Another song using the word "ass." Well, every rock star has to have a gimmick, right?

One day...

I love New York. I don’t really know what else to say about it. I love New York. I think that at some point in my life, I will need to live here for a little while. New York just feels good. It feels right. It feels like I belong here. It is really strange for me to feel that about a city that isn’t Chicago and I think in my heart of hearts, I’m still really very much in love with Chicago so I couldn’t leave it right now. And maybe it is the newness or the foreignness of New York that I am attracted to, but it really is a great town. There is so much here going on and to see and to do. And I like the people. I think I would fit in, minus my “fashion sense.” Though if I wait until I am rich and famous to come here, I can walk around dressed the way that I do and it will be my fashion statement. People will be like, “Oh, that’s just the way Kitty dresses.” And all will be good. I’ll spawn an entire generation of little girls who wear green corduroy pants and black t-shirts. It could be worse. At least I won’t be encouraging them to wear chaps with bikini tops or anything.

But I don’t feel like I need to do everything here and see everything and go everywhere while I am here. I’m happy to just be here. Emphasis on the be.

I played my guitar in both Central Park and Astoria Park. And yes, I got a few strange looks from people, but most people just kept going as if I was your ordinary, average, run of the mill crazy person. I want to be your ordinary, average, run of the mill crazy person in New York. Not necessarily the guy who walks through the subway station at four o’clock in the morning saying “fuck” a lot. But the kind who just likes to play and will play anywhere she has a chance to.

I don’t even really know what I am talking about anymore. I have had a wonderful time here. I will be sad to go home tomorrow. I wish I had gotten to see Moby at Teany the other day. I hope maybe he will be here today. I have enjoyed seeing friends who I haven’t seen in a while. I have been very happy to get to spend some quality one-on-one time with some of my friends. I have been happy to watch groups of swing dancers interacting. I have danced. I have enjoyed excellent music and good food. I have given three New Yorkers a copy of my demo disc and have very much enjoyed the accolades and enthusiasm that has accompanied the giving of the discs. I finished working on a song that has been kicking my ass for a long time and I got some ideas for another one. I have had a wonderful, wonderful couple of days and I am now very sad that it is coming to an end. I will be very happy to be home where the water pressure in the show is good and where my cat will curl up and go to sleep with me. But honestly, if my cat was here, I would stay a lot longer. I think I need to live in New York for a while. Hopefully while I am still young enough to enjoy it. I understand the intense provincialism that happens in New York now. It is a really good place to be. It feels like home.

So despite all of my current physical problems, I made it to New York without a hitch. I left my hitch at home. I might need it later, so I'm a little bit bummed about that. But anyway, I'm here. And the kind of weird thing is that as I was flying into the city last night, I got this strange feeling of, "Oh, I'm home." And then on the way to the home of my lovely hostess, everything was familiar, even though it has been a year and a half since I was last here. Kind of cool, kind of creepy.

Anyway, I have to venture out and find some guitar strings because my high E broke and I can't very well tour the New York City park system without a high E.

I will be in New York by the time I go to sleep tonight, whether my body likes it or not. So there.

I got a really amazing compliment from one of my directors last night. We were doing a practice run-through of Floss! for the new cast members and to be honest, my heart was really only half in it. I didn’t want to be at rehearsal. I wasn’t finished packing; I wasn’t ready to leave my house and not come back for five days yet, you know? So the first walk-through, I marked it. But by the time we were doing the actual run-through on which the directors were taking notes, I was fully in character and ready to go. Doing my part and making sure the new people knew where they were supposed to be and whatnot. And at the very end of the show, I was filling this one Beboian in on something and I almost forgot that I had a line to deliver downstage left, so I kind of bolted to my position, said my line, and went back to the new Beboian. The one director erupted in laughter. I don’t remember how I said the line. I’m not sure how it looked, but apparently, it was funny.

