I can’t stop staring at it. I guess I keep wishing it would go away. I keep thinking that maybe this time when I go to look, it won’t be there and my life as I have known it for the past, I don’t know, year? two years? will be exactly the way it was when I woke up this morning. So I go look and it’s still there. And I want to dissect it and figure out what it all means but I know that to do so will drive me crazy, as if sitting here not dissecting it isn’t already driving me crazy. And this stupid song of mine keeps running through my head and its really not helping. It’s not worth sinking that much time and energy and thought into because it really isn’t going to amount to anything. But I can’t stop looking at it. I’m still trying to convince myself that it is real. Because seriously, how are you supposed to react when something you have always wanted but never thought you would see shows up at your door?

On jumping turnstiles/fences/short walls:

If you find yourself faced with a turnstile/fence/short wall that looks to you like it requires jumping as opposed to circumventing, stop and think to yourself, "If I was a monkey and somebody was filming me jumping this turnstile/fence/short wall, would said videographer then e-mail the short movie of me jumping this turnstile/fence/short wall to all of his or her co-workers with the subject line 'Your Laugh for Today?'" If the answer to this question is "yes," go through/around the turnstile/fence/short wall.

Holy fuck. I can't stop shaking...

I would like (you would, would you?), if I may (you may NOT) to talk for a moment today about carbohydrates.

DUN DUN DUUUNNNN!!!

I know, "carbohydrates" is a dirty word nowadays and that is exactly what I want to talk about. It makes me sad that our culture has become so anti-carbohydrate because there are a lot of really wonderful carbs out there waiting to be eaten. And I’m not even talking about pure sugar – I’m talking whole grains and fruits and nuts and soy. You know, the foods that come with vitamins and minerals in them. But thanks to the bastardization of a diet plan that was developed to help morbidly obese cardiac patients loose enough weight quickly so that they wouldn’t die under the knife, we now have low-carb mayonnaise and low-carb cookies and low-carb pasta. Come on, people this is ridiculous.

Yes, Americans consume a lot of carbohydrates. That is because Americans consume a lot of food. Period. We, as a culture, eat a lot. And eating too much of anything (except maybe celery or iceberg lettuce) will make you gain weight. When I was growing up, it was fat that made you fat, so nobody was supposed to eat any fat. Now its carbs, so nobody is supposed to eat any carbs. You know what? The only blanket statement that you can make about food is that too much of it is a bad thing. That’s it. You try to break it down any more than that, and you get into problem areas. If you eat nothing but protein, you’re missing out on some essential vitamins and minerals. If you eat nothing but vegetables, you’re missing out on essential fatty acids. If you eat nothing but carbs, you are missing out on essential proteins. See how it works? See why a balanced diet is the best option?

And yes, I know that all of this sounds particularly funny coming from a woman who eats no animal products or byproducts. The point of my little dietary experiment here, though, is I am trying to still get all of the nutrients I need, but from non-animal sources. I have not eliminated fat from my diet. I have not eliminated carbohydrates. I have not eliminated protein. I think you get the idea.

So I guess my point is this: we, as a culture, need to stop blaming outside influences for our collective obesity. It is not the fault of carbohydrates, or of fats. It is because we eat too much. Eat a moderate amount of everything and you’ll be just fine.

Next, I’ll tackle the media and how it warps what we think we are supposed to look like – women and men alike.

And the award for Best Usage of the Word Bronchi in a Song goes to the Crash Test Dummies for "Afternoons and Coffeespoons."

I love this song.

You remember how Daffy Duck used to go nuts in those old cartoons? He’d bounce around all over the place, screaming and just generally causing a ruckus? Do you ever feel the need to do that? I do. Maybe when I get home tonight.

It’s all just stupid anal retentive things, like all of my inboxes are way too full. And my computer at work is making this buzzing noise that is really getting on my nerves. And I have to click on anything seventeen times before it registers that I clicked there. And no matter what I do to try to set preferences for anything on this computer, they don’t get saved. I know I’m getting a new computer at work soon – we all are (upgrades) – but this is turning into Chinese water torture. I never know when I open a blank e-mail what it is going to look like. I never know if Word will work. I never know if I will have access to all of the calendars that I did this morning. I never know where my personal folders ran off to. And to be perfectly frank, it’s driving me batty. Good thing I get to go home soon.

