Living Reflections from a Dream

out loud.

In Slate today I read:

that I'm never going to be able to read all the books I want to read before I die. And even if I want to read the ones I consider "must reads", I had better get a move on. Seriously, my Amazon wish list is over 150 books. I have at least 20 books in my house that I've never read (and today at the bookstore I actually looked at a book which consisted of lists of books to read for any mood. I don't that book. I could write that book). When am I going to have time for all this reading?? This having a job shit is taking up way too much time and getting in my way.-----
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Yesterday, when I should have been nanowrimo-ing, I was off to Walden Pond because it was so gorgeous out and Walden is too gorgeous not to go to...

but it's ok, because Friday during my 3 hour commute home from the training class (yes, 30 miles in 3 hours - brought to you by the lower deck and the Big Dig), I was moving at the pace of 2 ft. every 5 min. allowing me to actually open a notebook and start writing down character sketches and (gasp!) an outline for my nanowrimo novel, so I feel significantly ahead of the game (at least compared to last year). I also took pictures from the car:

If you look closely at the picture you will see cars not moving as far as the eye can see, if you could see behind my car you would also see cars not moving as far as the eye can see. And it's a bridge so there is no escape except driving over the edge, which I'm amazed hasn't happened. It took over an hour to get across this bridge.-----
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This morning I noticed a warning on the bottom of a dish I own. It said: Warning, Will Get Hot in Microwave. Seems to me if for the people who need such a warning, you may need to add the following: and you turn the microwave on.-----
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Consider buying your Thanksgiving apple pie from Pie in the Sky (a fundraiser to benefit Community Servings). Community Servings is an organization which provides meals to people suffering from aids. It's a win-win situation. You get a yummy pie, 4 people get a nice hot meal.-----
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of NaNoWriMo is not the day you want these things to happen:

- you break your coffee maker (for those of us who only have time to write early in the am, this is tramatizing!)
- decide to scrap your entire novel idea, all your characters and use another idea that has been brewing in the back of your mind for some time.

So while I somehow managed to crank out 1700 words this morning while caffeine deprived (on the sucky scale, they are probably a 10, but they are out there), it's not a good feeling to be on Day 4 and be 3 days behind.-----
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> Woman knocked unconscious by trampling shoppers

This is why I never shop on the Friday after Thanksgiving. This is why I'm a little afraid of even leaving my house the Friday after Thanksgiving. Because in the United States, Christmas has long since lost it's meaning as a time of peace and hope, but become the time of shopping, outdoing the gifts of others, and a time when mowing down another human being is inconsequential compared to the opportunity to get a DVD player for $29 (at the outrageous hour of 6am)*. We are a sad case. There is an interesting article in the Boston Globe today which describes Advent** in these terms: "there is no other time of the year when the Christian church feels so out of sync with our secular culture". Now it's all about how much we spend. How much will Christmas sales increase over last years disappointing year (by the way Christmas sales increased last year as well, just not as much as retailers had wanted, so it's a "bad" year). Already they say that Friday sales increased 4.8% over last years Friday sales. Everybody do the money dance! We have become the anti-Christmas and a sad state of affairs it is.

* This incident isn't even that unique, I would bet. I was at the Home Depot (my home away from home) on Friday and a clerk told me there had been a fight earlier in the day over a DVD/VCR/TV combo special they had. There were only 8 in the store and one person who bought one, couldn't fit it in her car so an altercation ensued where another customer insisted she couldn't buy it, so he should be able to buy it. He didn't think she should expect the store to hold it for her while she found some other way of getting it home.

** for our non-Christian friends, Advent is: The liturgical period preceding Christmas, beginning in Western churches on the fourth Sunday before Christmas and in Eastern churches in mid-November, and observed by many Christians as a season of prayer, fasting, and penitence. (Amy note: and fun calendars with doors that open for each day)-----
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The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled yesterday that it's against the MA state consitution to not allow gay or lesbian couples to marry. To which I say: duh! It's embarassing to say to my gay & lesbians friends: congradulations, you've been deemed valid to society (in one small state). As if they weren't valid all along. It has never made any sense to me why two adults who are committed to each other can't formalize their relationship legally. I will enjoy watching the conservatives get their panties in a twist about this one, but all the while I will wonder why. Why do they care how someone else lives their life if it isn't hurting anyone? Seriously: get your own life and get out of everyone elses! I know what some will say: it's morally wrong or the Bible says it's wrong (this would be the same Bible that says money is the root of all evil - yet our society worships it like a pagan god the first commandment forbids us to worship). Fine, people can have their religious beliefs, but last I checked (and despite the best efforts of Bush & Ashcroft) we still have separation of church and state. So keep your moral codes out of the law!