So we finish the show, come down off stage and the director says to me, “You’re really funny. When did that happen?” Now, in order for that to sound like a compliment, you first have to know that I play kind of the straight character in this group. So many of the rest of the Beboians are so crazy go nuts that I decided my character should be more reserved, quiet, and focused on the dance. And this very same director pulled me aside once in my first run and told me that he and the other director really liked the choice I had made – it offset the other characters nicely. So now to have him notice that such a character can be comedic…well, it was a big deal to me. Plus, he had this newfound look of respect in his eyes. Or it was all the wine, I don’t know. But two other times while he was giving notes, he mentioned things that I had been doing on stage and expounded on them to say that I was so uninhibited and true in my Beboian-ness that I was really funny. I wasn’t me. I was Hacamba. Which I guess makes sense because I don’t really remember doing anything funny. I was just trying to do a good show. Like Hacamba would.

So yeah, that felt good to get that kind of praise from that director. He’s not one to dole out compliments freely, so to get the “you were honest and true and had some really wonderful moments as a result of that” compliment is really amazing.

So I heard a rumor that it is Banned Book Month, or something, and in honor of Banned Book Month, someone sent my office a copy of a book called It's Perfectly Normal. I can understand why it was banned by conservative religious types -- it talks about everything kids might want to know about sex. It covers masturbation, birth control, sexual abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, sexual preferences, artificial insemination, you name it, it's in this book. There are illustrations that show that everyone's body is different. There are illustrations of sexual positions other than missionary with the man on top. There are illustrations of homosexual couples kissing, hugging, and holding hands. There are illustrations of interracial couples. There are pictures of old couples. This book has it all. And I, for one, would like to applaud the authors for taking on these topics in such a straightforward, candid manner. Their whole premise is the title of the book -- it's perfectly normal. This book tells kids that it is okay to masturbate. This book tells kids that it is okay to have sexual thoughts and feelings about persons of the same sex and persons of the opposite sex. This book encourages kids to talk to someone they trust about sexual abuse. I think in addition to having these conversations with my kids, I'm going to buy them this book. It certainly handles things much better than the books I had when I was younger.

So hats off to the authors of It's Perfectly Normal. Your book is in very good company on the Banned Book List and you should take it as a compliment that your work has been deemed worthy of banishment. I hope that one day, if I write a book, it gets banned, too.

Warning: Moment of Weakness Ahead

Because I bet you a dollar he's not thinking about me. Hell, I know he hasn't wondered where I am or how I'm doing once in the past three years. So why do I do this to myself? Why do I see him everywhere? Why can I feel him nearby? Am I that desperate to get back what I once thought I had? God damn, I'm pathetic sometimes. And no, I have not been drinking tonight. I'd probably be more coherent if I had been.

I think the moment has passed. I'll post about monkeys or something in the morning to offset this little outburst. Sorry.

I've been having all of these strange dreams and feelings about him lately. Like he's nearby or going to show up somewhere unexpectedly or something. I know I've had these feelings before, but they are unsettling. They make me wonder what I would do if I actually saw him again. Would we speak? Would it still be there? Or would he just walk on by? I'm guessing the latter. And as much as I hate to admit that, it makes me very sad. I hate to think of things as being over forever. I don't like that sense of permanence. I don't like the idea that I could never again experience what I once did. And no, it probably isn't smart of me to sit and listen to "Lost Cause" on repeat as I think about these things, but I never said I was smart all of the time.

It's almost a need to see him. I don't know why this happens from time to time, but it does. I know I've written about this crap before. Maybe a year ago? Maybe because it was getting around this time of year three years ago that I saw him last? Like revisiting someone's grave on the anniversary of their death. Something did die. Nothing tangible. But something did die. Sometimes I feel like a widow; sometimes I feel like a divorce (I don't know how to add an accent mark to the e in Blogger). And then I stop myself and tell myself that I am being overdramatic, that it was never that big of a deal. But it was to me.

I almost wish it would happen -- that I would see him somewhere randomly -- just to get it over with, you know? We're both in kind of the same business; chances are I will see him again before I die. I hope I survive it if I do.

I will be in New York in two days. And I can't even tell you how insanely happy that makes me.

I want to write a song that makes one person at my concert weep.
I want to write a song that makes an entire room full of people jump up and down.
I want to write songs that make people feel something. For such is the power and the joy of music. And such is the duty of the musician.

Everything is better with hummus. Except soggy carrots.