I just watched the Radio Music Awards. At the beginning of the show, they said that this was a show to celebrate the best music on the radio right now. Which is why I was thoroughly unimpressed with the show. Save the performance by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Those guys played a song that was probably older than half of the nominees on the show and it was the best thing played all night. A handful of guys wearing suits rocking out playing their own instruments, singing a song they wrote that had real meaning for them -- it was incredible. And entertaining in a way because of the song "The Last DJ" which complains about the very state of the very radio stations that chose to honor him this evening with the Legend award.

I hope that one day, I am looked at as one of the artists whose works mean something and not as a flash in the pan, give 'em what they want right now artist. Music is a way of speaking to people. If you're saying someone else's words, what are you really saying to them?

Says the actor...

I haven't been getting nearly as much porn-related spam as I used to and I can't decide if I should be upset about that or not.

So, how distasteful is it that the vast majority of the still pictures I have been taking in the days since Ray joined my twisted little family have been of my cat? I can't help it, though. He's just so darn cute.

I'm also quite enjoying the movie taking feature on the camera. Fun possibilities run though my head. Mwahaha. (Not a very big evil laugh because it's not really an evil endeavor. But a little one because it feels a little evil. Or maybe that's the Halloween talking.)

So I have a new family member living in my quaint little house now. His name is Ray. I think. That’s the vibe that I’m getting from him so far, but we’ll see. His true name might be revealed to me later. Elfy is kind of a fun name, too, but perhaps a smidge too obvious, as Ray is, indeed, a Canon digital Elph camera. He is so cute. And so fun to play with. And so easy to use. And so light. I can (and do) carry him around with me in my pocket. I have a feeling I am going to become one of those annoying people who is always taking pictures of stuff. So far, I haven’t taken many of really interesting stuff except for my cat and dance practice last night. I’m really enjoying being back in dance practice. And what is really nice about it is that the troupe leader keeps telling me what a great job I’m doing (which I incidentally spelled “goind” the first time around. Normally, I don’t like to point out my little bouts of typing too fast or dyslexia, but that one struck me as funny somehow. Perhaps more of a Spoonerism than a bout of dyslexia (‘cuz I don’t even know if I am dyslexic), but still kind of funny. To me anyway). It’s nice to hear that I still know how to dance, even though I don’t do it very much anymore.

But yeah, pretty soon I’m going to have to stop telling people that I live by myself. I live with Owen and Simon and Ray and Charlene and Nigel. Six of us in a one-bedroom. But we all get along so it’s all good. And we have fun. And now I’m thinking I am going to have to actually start my website so I can post some of the pictures I’m taking with Ray. Not that they’re good, but perhaps it would be interesting to see the world as I do. I feel the need to document the world around me all of a sudden (maybe because I can), though not necessarily as it appears to everyone else. If that makes any sense. Eh, I’ll take some photos and show them to you and then you’ll know what I mean. Or not. Some things only make sense to me. I know this. I’m okay with this. I’m rambling now and should probably stop, even though you all already know I’m crazy. Is it lunchtime yet?

I’ve been working on the concept of blame recently and how we, as Americans, feel the need to place blame somewhere for anything that goes wrong. Maybe it’s a human need to place blame, not just one specific to this culture. And maybe this was all sparked by the talks about negligence we’ve been having in my paralegal classes. But whatever the reason, the concept of blame is an interesting one and one that I am trying to get away from. (Not to say I won’t still hold a grudge against the umpire for calling that third strike in game seven, but nobody’s perfect, right?)

Things go wrong. Take the fire in a downtown building in Chicago last week. Six people died, trapped in a locked stairwell. Six people who should not have died. But six people who were probably made aware of the locking mechanism on the stairwell doors when it was installed and who were probably behind the idea of locking mechanisms on the stairwell doors because such mechanisms would help keep them safe from terrorism or some such thing. And now the families of those six people want to blame the door lock manufacturers or installers or the fire department or somebody for the loss of their loved ones. I can understand the hurt. I can understand the confusion. I can’t condone the need to place blame and that makes me feel heartless.