Of course our conservative governor swears to oppose this and get a constitutional amendment declaring marriage is between a woman and a man because "the santicty of marriage must be preserved." I say: who said you get to define what marriage is? Every marriage is unique, so how can you put one big label on it and say definintively: my way is the right way? I especially love the people who say marriage has to be between a man and a woman to allow for procreation and the raising of children. Should assume that heterosexual couples who chose not to have children are in invalid marriages? What if they can't have children? The bottom line is you bible thumpers don't get to define the right way for humans to relate to each other, you only get to define that in your own relationships. You don't chose who you love and gay, straight, white, black, purple or yellow, if you're lucky enough to find someone to love, you should be able to show that to the whole world.-----
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Guys: DO NOT say the following to a woman (at least an intelligent, evolved one. Seriously, if this line works on someone, you should seriously doubt the quality of the person you're talking to):

I really like you. I was going to make you wait to go out with me, but I'm moving you up because I'm like a kid in a candy store: I see it, I want it, I get it.

My response: :o mouth wide open.

This is wrong on so many levels. Although I do do exhibit many candy like qualities, I am not a piece of candy for some dufus guy to decide whether or not he is going to get. Not only do I resent the implication that he is the decision maker, I resent that the female in this case is a possesion. I'm well aware that I am a dickhead magnet, but am I wearing a sign? Is it so hard for guys to be normal?-----
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There is Halloween candy left over...

I have just done the bravest thing I can do in this circumstance. I put all the candy in a bag and put that bag in the freezer. Monday I will defrost and take the bag to work where the candy will get scarfed up in about 30 sec. I guess I could throw the candy away, but that is just too horrible to think about.-----
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- everything you could ever want to know about mortgages (and when I started I didn't know what a point was).

- real estate agents are blood sucking bottom dwellers that outright lie and omit important information if it suits them. All they are in it for is the check. Learn about the home buying process before diving in. Ask all the questions you want and don't let them blow the questions off.

- I am a far worse candle-a-holic than I imagined. There really should be a 12 step program.

- I am way more anal than I thought (and I thought I tended toward the anal type A already). When I brought all the paperwork and copies of every financial piece of paper that had passed through my life since birth to the bank, I put little labels on each item to show what it was. It seemed like a natural to do to me. That way I know what I've got and it's a handy reference for the loan folks, so they aren't calling me because they can't find something. The loan officer stared at me as if I was out of my mind. She said she had never seen anything like it or received an application so complete. It is impossible that I am the most anal/organized person that has ever applied for a mortgage or so I thought until the next time I was at the bank and saw a woman applying for a mortgage who didn't know she had to bring in paystubs or whether her car was in her name, her husbands or both. Sheesh!
I would like to point out that the next time I saw my loan officer she said she now had a supply of the little labels I used and she uses them on new applications.

- painting is not as easy or fun as it appears on Trading Spaces or Queer Eye. They make it look like anyone can paint (especially Trading Spaces Family). Let me tell you: some of us are painting challenged - and I have the Mermaid Mist paint spots on my ceiling to prove it.

- primer is not just white paint (as I had previously suspected) and it smells like a 2 day old kitty litter box.

- once you've written the huge checks necessary to buy a house, things that you previously thought were expensive don't seem so bad and the money starts flying. $100 here, $500 there.. it's all the same. $30 for 10 nails... wow! that's nothing - put it in the cart (on your 10th trip to Home Depot of the week)

- a cordless screwdriver and a cordless drill are NOT the same thing

- if you discover that you now live near a Walmart (a store you've never been to before), make sure the first time you go is a rainy Sunday afternoon so you can experience every screaming child within a 20 mile radius at once. Also, 98% of Walmart shoppers are at least 50 lbs. overweight.

- everyone (even movers and delivery people) has an opinion on your home decor (and isn't afraid to tell you). You will be told about the things you like about your place: oh, you can rip that right out. Things you know you want to fix will be gushed over by others. Wall colors are open season. My favorite: well when you decide what color your going to paint that wall (because it can't stay the color it is)... when in fact it had just been painted and that was the color it was staying. I say: ignore everyone else. Do you what you like.

- the Home Depot is rocking on Friday nights.

- Dramatically Different Moisturizing Lotion is NOT a moisturizer. Ok, I didn't learn that from buying a house, I just learned it around the same time as the closing and is a piece of information so shocking, it must noted. I now feel everything I've learned about skin care since I was 12 is in doubt. How did I miss this? My response to the sales girl: say what?

- setting the dryer on the maximum time at the highest heat out of habit (because it's the only route to dry clothes in laundormats and apartment building dryers) will lead to shrunken clothes in a regular household dryer.