So two of my favorite musical artists have very different opinions on the whole file-sharing/downloading music for free issue and I myself am kind of torn.

On the one hand, Moby is of the opinion that he doesn’t care how people are getting his music, as long as they are listening to it. He is disgusted that they are now prosecuting 12 year old children for illegal downloads. He also is probably still living off of royalties from Play and now with his restaurant doing so well, I’m guessing he doesn’t have too many money issues.

On the other hand, we have Liz Phair who was recently on Bill Maher’s show saying that basically, it is stealing and those persons who illegally download music are ripping off the artists. And she is a single mother who has not put out an album in five years, and the last album she did put out didn’t do so well.

And I’m torn on the issue. I think as long as I am a wannabe musician, I will be torn on the whole thing. Right now, I want my music to be heard. I don’t care how people listen to it; I just want them to listen to it. If that means free concerts or people copying the demo discs I have given them or paying me $20 for a disc, then so be it. Actually, at this point, I would feel a little bit guilty charging people for my disc because it is just a demo and really, they are doing me a favor by partaking in my art (this goes back to the whole “does art have inherent value or is it only given value through sharing it with others” debate). But then again, I have a stupidfey day job that pays my bills and keeps me overfed and whatnot. If my sole source of income was my music, I might be pissed off at people getting it for free, too.

Where I am right now in my life, I would like to be idealistic about this and say that I don’t think downloading music should be punishable by law. If I buy a CD and copy it for a friend, that is not illegal. If I have music that nobody else does and I make it available to people (my friends, perhaps) via the internet, that is illegal. It’s a fine line and one that I think needs to be defined better or erased entirely. My mp3.com site was created so that friends of mine overseas could enjoy my music easily instead of me burning them a disc and trusting that whatever shipping company (not the one that uses a certain color in its advertisements as I am still convinced that they are the servants of Satan) I employ does not lose or damage the CD in transit. I want people to hear my music. People want to hear music in general. And I do not think that they should be punished for wanting to broaden their musical horizons on a limited budget.

Or maybe I’m just a dirty hippie.

If I could count on one hand the number of friendships I have that are based primarily on a mutual love and quoting ability of The Simpsons, I'd be a mutant with, like, 87 fingers.

I’m going to bitch for a minute because I can and because I feel like it.

My office is located on the first floor of a three and a half story building. So naturally, everyone assumes that the receptionist on the first floor is the receptionist for the entire building. And the kitchen on the first floor is the kitchen for the entire building. And everything on the first floor is for the entire building. NOT TRUE. Our receptionist is our receptionist. Our kitchen (and its contents) is ours. And while we do not mind other people using our conference rooms (if prior arrangements have been made), we should not have to staff/set up/clean up after their meetings. Think about it: you go a private place of business to use one of their rooms. If your meeting requires food, you make those arrangements. If your meeting requires tech support, you make those arrangements. If you need copies of handouts for your meeting, you make them ahead of time and bring them along. You don’t tell your guests to “help themselves” to the coffee in the kitchen. And as a guest, you don’t go barging into the kitchen to help yourself. I don’t care how many times you have been there before; you don’t go barging into someone else’s kitchen and take their food/beverages. Granted, rental spaces will often have things like food service and tech support available, but usually at an extra fee and arrangements have to be made prior to the start of the meeting. You don’t show up one minute before the meeting is to begin and say, “Can you set up the equipment for me?” I actually had this conversation this morning:

Meeting “organizer” (at 8:29, in reference to an 8:30 meeting): Do you have a minute to show me how to work all of your equipment in there?
Me (knowing that there is WAY more “equipment in there” than she will need): What do you need set up?
M”O”: I’m not sure, really. What do people usually use when they come in for meetings?
Me: They usually either bring a laptop or a disc and we turn on the LCD projector for them.
M”O”: She just needs to be able to see the screen.
Me: Is she bringing a laptop?
M”O”: I don’t think she is bringing a disc. She’s bringing those papers that you can look at on the wall.
Me: For an overhead projector?
M”O”: I think so. I talked to the other lady who sits out here [who has only been here for two years and sees you on a daily basis and you still don’t know her name?] and she said there was one in there.
Me: Well, let me check and see what there is.