The fire department did their job the best they could. The entire building did not go up in flames, which is a good thing. And hundreds of people got out of the building no problem, or with only minor injuries – another good thing. There were six casualties. Bad thing. So we’re all going to focus on the bad thing and pass new laws and regulations to try to prevent this kind of thing from happening again. You know what? That is the same exact reason why those locks were installed on the doors in the first place – to try to prevent some terrible catastrophe from happening ever again.

I don’t know really what it is that I am trying to say here. Maybe that in this particular instance, if we are looking for someone to blame, we should blame ourselves for being so paranoid. Bad things happen. To good people. To people who don’t deserve bad things. That doesn’t stop the bad things from happening, and some attempts to stop those bad things will only make other, worse things happen. That’s the way life is. I do think it is important to learn from our mistakes, but I also think that too much finger-pointing gets in the way of the learning process, if you know what I mean. Maybe what we need to do as a society is figure out a better way to deal with tragedy and death so we aren’t so antsy to find someone to blame.

That being said, my condolences to the families and friends of the six people who died in that fire.

And I feel like I should say something about the proposed partial-birth abortion ban that is in Congress right now, what with my becoming more political and so on and so forth, but I also feel like I should keep my mouth shut. But I’m not real good at that today, so here goes.

A partial-birth abortion sounds like a truly horrifying procedure for everyone involved. That being said, they are usually only performed when there are extenuating circumstances, i.e. the fetus is already dead, the fetus will die shortly after being born, to allow the pregnancy to go to term will permanently injure or kill the mother and the baby won’t live anyway, etc. The bill in Congress does not have in it a clause to make an exception to the ban on this procedure for medical necessity. Meaning that if a mother finds out her unborn child has hydrocephalus, there is no provision in the proposed bill to allow her to terminate the pregnancy and any doctor who agrees to perform the abortion for her could face up to two year in prison for ostensibly saving her life. This strikes me as wrong somehow.

I know that in a perfect world, all babies would be 100% healthy and would develop perfectly in the wombs of fit mothers who are prepared to love and support their children. But we don’t live in a perfect world. There are a million things that can go wrong with fetal development. Women get pregnant from being raped. Girls get pregnant from being raped. My point is that there is always an exception. There is always an extenuating circumstance that needs to be taken into consideration, which is why a flat ban on anything strikes me as a bad idea. Hell, even an outright gun ban – I think our military should be allowed to have guns. Maybe not machine guns capable of shooting through wrought iron, but pistols or rifles with bayonets on them. I think we would be a lot more hesitant to send our men and women off to war if we knew they would be fighting combat with bayonets as opposed to stealth technology. But I digress. There is always an exception to every rule and I am frightened and saddened to live in a country where those exceptions are not always acknowledged by the people in charge. Here’s hoping there is a regime change on the horizon.

So I think I have figured out exactly what it is that has had me in a funk for the past few days. Now I have to do something about it. I hate this part.

Michigan Avenue is a very interesting street.

Over the weekend, I was walking along one end of Michigan Avenue (well, not necessarily end. More of a section or area) where people only go when they want to buy things. Overpriced things. Things they will never actually use, but that will sit in their homes or places of business giving their owners a sense of posh-ness. Really, that’s all there is in that particular area of Michigan Avenue – stores. Stores selling everything anyone could ever possibly want and things that nobody ever really needs. I was there looking for a stuffed animal possum (case in point). It was kind of a trip.

And then last night, I was walking along another section of Michigan Avenue and it made me feel like a city dweller in that Euro-chic kind of a way. There I was, walking past the Art Institute and all of these various coffee shops and specialty stores, eating my apple, on my way to class. I felt very…trendy. But not in the icky way. Partially because I was wearing my glasses yesterday and I knew my hair was a mess and it’s really hard to feel icky trendy when you’re kind of feeling like a frump. But I felt very, I dunno, urban. Or something.

