Suddenly, this year, I no longer care about the Oscars. Why might this be? I can remember a time when I wouldn't miss the awards shows -- any of them. And so far I haven't watched one this year. I don't think I even know who's nominated.
Meanwhile, in other awesomeness, it's supposed to snow again here. I shouldn't really complain, since we've seen almost no snow this year, but now I'm spoiled.
I am almost finished with the class I am taking; I had a practical exam today that went as well as could be expected, given the instructor's unrelenting criticism and insistence on standing over one while one is attempting to execute the most difficult parts of the day's assignments. I'll be glad when this one is over.
Anyway, that's all I've got right now.
Oh, I almost forgot; how do you suppose this guy lists this on his resume??
25 February 2007
23 February 2007
"why are you grown so rude?" a midsummer night's dream: iii, ii
So I was at the grocery store, picking up a few necessities the other day. Fairly normal stuff, in my life:
- baking chocolate, for melting to practice writing in chocolate (for writing or drawing on pastries)
- deodorant, for keeping me so fresh and so clean clean
- tampons, for the usual reason
I got to the checkout, and it was just about 5pm, so it was busy, a line of people behind me. Now, I'm not the kind of person who is embarrassed to buy tampons; it is a fact of life and nothing to be embarassed about. Maybe it was marginally unfortunate that the same day I bought them I also bought chocolate and deodorant, but frankly, I wasn't thinking about it all that much; I needed what I needed. But the check out gal, upon getting to my order, actually stopped what she was doing and looked at me knowingly and said, "Awesome selection of products!" BE SERIOUS! C'mon, show a little discretion here, gal. I'm all for keeping it real, but mind your own damn business!
In other news of impoliteness, can anyone explain to me why anyone would go to a play and allow their cell phone to ring not once, not twice, but three times during the course of the show?? Things are getting out of hand.
- baking chocolate, for melting to practice writing in chocolate (for writing or drawing on pastries)
- deodorant, for keeping me so fresh and so clean clean
- tampons, for the usual reason
I got to the checkout, and it was just about 5pm, so it was busy, a line of people behind me. Now, I'm not the kind of person who is embarrassed to buy tampons; it is a fact of life and nothing to be embarassed about. Maybe it was marginally unfortunate that the same day I bought them I also bought chocolate and deodorant, but frankly, I wasn't thinking about it all that much; I needed what I needed. But the check out gal, upon getting to my order, actually stopped what she was doing and looked at me knowingly and said, "Awesome selection of products!" BE SERIOUS! C'mon, show a little discretion here, gal. I'm all for keeping it real, but mind your own damn business!
In other news of impoliteness, can anyone explain to me why anyone would go to a play and allow their cell phone to ring not once, not twice, but three times during the course of the show?? Things are getting out of hand.
08 February 2007
"though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe" king richard ii: ii, i
I wanted her to pull it together. Come to a realization, you know? Start taking better care of herself, now that she was a mom again, after losing her son. I thought it could happen; she could be the poster girl for Turning Things Around. She was out there, kind of a dumbass, trying to be the thing that she thought people wanted, pumping herself full of unhealthy chemicals, making poor decisions. But she was 39, it wasn't too late for her to have an epiphany about the direction her life was heading; so I believed. Guess I was wrong.
Not to say I admired her or necessarily felt sorry for her. But times like these, when I reflect on the life someone in the public eye who makes poor choices, like a model or an astronaut, I'm reminded of how we're all just doing the best we can. I make poor choices all the time - maybe not as spectacularly, maybe not on camera or with the end result of a restraining order, but I do. It's a struggle, making sound decisions, sometimes; we're such a muddled species. We know right from wrong but often Right doesn't "feel" right. Or it doesn't feel good, at any rate. Strange animals.
Anna Nicole: no doubt even in your death we haven't heard the last of you.