So I go into the conference room to search for the most antiquated piece of equipment in there, I find it, and it takes me a minute to set it up. During which time, the meeting “organizer” asks if a specific co-worker of mine might know how to set it up. A co-worker of mine whose office is quite visible from where we are standing and at this time of the morning is quite empty. I reply as nicely as I can, “She’s not here yet this morning.” To which, the meeting “organizer” replies, “oh,” sounding very disheartened.

We all know that I need to develop a greater tolerance for stupid people. And I know that I need to not let it get to me when other people take advantage of this department and the things contained therein. It’s just irritating to start your day with stupid people hassling you about things that could have been taken care of well in advance. And the icing on the cake? They didn’t even use the overhead projector.

There are days when I love my job. This is not one of them.

I know some people who claim to be anti-social. They don't know anti-social. They still crave the attention of people. They like to be anti-social in public. Their idea of being anti-social is going to some crowded place and not talking to anyone. That's not anti-social. A true anti-social person doesn't go out. A true anti-social person doesn't even call his or her friends to see what's going on that they could miss out on.

I have decided that I am the second variety of anti-social.

So if you were a bird doctor (and no, I don't mean a vet, I mean the local doctor that pigeons take their children to when they get the sniffles), I bet the biggest complaint you would get is neck strain. Because take a look at how birds walk. That can't be good for the spine.

There are times when I wish I was brave enough to say to that random hot guy on the train or walking down the street, “You are a very attractive individual.” That’s it. Not ask him out on a date. Not exchange contact information. Just let him know that he is a very attractive person. I think that would make someone’s day to have a sort of cute girl come up to you completely unsolicited and give you a compliment like that. But then I second guess myself and I just keep walking.

There are times when I think I should drink more than I do. Do you remember about a year ago, I decided to give up drinking entirely? And what I found was that I dream more when I’m sober? Yeah, well, my dreams are getting really weird and kind of exhausting. So I wake up tired even though I know I got some good sleep (because if you get to REM sleep, that’s when you start dreaming, and that’s the kind of sleep you should be getting, right?). Like last night, for instance. In my dream, I was telling people about dreams I had in the past, but then I woke up wondering if I really had those other dreams, or if I just dreamt about having those dreams? Because those dreams seemed really real, too. A dweam wivin a dweam. Or something. What it amounts to is an overactive imagination and a hankering for a dream-catching machine so I can show people some of the crazy shit that goes on in my head when my head is left to its own devices. Or a need to drink more so I’ll stop dreaming and get some rest.

I’d like to give a little shout-out today to my Bostonian guy friend. Because he rocks.

I think we all know that I am bad at asking for help. Asking for help means relying on someone else to do something for you and relying on someone else to do something for you greatly increases the chances that you will be let down. So I tend to try to do everything by myself.

So my back was hurting really badly this weekend. I was walking around like I was eighty years old. It was very “not pretty,” as the kids say these days. I mentioned this in passing to my Bostonian guy friend as the reason I would probably not want to go out gallivanting all over town on Friday night and what does he do? He buys me heating pads. And rubs my back. And asks a friend of his for advice on things that he can do to help me. And he checks in with me all weekend on the intensity of my back pain. All without me asking.

The problem with never asking for help is that you forget just how nice it is to have someone help you with something. To have a friend who will not let you down. I was kind of blown away by his level of concern for me this weekend and it made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. This is just one of the infinite number of reasons why I love my Bostonian guy friend. If you do not know him, you are missing out on knowing a truly fine human being. Thank you, honey, for being so wonderful. Thanks for being you.

Please forgive me if I am a little less than jovial today. I am in really horrible pain. Physical pain. Mental anguish I can deal with, but physical pain can reduce me to a little puddle of sad and pathetic. Mental pain is something I can work through on my own because usually it is something I created in my own head, so I can just work through it and sort things out. Physical pain I can’t deal with by myself. I can’t massage my back in the way I am guessing it needs to be massaged just because I am not a contortionist. Though, even if I was a contortionist, I probably wouldn’t be able to massage my back the way I am guessing it needs to be massaged because movement hurts. Bending. Twisting. Walking. All of it hurts.