And then I saw him. I have no idea who he was, just that he was really cute. Light brown hair cut short. Denim jacket. Jeans. Funky sneakers that said, “I just jumped out of Trainspotting. Do you have any swag?” Carrying a black portfolio under one arm. Walking with purpose. Ears that stuck out just a little. He had an air of veganism about him, but that could have just been me. And we were walking in the same direction down Michigan Avenue; first him in front of me, then me in front of him for about three blocks. I had three opportunities at three different stoplights to say to him, “I don’t know if anyone has told you today or not, but you are a very attractive person,” and I didn’t take any of them. He even went into the same building as me. He took the elevator, I took the stairs. On the second floor (my destination), the elevator door was open and he was saying to the other passenger, “Yeah, five is where I’m going,” and he had a hint of an accent. Maybe Scottish, which would have made sense with the Trainspotting garb and the walk and the hair and the perfect skin. And that was it. That was the last I saw of the cute Scottish boy (who will, from this day forward be referred to as the cute Scottish boy). My friends in class gave me shit about him and about not talking to him when I had so many opportunities, but in all truth, I think its better this way. Now he can live in my imagination and be vegan and be artistic and sleep in a t-shirt and boxers and wake up all groggy until he gets his coffee and cigarette (though if he was a true vegan, he wouldn’t smoke because there is a pork by-product in cigarettes) and he has a mouth like a sailor and is short with his affections but is also my great good friend and a fantastic lover. If I actually met him, he could be a punk skinhead who tortures dogs for fun. I don’t know. But I kind of like the fantasy.

Is that weird? Do you ever do that? Build a fake life around someone you see walking down the street?

I would like to say for the record that I am not a stalker. I have never been and I never would be. We’ve been over this before. And if cute Scottish boy happens to be out there reading this right now, my apologies if anything I have said makes you uncomfortable. I’m just having a bit of fun, though I do find you to be very attractive. I don’t expect anything from you and I will not hassle you. But some part of you has now been incorporated into my imagination and once my imagination has you…well, there’s no telling what will happen in my head. I assure you, it will stay inside my head. I hope you have a lovely day and I wish you luck in your studies. Maybe I’ll see you again on Michigan Avenue and not talk to you.

If there was ever a day to be outside making music, it is today. It is warm and sunny and breezy and the trees are beautiful colors and there is a really wonderful feeling to the air. Today is a day to go outside and let your voice mingle with the sound of the leaves and float up through the clouds to some far away place where a stranger is suddenly reminded of the beauty that exists all around for no discernable reason. Today is a day to pump good things into the universe.

And I have to go to class tonight.

Admittedly, it makes me sad how little he knows me. I don’t think I am that hard to figure out. And especially in his case – everything that you believe in and hold dear, I believe the opposite. I don’t think it’s that hard. Well, maybe not everything, but a lot of the big things. And foisting your beliefs on me is not going to make me agree with you. If anything, it will only increase the rift between us.

I wonder how much of it is my fault. I know at least some of it is. I know there are things I don’t tell him, largely out of fear. The things that I do tell him about, I am judged very harshly on, which makes me hesitant to say more. And sometimes, I’m just at a loss. I don’t know how to talk to him. I don’t know how to share my beliefs and feelings in a non-threatening way with him. I keep my tone low and even. I preface all of my statements with “I think” or “I feel” and they are still interpreted as attacks on his belief system. I don’t know what else to do.

I dunno. Maybe I’m just moody or PMSy or something. I know he loves me the best way he knows how. And I hope he knows that I love him the best way I know how. I just wish we were more in tune sometimes, you know?

Hate is such a strong word. In general, I don’t hate things. I think it is a destructive and self-indulgent emotion. I don’t even hate Fucknut. Well, I did, but only for about four days and then it passed. It just takes too much energy to hate. I’ve always said that indifference is much more painful to the target than hatred because hatred involves passion and still means that a lot of energy is focused on the target. Indifference is just a cold nothing. But to truly, truly hate something, one must spend a lot of time and energy focusing bad thoughts and bad karma at said target. And in most cases, it’s just not worth it.