Not to say I admired her or necessarily felt sorry for her. But times like these, when I reflect on the life someone in the public eye who makes poor choices, like a model or an astronaut, I'm reminded of how we're all just doing the best we can. I make poor choices all the time - maybe not as spectacularly, maybe not on camera or with the end result of a restraining order, but I do. It's a struggle, making sound decisions, sometimes; we're such a muddled species. We know right from wrong but often Right doesn't "feel" right. Or it doesn't feel good, at any rate. Strange animals.
Anna Nicole: no doubt even in your death we haven't heard the last of you.
06 February 2007
"the stars above us govern our conditions" king lear: iv, iii
So by now, most of us have probably read about the Astronaut Love Triangle. Here are a few of the key points that stuck with me:
- The astronaut accused of the attempted kidnapping/murder/whatever it was she was going to do drove 900 miles to do it. That's NASA perseverence! (I guess when you've orbited the Earth 300 times, 900 miles starts to seem like a drive to the corner store.)
- "Inside a bag Nowak was carrying, the officer found a tan trench coat, a new steel mallet, a new folding knife with a 4-inch blade, 3 to 4 feet of rubber tubing, several large plastic garbage bags and about $600 in cash, the report said." That's the kind of preparedness we have come to expect from This Great Nation's aeronautical experts.
- "Inside the car, police found an a half dozen latex gloves, MapQuest directions from Houston to Orlando International Airport, e-mails from Shipman to Oefelein, diapers Nowak said she wore to reduce stops along the highway and a letter indicating how much she loved Oefelein." I don't think I need to elaborate on why this part stuck with me.
The woman in question is a married mother of 3. She and the man she was pursuing were on space missions together. This has Lifetime Movie of the Week written all over it. Seriously, it can't be far off. Is it wrong that my own version of the movie features Nowak, played by Courtney Cox, confronting the man, Bill Oefelein (played by Brent Spiner), and having a climatic final argument, and then driving to Kennedy Space Center, commandeering the Space Shuttle Atlantis, and blasting off, away from this crazy world, to the only place where she can truly be herself: Space.
I think it could work.
- The astronaut accused of the attempted kidnapping/murder/whatever it was she was going to do drove 900 miles to do it. That's NASA perseverence! (I guess when you've orbited the Earth 300 times, 900 miles starts to seem like a drive to the corner store.)
- "Inside a bag Nowak was carrying, the officer found a tan trench coat, a new steel mallet, a new folding knife with a 4-inch blade, 3 to 4 feet of rubber tubing, several large plastic garbage bags and about $600 in cash, the report said." That's the kind of preparedness we have come to expect from This Great Nation's aeronautical experts.
- "Inside the car, police found an a half dozen latex gloves, MapQuest directions from Houston to Orlando International Airport, e-mails from Shipman to Oefelein, diapers Nowak said she wore to reduce stops along the highway and a letter indicating how much she loved Oefelein." I don't think I need to elaborate on why this part stuck with me.
The woman in question is a married mother of 3. She and the man she was pursuing were on space missions together. This has Lifetime Movie of the Week written all over it. Seriously, it can't be far off. Is it wrong that my own version of the movie features Nowak, played by Courtney Cox, confronting the man, Bill Oefelein (played by Brent Spiner), and having a climatic final argument, and then driving to Kennedy Space Center, commandeering the Space Shuttle Atlantis, and blasting off, away from this crazy world, to the only place where she can truly be herself: Space.
I think it could work.
02 February 2007
"contemplation of my travels" as you like it: iv, i
If one makes one's final approach to Hell on a city bus, I think I know what that bus would be like, for I just stepped off of it.
I'll back up.
In Colonial days, there were two major port cities in what is now Rhode Island: Providence and Newport (though they were probably like "Providenfe" and "Newporte"). If I'm not mistaken, Newport was the primary one, but then Providence built up and became the main port for the colony. Newport and Providence now remain as sort of sister cities in this smallest of the states. Newport is a big summer city, but in the winter, not much is going on there. So in the winter, young folks who attend one of the schools in Newport might find themselves wanting to come into Providence for some Friday night revelry, and they might find themselves on the 10:00 bus from Newport to Providence in order to do so.