This is not fun. This is not right. My screaming back keeps me awake at night. Time to pump myself full of pain killers.

Happy birthday to Moby.

I know he doesn’t read this and that’s fine, but I’m going to say happy birthday anyway. Yes, I have given up on my dream of one day marrying him. No, I’m not as super crazy obsessed with him as people once thought I was. Yes, I still take great comfort in the fact that someone like Moby exists in the world. Yes, I will still bend over backwards (though maybe not today as my back is once again killing me and I’m not sure why) to see him live in concert. Yes, I really hope I get to see him when I’m in New York in a couple of weeks and I hope that if I do see him, I have the courage to talk to him. Yes, I still think that we could be great friends if given the opportunity. But if that opportunity never comes, I will still listen to his music. I will still read his journal entries as they are a great source of comfort to me. As a matter of fact, I think that’s what I’ll do today. It’s been a while since I went back and re-read some of his old stuff. And since it is his birthday today, may I suggest that the rest of you pop on over to his site and read some of what he has to say if you haven’t already. I am almost positive that even if you don’t develop an appreciation for him as a person, you will at the very least understand why I hold him in such high regard.

Happy birthday, Moby. And thanks for everything you do.

Moose. Mousse. Mouse. Explain.

Whenever something really bad happens, people prepare themselves in case that same exact really bad thing happens again. I found myself thinking on the train this morning about the blackout on the East Coast and about how people who lived through that now carry flashlights with them. And how many people on the train with me this morning had a flashlight with them “just in case.” And how many more would start carrying flashlights with them “just in case” if they were stuck in the subway during a blackout and had to climb out through the tunnels like some New Yorkers did. It seems perfectly rational to prepare oneself in the event that some catastrophic event happens again.

The thing is, the chances of that same exact thing happening again are really slim. And not necessarily because you are prepared for it, but because really big catastrophic events don’t occur all that often. Since the invention of electricity, how many times has the entire Eastern Seaboard (and then some) been without power for over 24 hours? Once. And I can guarantee you that nobody will ever fly another plane into the World Trade Center because the World Trade Center doesn’t exist anymore. Sure, you hear about the random person who has been struck by lightening seventeen times, but even that’s very rare.

I guess what I’m getting at is wouldn’t it make more sense to prepare ourselves for things that haven’t happened yet? Stampeding hippos or something? That hasn’t happened in a major metropolitan area. How do we know what to do in case large herds of hippos go running through the windows on the ground floor of the Daley Center?

We don’t know. And we can’t know. We can’t anticipate every situation before it happens, so we have two choices: 1) worry about everything or 2) worry about nothing. Me personally, I’d rather not spend my life worrying about things that could happen someday but most likely won’t than drive myself nuts trying to guard myself against every possible thing that could ever possibly happen, no matter how probable it is that said thing won’t happen. Things happen. You fail a test. You hurt someone’s feelings. You get into a car accident. A loved one dies. And you take a minute, absorb what happened, figure out how to handle it, and move on. I can’t spend all of my time worrying about the future because I don’t know what the future has in store for me (or, in some cases, if the future even has anything in store for anyone or if it is all random chance). That’s what’s fun about the future. The best I can do is worry about it when it happens and try to react to it in a calm, logical, safe manner that will not cause further harm to myself or anyone else. And in the meantime, I’ll keep dreaming about that cake in my fridge.

And here we go into that time of year when I start waking up before the sun does. Actually, this morning, it was a pretty close call. I don't think either of us wanted to get out of bed. But we both did and hopefully we'll have something to show for it. I forgot my cake at home, though, which I'm kind of upset about. It was going to be my dinner. I had dinner with a friend last night at a lovely vegetarian restaurant and I bought a piece of their vegan chocolate mousse cake to take home with me that I was going to have for dinner tonight before class. But I forgot it at home. In my fridge. In it's little box. Waiting to be eaten. Crying out, "Kitty, why hast thou forsaken me?" I have not forsaken thou, my piece of vegan chocolate mousse cake. I will eat you when I get home tonight, all tired and stressed out and in need of something to cheer my broken spirit. You shall be that something and I shall be eternally grateful to you.