But I hate the Florida Marlins, and I will for the rest of my life. I wish bad things on them. I hope that when they all got home, all of their dogs yakked on all of their carpets and leather sofas. I hope that they all suffer from bouts of impotence for the rest of their lives. I hope the Yankees kick their asses so hard they can’t take a dump until Christmas.

I know it is just baseball. I know it is just a game and in the grand scheme of things, it is really not important. I know that it is wasted energy to hate the Marlins. But they broke the hearts of millions of people over a silly game of baseball. Millions of people couldn’t sleep on Wednesday night. Millions of people didn’t feel like eating all day Thursday. Millions of people shed millions of tears and went to work like zombies the next day. Millions of people are depressed and useless because the Marlins missed the memo that this was the Cubs’ year to do something right. And we tried so hard to do something right this year. We tried so hard, which is why it hurts so badly. It hurt to drive past Wrigley yesterday. It hurt to see a guy wearing a Cubs jacket. It hurts to see all of the signs still in store windows reading “Next year is here!” and “Go Cubbies!” It hurts to know that the Cubs were so disappointed after losing on Wednesday that they wouldn’t even come out and wave to us, even though the entire ballpark was chanting “Cubbies! Cubbies! Cubbies!” while the Marlins flaunted their victory in front of thirty-nine thousand fans with broken hearts.

So for the pain and suffering that they have inflicted on millions of Cubs fans all over the country, I will hate the Florida Marlins for the rest of my life. May they spend the rest of their days reeking of donkey urine.

Okay, boys, you can do this. I’m serious. Stop laughing. It’s not over. You have the home field advantage. You have Wood on the mound. You have an entire city, hell, half of the country behind you. We all want you to go out there and play a good game of baseball. Preferably one that ends with a score of about 11-0 in your favor.

But in all truth, we love you. We always have. We always will. That is what being a Cubs fan is all about. We have loved you and followed you through 95 years of agonizing defeats; we will continue to follow you through 95 more. At least 95 more. So really, if you don’t win this game, we’ll be proud that you made it this far and that you put up a great fight. And we’ll still pack Wrigley Field next year and cheer our hearts out for you. Because you are the Chicago Cubs – the greatest baseball team in the world. Even if you never win.

So go out there and play a good game. Have fun. Relax. Do what you do best. You’ll do a great job. We have faith in you. And we’ll all have Marlin for dinner.

I listened to 18 on my way in to work this morning and it almost made me weep, which is oddly enough, exactly what I needed to feel today, though I’m not sure why. It is kind of an icky rainy day (that better clear up for the game tonight, gosh darn it) that makes you wish you could stay home and try out your fun new mugs that have these little contraptions that fit inside the mugs into which you can put your loose tea and then you just pour hot water into the mug and your tea steeps for you and then you take out the little contraption and you have your nice hot freshly brewed tea with minimal mess though you’d still have to venture out to get some loose tea because the only tea you have is still way too uptight for that kind of thing, thank you very much, but I’ve never been to a tea wedding so how frustrating would it be to have to wait for my tea to get married before I could enjoy some loose tea? Because as we all know from the bajillion pieces of spam we get every day, housetea gets really horny when it’s husbandtea is away and housetea is the best kind of loose tea because it’s not about commitment, it’s about tea and the pleasures associated with the consumption of tea and housetea is all about being consumed.

Man, how on earth did I go from being sad and dreary to tea porn in the same paragraph?

So a little bit of unpleasantness that I feel compelled to share with you this morning, if for no other reason than to dispel any beliefs you may have about my superhuman abilities. I am, after all, just a person.

So I wake up late this morning. Usually, I take the train to work on Mondays so then I can take the train to class and then home, but I woke up way late today, so I decided to drive in. Perhaps not the best choice, but at least it got me here at something resembling a decent hour. This is important to note because the unpleasantness occurred while I was driving. As in, had I taken the train, there would have been no unpleasantness and you all could have gone on forever thinking I should be the next Marvel Comics superhero. But alas, I must sully my own image in your eyes because of an act as seemingly benign as driving in to work today.

