to make it look close, though the outcome is already decided.
Anyway, the forward:
An interesting perspective
A Zimbabwe politician was quoted as saying that children should study the US election event closely because it shows that election fraud is not only a third world phenomena. To illustrate the point, he made the following comments;
"Imagine that we read of an election occurring anywhere in the third world in which the self-declared winner was the son of the former prime minister and that former prime minister was himself the former head of that nation's secret police (the CIA).
Imagine that the self-declared winner lost the popular vote but won based on some old colonial holdover from the nation's pre-democracy past (the electoral college).
Imagine that the self-declared winner's 'victory' turned on disputed votes cast in a province governed by his brother!
Imagine that the poorly drafted ballots of one district, a district heavily favoring the self-declared winner's opponent, led thousands of voters to vote for the wrong candidate.
Imagine that members of that nation's most despised caste, fearing for their lives/livelihoods, turned out in record numbers to vote in near-universal opposition to the self-declared winner's candidacy.
Imagine that hundreds of members of that most-despised caste were intercepted on their way to the polls by state police operating under the authority of the self-declared winner's brother.
Imagine that six million people voted in the disputed province and the self-declared winner's 'lead' was only 327 votes. Fewer, certainly, than the vote counting machines' margin of error.
Imagine that the self-declared winner and his political party opposed a more careful by-hand inspection and re-counting of the ballots in the disputed province or in its most hotly disputed district.
Imagine that the self-declared winner, himself a governor of a major province, had the worst human rights record of any province in his nation and actually led the nation in executions.
Imagine that a major campaign promise of the self-declared winner was to appoint like-minded human rights violators to lifetime positions on the high court of that nation.
None of us would deem such an election to be representative of anything other than the self-declared winner's will-to-power. All of us, I magine, would wearily turn the page thinking that it was another sad tale of pitiful pre- or anti-democracy peoples in some strange third world sewer."
[ link to this ]
+ + +
6:52 PM
rubbing my eyes in disbelief. What an unfortunate typo/foreshortening of this TV listing:
[ link to this ]
+ + +
7:00 PM
very tempted to appropriate the banner ad I'm seeing on NetZero right now:
The Holiday Gift That's Guaranteed to Fit!
Snap-On
Buy Your Tools Online.
Can you see how easily that's converted? Really, I only have to change a few letters and whammo!
Strap-On
Instant vibrations.
[ link to this ]
+ + +
7:51 PM
confused by people who piss and moan about not having anyone to go out with, to do things with, but who turn me down everytime I suggest we hang out. I know what it's like to be lonely, and I know part of it comes from just not understanding vast numbers of people. Still, it's curious to me when people who say they enjoy my company eschew it in favor of whining about not having enough companions their own age. Feh!
[ link to this ]
+ + +
Tuesday, November 28, 2000
11:45 AM
such a procrastinator. I was up until 3:30 last night finishing my Microsoft Access projects. For a measly 10 points (well, 15 counting half credit for the assignment that's a week late, natch), it's a lot of work.
Plus, we have to do a cover sheet and bonus points are awarded for a creative or funny cover sheet. On one cover sheet I received 10 bonus points (equal to an entire homework assignment!), but none on any of the others. I swear, I end up spending more time on the damn cover sheets than I do on the assignments, wheres are a breeze.
The pressure to be either funny or creative is killing me, especially since my A is so weak. I've got to consistently get As from here on out if I'm to get an A in the course. Damn that one 84% quiz. I just hope I don't get any lower than that, as the lowest quiz grade will be dropped at the end. Of course, the 20 points I've lost for late or missing homework would have raised that grade to a 100% and boosted a couple of other low '90s scores or given me a bit of a cushion for any possible future lower grades.
It's silly really, because I could get an F on the final and still get a B and that should be OK. Still, I'd like to get an A in this course because it's possible, which I don't think it is in my two remaining classes (I earned more than 100% in my Photoshop class, don't ask me how).
One more worrisome thing (not very, but unsettled nonetheless) is the group project. I hatehatehate group projects. I've never had one in a course I was doing poorly in so I could perhaps learn from one of the better students. No, of course not. They always seem to be assigned for courses in which I'm doing well, so I only stand to lose.
Look, there are some dumb ass people in this class. OK, I shouldn't say that. I mean, who I am? I've been using computers since the early 80s, I could probably know a lot more about how they operate. However, our tests so far have been pretty easy. For the Word test, we had to lay out a document based on a print out of the document and step-by-step instructions. I only missed two points on that because some of my bullets came out a different size, a problem everyone seemed to have. (In fact, she might give us back those points, as it might have been a glitch in the computer.)
Granted, I've used Word for at least 7 years that I can remember, so it's terribly easy to me. However, it's not a technical program, like Excel or Access and yet we spent more time on it than any other unit so far. I think we spent over a month on Word alone and we had 4 labs in which to learn the software. A group of about 5 of us earned 98 points (due to the bullet thing) on the test and several others scored above 90. The class average was 74. That means there were lots of 50s and 60s.
I just don't want to have a 200 point (out of 1000) project hinging on the work of other people. I hate that. I've still never forgiven a girl who failed me on a group project in 8th grade. We were doing a mock trial and I'd written all the arguments, but, being shy, asked her to deliver them. In exchange, we were to switch duties for the closing argument. She didn't write it, so I had to do it in the 5 minutes before class and try to deliver the damn thing. She got a better grade than I did, even though I'd done most of the written work.
In college, I had more than a few group projects where I had to take on more and more of the work, as it became clear that the others in the group weren't going to do much or do it well. I seriously doubt the professor will put all of the A students in one group, so I've either got to do all the work (at least for myself as a back up) or settle for a crappy grade.
I never said I wasn't an elitist. I just do it based on a combination of intelligence and common sense rather than, say, the far more common (yet utterly arbitrary) measures of wealth, class, sex or color. Stupid is an equal opportunity job.
[ link to this ]
+ + +
12:01 PM
amazed at how relevant this entry remains, despite the major changes I've made. I'm watching Being John Malkovich again and enjoying the very same scene, Autumn in New York is out, I was disappointed by another Blair Witch Project.
. . .
I'm just glad I'm not at that job anymore. Things are starting to come together, seeds that were sown then have started to blossom. It hasn't all come to fruition yet, but soon and for the rest of my life.
[ link to this ]
+ + +
|
| |
|