But yeah, the daylight hours are getting shorter. Which also means I'm going to have to start wearing pantyhose again. Woo hoo. Or buy more pants. Woo hoo. I hate shopping.

I just got my hair cut with a straight razor. Yeah, baby.

I know this is really wrong of me to talk about, but I'm going to anyway.

So the other day, I'm actually reading the subject headings of some of the spam I have received, and there is one that says something along the lines of "Watch this horny teenager fuck a horse for free!" Maybe it was because I had been talking about this comedian with a friend of mine just a couple of days before who says the most random sentence he has ever heard is, "If it wasn't for my horse, I would never have spent that year at college," or maybe I was just that bored, but I decided to read the body of this e-mail. Because seriously, who fucks horses? And who lets people film them fucking horses? And who lets people film them fucking horses and then puts that up on the internet? I know who is watching it for free -- really bored and horny people. But who makes that stuff in the first place?

I've still kind of been trying to figure out the logistics of such a manuver in the first place. And what did they have to do to the horse to get him to agree/stay relatively still. I didn't actually watch the video (despite the fact that it was free and would fall into that category of "things I thought I'd never see") and it is quite possible that all of my questions would have been answered had I simply watched the eight minute video. Eight minutes of a girl fucking a horse.

People are weird.

You know how they have obedience school for dogs? Do they have bug-catching school for cats? 'Cuz I think Owen could use some help.

Okay, here’s something mundane that pisses me off because it is quarter after two in the afternoon and I am trying desperately not to fall asleep at my desk – automatic flush toilets. I understand the need for automatic flush toilets, I really do. Sometimes, restrooms that are not as technologically advanced can get pretty…uninviting. But automatic flush toilets are not a good option. I don’t know if it is a problem with the sensors or what, but they don’t work the way they should. In the midst of my very long day at class on Saturday, I had to use an automatic flush toilet several times and during every single visit, the toilet decided to flush while I was still seated upon it. If I wanted a bidet, I’d go to Europe or some big fancy hotel in New York. One time, it flushed just as I was moving to sit down. And god forbid, one should have to adjust one’s seating position on the toilet – a move that surely guarantees a pre-emptive flush.

So for all of you toilet inventors out there, would you please work on the sensors on your automatic toilets? Perhaps make them weight sensitive? Thanks. I’m just trying to help save water is all.

I don’t understand the fear of being alone. And by “alone” I mean “not in a romantic relationship.” I can understand the fear of never speaking to another human being again for the rest of your life, though admittedly, having this blog lessens that fear for me, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about people who are so afraid of being single that they will remain in bad relationships much longer than they should.

I know that from a societal perspective, men are not encouraged to form deep, meaningful friendships with other men and that men are often defined by their partners and their partner’s friends. So maybe men feel differently about this than I do – if they don’t have a romantic partner, they don’t have any social interaction whatsoever. Which goes back to the fear of never talking to anyone ever again. I guess. But that is so seldom the case. You find these attractive, intelligent men in relationships with clingy, needy women and you think to yourself, “He could do so much better. Why isn’t he doing so much better?” And then you talk to him and find out that he is scared of women and he is happy enough to be with the one he is with because at least it means he has plans for Friday night. That, to me, is very sad.

Maybe I’m just lucky to have so many friends. Maybe I’m lucky to have enough outside interests that I am forced to interact with people on a regular basis. Or maybe there really is something wrong with me that I don’t crave romantic involvement so much that I will settle for less than what I deserve just so that I don’t have to be alone. But I don’t understand it. I honestly don’t. I wish I did so that I could help some of these people get over that fear. Being single can be really fun. I know there are merits to having a relationship, too, but I think that alone time is really important. If for no other reason, so that you will get to know yourself well enough to know what it is you really want out of a relationship. Because once you know that, it is much easier to find and much easier to avoid the relationships that are not fulfilling.

My, but I’m preachy today. Sorry about that.