The expressway entrance that I use on my way in to work when I drive is a source of much frustration for me. It is a one-lane piece of road that drivers inevitably turn into a two-lane road, ostensibly making a big mess out of everything and delaying many many cars behind them from getting to their jobs in a timely fashion. I have gotten in the habit of driving right smack down the middle of the one lane to try to discourage people from pulling up next to me, forcing us to merge later on down the line. I’m not always successful, but it pisses me off that some people are so impatient that they would rather try to run you off the road than wait the extra three seconds behind you on a one lane road. Maybe it’s just me and yes it is something I should learn to deal with and just get over, but this entrance ramp pisses me off.

So this morning, I’m driving down the center of the lane and it looks as if I have succeeded in encouraging those behind me to realize that this is, in fact, a one-lane road and if we all just wait our turn like civilized persons, we will all get onto the expressway in a safe and timely fashion. Until Mr. SUV decides that he’s too cool for that. This guy in a white SUV comes flying up on the right hand side (which, to our European friends might not seem like a big deal, but passing on the right-hand shoulder in the United States is, I believe, illegal, or at the very least, frowned upon) and sits right next to my car. I stay close to the car in front of me, displaying the universally accepted language for, “Fuck off, you’re not getting in front of me,” just because I hate it when people do this. Mr. SUV does not back off. In fact, he starts inching closer and closer to my car as if to say, “I’m bigger than you, so if you don’t move, I’ll just run you off the road. I have no problem with that because I have a great lawyer who will argue that I had the right of way and you were interfering with my merging process and you’ll have to pay for the damage I inflicted upon my own vehicle.” So eventually, I let the rat bastard in. He did not signal. He did not even wave a thank you. He was chatting on his cell phone. So I gave him one of my fingers. The one which in some circles is considered offensive.

In retrospect, perhaps I should have given him a slightly less offensive finger. Mr. SUV presumably did not get to have morning sex with his wife or girlfriend and was therefore in a really pissy mood. He stopped his vehicle, told the person on the other end of his cell phone call to hang on, rolled down his window and proceeded to yell at me. Personally, I was more amused by this action than anything because yelling at someone who is in a vehicle with all of the windows rolled up and the radio on is, in fact, rather futile. I let him know that I could not hear him by playing my horn for him. He said his piece (and I’m sure then bragged about how he told off this crazy bitch who tried to cut him off on his way to work this morning to the person on the other end of his cell phone) and proceeded to crawl up the rest of the ramp before rocketing off onto the expressway.

Again, in retrospect, I kind of wish that I had gotten to talk to this particular man about my reasoning behind giving him the finger that I felt he deserved. I was not upset about him delaying my day by cutting in front of me. As we know, I was already late. What’s an extra minute? It was his rudeness. I drive a small vehicle. He drives an SUV (hence the name, Mr. SUV). First he intimidates and bullies me into letting him go in front of me by wielding his much larger vehicle and belligerent attitude. Not to mention the improper way in which he goes about getting around me. Then, by going in front of me, not only is he delaying my day (which isn’t really the issue as I passed him once we were on the expressway, but what if I had been in labor or something?), but he is obstructing my view with his mammoth vehicle (which I’m sure comes in handy when he is off-roading in the city). And to top it off, he does not use his turn indicators to notify surrounding vehicles of his intentions (probably couldn’t reach the switch what with one hand on his cell phone and all), nor he does offer a wave of thanks to show that he appreciates the fact that I gave in to his aggressiveness and just let him have his way (probably an only child). He was outright rude. And I hoped that by giving him a particular finger, he might stop to think about his actions and the way in which they effect the people around him. Well, he stopped, but I think self-examination might be a little bit beyond his grasp.

In summation, my bad for not wanting to give in to the socially accepted yet improper practice of passing on the right and bullying one’s way back into traffic. My bad for waking up late and driving in to work. And my bad for not using a different finger to communicate my dissatisfaction to this particular driver. But if we could all take a moment to consider our actions, especially when operating motor vehicles, maybe a lot of stupid accidents and whatnot could be avoided. Because in all truth, he cost himself more time than he would have had to spend if he had just played by the rules.

That’s all I’m sayin’.