And in fact, so did I find myself on this bus on this very evening. I picked it up about halfway between Newport and Providence in the town where my parents live, not really thinking that there would be many people on the bus because there usually aren't at night. But tonight this was not the case.
First of all, I knew things weren't going to go well before I even got on the bus. I'm standing in the rain at the bus stop, which was clearly marked and well lit, and I see the bus approaching. Fast. Like, really fast - like, easily 50mph. Too fast to stop for me with any amount of safety awareness. So I put up my hand and wave it to indicate "I'm here and would like to board your bus, please," and I don't see the bus slowing down any, so my hand waving becomes more and more animated until the point where I am waving my arm fully extended back and forth very rapidly in a "Hey! Hey!! HEYYY!!" kind of way. As the bus breezes past me, I see the brake lights finally go on, and fully a block past me, the bus rolls to a screeching halt. I jog the block down the road and board the bus, and before I can say "good evening" to the beleaguered driver, I am greeted by a wall of sound. The bus is packed -- packed -- with kids. I say "kids" -- they may have been 21 or so, since they were all clearly headed out to the bars; however, since I turned 29 maybe 21 is starting to look like 19. What? Why would I even type that out??
Anyway, the bus is packed, and there is one lone seat all the way at the back of the bus, on the bench that crosses the whole back wall of the bus. So I pick my way over all the feet that are sprawled out in the aisle and before I can reach my seat, the bus lurches forward again and I trip over someone's feet and up the aisle. Lemme tell ya, it felt like the middle school school bus all over again. Could I be any more uncool?
I finally make it back to my seat, nestled amongst a group of boys who are all wearing the college sophomore guy uniform: American Eagle striped button down shirt with a wife-beater underneath, revealed by the shirt being buttoned only 2/3 of the way; some kind of neck accessory (hemp necklace, fashion crucifix, dog tags); spiked hair (but not in the cute way); ratty-ass faded blue jeans; and pristine Nike shoes. These guys all also have the fashion accessory that marks them as underage: the Poland Spring water bottle filled with a liquid that is clearly not water. I have my iPod in, so I can't hear their whole conversation, but they get particularly animated at one point and I hear this exchange about being picky eaters (apparently they all are): First guy says "Dude, that's why I cook at home. I watch that Rachel Ray shit and cook all my shit at home." (The other guys look at him in silence for a minute.) Second guy goes "all I know is, I've never eaten an olive, and I've never eaten a mushroom, and I'm not going to."
There was another group of young men whose fashion choices I simply could not fathom: two of the young men seemed to be very conscious of hip-hop style in all their clothing items except that they were wearing these jackets that had these child-like cartoon drawings of woodland creatures on them. One of them had a white background and the other had a royal blue background but other than that they matched. These two guys also had matching do rags except in opposite colors. It was adorable, like they called each other as they were getting dressed.
Also, in watching each individual group of people, I noticed that every one of them at some point seemed to have a conversation about their shoe choices, as I saw them all looking at each other's shoes and pointing and comparing.
Meanwhile I think the bus is about to careen off the road; the driver is either trashed or just so keen to unload this rowdy group that he couldn't keep his foot off the pedal.
As I got off the bus at my stop, the lone other passenger who clearly wasn't affiliated with this group of late-night party-goers got up behind me, crashed into me as the bus screeched to a halt so that I nearly fell down the steps, and asked the driver "Is this the airport?" I left the bus before I could hear the bus driver's response, though I am sure it was something along the lines of "You've got a long way to go to the airport; you're not even on the right bus."
I'll back up.