Is anyone else bothered by the fact that our President is asking for eighty-seven billion dollars to rebuild Iraq? And that at least sixty-six billion of that will be available for military type purposes? Granted, I’m just a peon who makes almost nothing for a living, so I can’t really comprehend eighty-seven billion anythings, but that seems like an awful lot of dollars to me. Especially considering the huge budget cuts every state has had to endure for the past two or three years. If we have eighty-seven billion dollars sitting around waiting to be used, why not fund schools? Or healthcare programs? Or fix roads or something? Why send that eighty-seven billion dollars overseas when there are so many things here at home that could really use it?

Okay, maybe I’m being selfish. Sorry about that. I know the Iraqi and Afghani people need our assistance. But here’s a novel idea – don’t fund the building of their armies. Wasn’t our very own technology, sold to Iraqis and Afghanis oh so many years ago, that came back to bite us in the ass just two short years ago? How about this: why not set up a new, democratic Iraq that doesn’t have an army? Or that is not allowed to build an army for X number of years? Is it Hong Kong that is not allowed to have an army, but if they are ever attacked, it is up to Great Britain to defend them or something like that? Maybe I dreamt that scenario, but I think that could be a novel approach to the whole rebuilding of Iraq and Afghanistan thing. Because think about it. It would cost a whole hell of a lot less than eighty-seven billion dollars to rebuild those countries if we weren’t building their armies. It would lower the chances of military strikes by Iraq and Afghanistan on either the United States or other countries. It would reduce the need for intelligence forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. And it might just make it that much harder for a new dictator with delusions of grandeur to take control of the blossoming democracy. And then, say, in fifty years or whatever, when democracy is in full swing and has become the “norm,” then they can start to build their own army. Have provisions in their Constitution as to how that army is to be built. And let them build it themselves – no fair sharing technology only to have it used against us someday, right? And no fair making the families of those slain in combat finance the construction of the very army that took their loved ones.

Call me naïve, call me stupid, call me selfish. I can’t wait for the next Presidential election. People have made jokes for years about how if we had a female President, she might be a little trigger happy for a few days every month when she’s feeling moody. I think, though, at this point, that I would happily take that chance over the possibility of keeping a paranoid lunatic in the White House. Please start researching your candidates now so that when the time comes, we can get an intelligent person into the office of Leader of the Free World. This living in fear thing has gone on long enough.

A lot of the glamour of being a movie star is lost when one takes the subway to the premiere.

It was fun, though. The audience laughed. They asked questions at the end of the whole ordeal. It was a sell-out crowd. And some of my friends were there, so that was cool. And then when it was over, we left and got drinks. Very non-Hollywood, but fun in it's own way anyway.

Now I get to look forward to the next one wherein I have a lot more screen time. That one, I'm going to totally glam up for.

Yeah, if I was a big truck on a mission to retrieve a dumpster left over after a three day roofing project that had lot of pretty lights and horns that go "BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!" really loud, I, too, would make sure to do my job at QUARTER TO SIX ON A SATURDAY MORNING. Wouldn't want to disturb the flow of traffic later in the day.

I wonder if there is any way to definitively figure out what percentage of the population of the world is gay and what percentage of the population of the world is straight. I know people who seem to think that being gay is a fad or cool or whatever or they think the gay population is growing and I wonder if that is really the case, or if it is a matter of the population has always been this size, we just didn’t know about it until recently, you know? I’m really just curious.

Like, could someone devise a test that would be administered anonymously to every person on this planet in such a fashion that nobody would lie on the test, and it would be able to say who was gay, who was straight and who didn’t fit into either one of those categories? Simple, straightforward questions like, “Are you turned on by men?” and “Are you turned on by women?” and “Are you a man or a woman?” or something like that. And people would have to answer them honestly. It would be a way to find out who the closet cases are, and who the people are who are out there pretending to be gay. Because in all truth, my guess would be that most people fit into the “none of the above” category. That nebulous land where you have, at one point or another in your life, found yourself sexually attracted to a person who is the opposite gender from what you are usually attracted to. I think most people are just afraid to admit things like that for fear people will think their sexual orientation is other than what they say it is.