- no one should be expected to live without these exciting candles from Pottery Barn (the ones that look like them at Target that are 1/4 the price just won't do!)
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The very first set of free address labels for my new address came today. You know the ones with cute characters on them that I would never actually use. Because I subscribe to every magazine that someone like me could possibly be interested in and love catalogs, I am on every direct mail list known to man. I receive more little address labels and other random junk mail than anyone could possibly use. I've been enjoying my junk mail free existence while they didn't know where I was. It was a good run. But I'm found now, so here is to the March of Dimes - the first charity to find me. Bring on the direct mail!-----
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After their 39 hour temper tantrum, the Senate Republicans finally wore themselves out Friday morning. Not that they have stopped complaining. It seems they don't like the Senate filibuster rules, by which 41 Senators, can hold up a judicial nomination, because it's not majority rule (waaaaa!). Well, the electoral college isn't majority rule, but they love that as it's the only reason King George Blank Stare made it into the Oval Office. It's not enough that 168 out of 172 of Bush's nominations have been confirmed, bringing the vacancy rate on the federal bench to its lowest level in 10 years. Let's see - what was 10 years ago, about a year into Clinton's first term, when the Republicans were just getting busy ignoring Clinton's nominee's by not even bringing them to a committee vote. How convenient for the Republicans that they now have a majority on the Judiciary committee so they can attempt to push their right wing agenda on to the courts. The Democrats wouldn't give the Republicans their way, so the Republicans called a 30 hour debate waste of time whose sole purpose was to try to make Democrats look bad (not there isn稚 anything more important to be discussed like for instance, Iraq or the economy or healthcare. In fact Orrin Hatch actually said that that "hardly anything [on the Senate agenda] is more important" than the president's right to nominate judges) because (waaaaa!) we're not getting our way. They know full well no ones mind was going to be changed by the stunt. Who looks more childish? And who is paying the $70k in overtime needed for Capital police to support this joke - hmm??

One of the more offensive parts of this Republican crusade is the attempt to smear the Democrats as being opposed to women judicial nominations (just as they were called anti-Catholic for not liking Pryor and anti-Hispanic for not liking Estrada). Um.. huh? Let's just point out that the three candidates who were to be voted on Friday, Priscilla Owen, Carolyn Kurl and Janice Rogers Brown are all actively oppossed by NOW and the NAACP amongst others.

Orin Hatch (R- Utah) summed it up well in this exchange with Mary
Landrieu (D- LA). I wouldn't have believed this exchange had I not seen it on tv myself:

Hatch: Women across this country ought to be outraged by it - liberal women, moderate women, conservative women - because it's a slap in the face to everyone of them the way these 3 women are being treated by the other side. And I've heard for 27 years how much greater they [democrats] are for women. Don't believe it. If they were, they wouldn't be arguing against these three wonderful women nominees.

Landrieu: It is the height of disrespect and un-Americanism to come to this great floor and talk about the pettiness of this woman senator who spent 25 years in public office and every other woman who has ever served that there is something wrong, that I don't want a woman as a judge, that I don't want an African American to be here.

She was livid and rightly so. Her response hits on the point that dumbass conservatives don't get: just because a person is a minority doesn't mean they represent all members of a minority. Women and minorities don't vote for candidates just because they are women or minorities, they vote based on what the person stands for. It insulting to our intelligence to imply that women should be offended by the treatment of these nominees because they are women. They are being treated this way because of their past actions and beliefs which represent who they are not their gender and not their race.

As if all of this isn't enough, we have to watch Rick "Man on Dog" Santorum have some kind of hissy fit where he declared "We'll have our opportunity someday, and we'll make sure there's not another liberal judge. Ever!" waaaa! I can't have my way on these 4 so you'll get nothing!!! The man resembled a rabid dog. Seriously, get the tape.

Then conservatives get upset that at Ted Kennedy's comment that they will "continue to resist any Neanderthal that is nominated by this president". Waaaa.... How dare he call our nominees neanderthals! I say: calling a spade a spade is always a good thing.

Seriously: stop the madness!-----
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Today I received an email with the subject:

I've got rid of Toe-nail-Fungus, how about you? #312B94A5FA9D4BABA81A7

Does any spammer in their right mind actually believe someone is going to open this email to see what it says?-----
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(well...commuters). If you are heading downstairs to the train, and there is a steady stream of people coming upstairs, guess what: the train in the station. Those people are getting off the train. This would not be the time to meander down the staircase right in the middle of the stairs so no one can get past you. Only to get down to the last set of stairs (where for the first time you can actualy see the train) and then decide to rush with your arms flailing all around so others practically have to duck to avoid getting a black eye. This behavior should be avoided at all costs.-----
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Rated R for brief nudity...

Check out the guy in the locker room background.

http://www.tommymoore.tv/CowboysLocker.mpg

Thanks to J for the link.

** Update ** Yes, I know the link had been taken down. No, I don't know where you can find this footage anymore. Sorry.-----
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I have been giggling non-stop at this article published in my alma maters paper today (why I'm reading it online, I can't explain).

> It's never too late for that almost-special someone

Yup, a whole article on hooking up, or as they call it, a booty call.

On Nov. 18, one of the two television shows that I would buy on DVD finally is released: The West Wing (well, season 1. Makes me mad because Season 1 and 2 have been out on DVD in europe for awhile now).

And that same evening... Queer Eye for the Straight Guy finally has a new episode. I have missed my boys. I couldn't take another repeat. How many times can I watch John the Cowboy get engaged? Also, there is a marathon on Sunday.

So, in case you can't tell, I'm having a blah period where I just have nothing to say.-----
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Chocolate Covered Nutter Butters. Why, oh why don't they make these? More addicting than crack for someone like me.-----
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