In Colonial days, there were two major port cities in what is now Rhode Island: Providence and Newport (though they were probably like "Providenfe" and "Newporte"). If I'm not mistaken, Newport was the primary one, but then Providence built up and became the main port for the colony. Newport and Providence now remain as sort of sister cities in this smallest of the states. Newport is a big summer city, but in the winter, not much is going on there. So in the winter, young folks who attend one of the schools in Newport might find themselves wanting to come into Providence for some Friday night revelry, and they might find themselves on the 10:00 bus from Newport to Providence in order to do so.
And in fact, so did I find myself on this bus on this very evening. I picked it up about halfway between Newport and Providence in the town where my parents live, not really thinking that there would be many people on the bus because there usually aren't at night. But tonight this was not the case.
First of all, I knew things weren't going to go well before I even got on the bus. I'm standing in the rain at the bus stop, which was clearly marked and well lit, and I see the bus approaching. Fast. Like, really fast - like, easily 50mph. Too fast to stop for me with any amount of safety awareness. So I put up my hand and wave it to indicate "I'm here and would like to board your bus, please," and I don't see the bus slowing down any, so my hand waving becomes more and more animated until the point where I am waving my arm fully extended back and forth very rapidly in a "Hey! Hey!! HEYYY!!" kind of way. As the bus breezes past me, I see the brake lights finally go on, and fully a block past me, the bus rolls to a screeching halt. I jog the block down the road and board the bus, and before I can say "good evening" to the beleaguered driver, I am greeted by a wall of sound. The bus is packed -- packed -- with kids. I say "kids" -- they may have been 21 or so, since they were all clearly headed out to the bars; however, since I turned 29 maybe 21 is starting to look like 19. What? Why would I even type that out??
Anyway, the bus is packed, and there is one lone seat all the way at the back of the bus, on the bench that crosses the whole back wall of the bus. So I pick my way over all the feet that are sprawled out in the aisle and before I can reach my seat, the bus lurches forward again and I trip over someone's feet and up the aisle. Lemme tell ya, it felt like the middle school school bus all over again. Could I be any more uncool?
I finally make it back to my seat, nestled amongst a group of boys who are all wearing the college sophomore guy uniform: American Eagle striped button down shirt with a wife-beater underneath, revealed by the shirt being buttoned only 2/3 of the way; some kind of neck accessory (hemp necklace, fashion crucifix, dog tags); spiked hair (but not in the cute way); ratty-ass faded blue jeans; and pristine Nike shoes. These guys all also have the fashion accessory that marks them as underage: the Poland Spring water bottle filled with a liquid that is clearly not water. I have my iPod in, so I can't hear their whole conversation, but they get particularly animated at one point and I hear this exchange about being picky eaters (apparently they all are): First guy says "Dude, that's why I cook at home. I watch that Rachel Ray shit and cook all my shit at home." (The other guys look at him in silence for a minute.) Second guy goes "all I know is, I've never eaten an olive, and I've never eaten a mushroom, and I'm not going to."
There was another group of young men whose fashion choices I simply could not fathom: two of the young men seemed to be very conscious of hip-hop style in all their clothing items except that they were wearing these jackets that had these child-like cartoon drawings of woodland creatures on them. One of them had a white background and the other had a royal blue background but other than that they matched. These two guys also had matching do rags except in opposite colors. It was adorable, like they called each other as they were getting dressed.
Also, in watching each individual group of people, I noticed that every one of them at some point seemed to have a conversation about their shoe choices, as I saw them all looking at each other's shoes and pointing and comparing.
Meanwhile I think the bus is about to careen off the road; the driver is either trashed or just so keen to unload this rowdy group that he couldn't keep his foot off the pedal.
As I got off the bus at my stop, the lone other passenger who clearly wasn't affiliated with this group of late-night party-goers got up behind me, crashed into me as the bus screeched to a halt so that I nearly fell down the steps, and asked the driver "Is this the airport?" I left the bus before I could hear the bus driver's response, though I am sure it was something along the lines of "You've got a long way to go to the airport; you're not even on the right bus."
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