Either that, or I would bet that the gay population and the straight population are pretty even in numbers. And I would bet that if you could go back and administer said test throughout history, you would find those percentages to be pretty constant. Why do I think this? In high school, one of my teachers brought in a book of newspaper headlines from some Podunk town from the 1890s. His point was that things were just as screwed up back then as they are now – there were stories about missing children and rapes and murders and stuff, just like the ones that fill the newspapers today. He was showing us that there really weren’t any “good old days.” If anything, perhaps we are just more paranoid now than we used to be. I would tend to think that a similar theory could be applied to sexual orientation. It’s not that there are more homosexuals walking around than ever before, they’re just not afraid to say it like they used to be.

So what’s my point with all of this? It’s nothing new. It’s not a big deal. Let’s just all go get a cup of coffee and enjoy the sunshine while it lasts.

How Geeky Can One Girl Get
Chapter 64

So Mix Tape is premiering tomorrow night. I’m excited. But perhaps more exciting for me is that this one is actually getting some press coverage. Sure, they are just little tidbits in a couple of newspapers, but we got press coverage. This is no longer a film that Only I Know About.

And the really fun thing about some of the press coverage is that I’m mentioned in it. Not by name, but I am “the ex-girlfriend” who is mentioned in a couple of the articles. Meaning the people who saw the film remember the relationship between my ex-boyfriend and I. And they liked us.

The problem with indie film is that post-production takes such a long time. You put in all of this work to shoot the film, but the payoff doesn’t come until much, much later. Well, here comes the payoff for this film and I’m having a blast. And yes, I know it is distasteful to boast, but I never claimed to be a woman of taste. I’m going to enjoy my thirty-seven seconds of fame, thank you very much.

I'm going to do really well in school.

I was walking to the train station last night and there was a man with a shopping cart walking just slightly in front of me. I am assuming by the way he was dressed and by the contents of his shopping cart that he was homeless, but I could be wrong. But I found myself wishing that I was brave enough to talk to him because the collection of stuff that he had in his shopping cart was kind of interesting. There wasn’t a whole lot in there – a few cans, some papers, an empty cigarette box. I wanted to ask him how he decided which things to pick up and which ones not to. I can understand collecting empty cans because in some places, you can still recycle them for money. Paper, too. But an empty cigarette box?

When one becomes homeless, can one find, like, a mentor to show one the ropes? Like, these are prime locations for collecting empty cans, or this place has a shower you can use, or if you’re really nice to the people at this bagel shop, they might give you a day old bagel when they close. That kind of thing. I don’t know that I would last as a homeless person. In a really bizarre way, I have respect for those who can do it.

I know that I am a cold person. And I don’t mean that in the “harsh, unfeeling” sense of the word, I mean I get cold easily. Physically. I have a low body temperature. Which explains my love of warm weather and thick sweaters and lots of blankets on my bed. I hate being cold.

That being said, I know that I like things warmer than most people do.

That being said, I firmly believe no matter what your body temperature, that there is absolutely no reason to have the air conditioning on when it is in the mid-seventies outside. Most people set their air conditioners in the mid-seventies. Why waste that energy cooling a room down to the temperature it wants to be anyway? Why not open the window and enjoy the sunshine and the breeze? Call me a hippie, but I prefer fresh air to re-circulated air any day of the week.

That, and I’m tired of freezing my ass off at work.

School starts today. What if I turn out to be dumb? What if I’m wearing the wrong shoes and all the other people in my class make fun of me for it for the next year? What if I talk too much in class? What if I don’t talk enough in class? What if I pass out from exhaustion in class? What if I turn in my homework late? What if I get a bad grade? What if my backpack breaks? What if the bookstore doesn’t have the books I need? What if I spend three hours in a room freezing my ass so badly that I can’t concentrate? Or perhaps worse than any of that, what if I really enjoy myself?

I think my New Years resolution this year should be to be less responsible. Because in all honesty, being responsible sucks. I woke up this morning convinced that I shouldn't even get out of bed, but I knew that one of my co-workers was going to be out today, so I dragged myself in. And lo and behold, it is only quarter after eight and my suspicions have already been confirmed. I should not have gotten out of bed this morning. Stupidfey twisted sense of responsibility.

I think the first thing that bothered me about soy milk is that it comes in a cardboard box. Because seriously, we all know what happens to cardboard when it gets wet. It's not pretty. So how could they package milk in a cardboard box?

I'm glad I got over that one.