Tops

Before I forget to do it, a few personal best of's for 2009...

Best 3 albums I listened to all the way through this year:
1. Black Joe Lewis--Tell 'Em What Your Name Is
2. Anya Marina--Slow & Steady Seduction: Phase II
3. Neko Case--Middle Cyclone
(Possibly the ONLY three new albums I listened to all the way through!)

Best 3 movies I saw this year:
1. The Blind Side
2. The Hangover
3. Star Trek
(Probably the only 3 I saw in theaters. Sensing a theme, here?)

Best 3 days of my year:
1. Inauguration of Barack Obama
2. Beth and Kevin's wedding ceremony
3. My walk around the Stanley Park sea wall in Vancouver in June

Best 3 nights of my year:
1. Beth and Kevin's wedding reception
2. Halloween Night
3. Dinner with Samantha, Rommel and friends in Brooklyn earlier this month

Best 3 trips I took this year:
1. New Orleans (March or July--both were great)
2. Vancouver in June
3. Washington, D.C. in Jan.

Best new hobbies I picked up this year:
1. Cupcaking
2. Treadmilling
3. Poker, the rededicated version (in which I still don't win any $.)

I have a feeling I will be making more lists of the decade-end variety soon. Feel free to add your own personal lists in the comments.

Tell me about your Christmas list

I am at a total loss in the gift-giving department this year. I just cannot figure out what any of my friends or family want or need, and since I'm unlikely to have much time to shop I need to come up with some ideas in a hurry. Unless people give me some good suggestions, virtually everyone on my Christmas list is getting a sweater, a bottle of wine, cologne/perfume, or a Snuggie. Seriously, I wish I were kidding but that's what has been purchased so far and what I think I am stuck with.

As a little quid pro quo for you sharing your wish list with me, I'll share mine with you in case you are similarly at a loss for gift ideas:

1. A Blu-ray disc player: preferably the kind that also can download movies etc. via wi-fi, because seriously, how cool is that?

2. Lolita Lempicka perfume: I wear this constantly. I got 2 bottles of it for my birthday a few years ago and I have just about used them up!

3. A dutch oven: the Le Creuset ridiculously expensive cast iron kind, not the one where you fart in my bed and pull the covers over my head, in case anyone was thinking this one sounded way too easy.

4. Gift card for a massage at a spa: always a good idea for the women in your life.

5. An FSU flag to fly outside my house: now that the team is back on the right track to its former perennial glory, I want to proudly display my allegiance in front of my soon-to-be garnet and gold house

I could probably come up with a few more, but those are the first 5 things that spring to mind. Of course, I would also be thrilled with a sweater or a bottle of wine (or tequila), because I am simple like that.

The Mystery of the Not My Condoms

Friday night I was searching for something high and low throughout my house, and my search took me to my nightstand drawer. While I have no desire to tell you all about the contents of that drawer, just trust that should my parents ever get curious and open it, they will immediately shut it and try to forget what they saw. While rummaging through the various things that would make Baby Jesus cry, I came across a stray condom...a plain old garden variety lubricated Trojan.

This was a curious discovery, since I am allergic to latex and therefore have not purchased or had latex condoms in my vicinity in at least a decade. (I will spare you the details on this too, except to say that once you've experienced a latex allergy in a delicate and highly sensitive place, you become more than a little wary. The first thing I tell every doctor is to make sure their gloves are not latex.) I knew right away it wasn't my condom, since I have a few of the polyurethane ones in the drawer and even those may have long since passed their expiration dates. So what the hell was this thing doing in my drawer?

The choices, none of which are particularly fun for me to contemplate, appear to be that a friend left it there as a joke during one of the parties I've had in the past few years, one of my friends with a key to my house left it there while cat-sitting (hopefully as a joke and not because it was leftover from some sort of sexual act that occurred in my bed because I WILL KILL WHOEVER DID THAT), my cleaning lady left it there (see aforementioned parenthetical), or some other option that I can't wrap my brain around right now. And before anyone suggests that my still-getting-frisky-over-sixty parents left it there, just don't. My mom got her tubes tied almost 20 years ago.

Regardless of how it ended up there, I am now completely bewildered and ooged out. And considering buying a new mattress and sheets and possibly burning my bed frame.

Love this

(Via Share some candy)

Oldie but a goodie

Today for what seems like about the 5th time since I moved to Atlanta, I was diagnosed with pinkeye. This seems to happen almost every time I get sick, for some reason. I have antibiotic drops and all that jazz, but when I got back to the office from the interminable wait at the Minute Clinic, I realized that I had probably blogged about this strange phenomenon of mine at least once before. And, lo and behold, I have! And then I remembered how my sick friends decided to convince me that I had an STD in my eye...ah, good times.

Today's Video Interlude (contains NSFW language)

"What, you're not hungry?"

See, I'm not crazy

OK, maybe I still am crazy, but not because of my low pain threshhold or fear of the dentist. Apparently it's all the fault of my redheaded complexion. (Despite what you might think from the childhood photograph on the right, my hair is more red than blonde these days. That picture was taken after a summer spent in the pool.)

A recent study showed that redheads have a genetic mutation that causes them to be resistant to anesthesia, including Novocaine. Redheads on average required 20% more anesthesia than blondes or brunettes. They were also more likely to avoid dental work and to be afraid of the dentist due to past painful experiences. I can certainly speak to that; the last time I had scaling and 2 cavities filled, I had 27 shots of novocaine and I still felt pain during the procedures. Now I know why--because I am probably anesthetically resistant.

I am printing out this article and taking it to the dentist next time I go!

We are all so old

Wired's Geekdad blog assembles a list of 100 things that every geek remembers but that today's children will never know.

My personal favorite? #30: "Blowing the dust out of a NES cartridge in the hopes that it’ll load this time."

My personal addition to the list: learning how to write simple programs in Basic on my elementary school's computers.

Jobs I've Had Part V: The Randoms

In between the lobbyist gig and my next job working for a temp agency, I had a few fitfull attempts at other jobs for a few days or weeks at a time.

In 1996, an environmental organization was trying to get a ballot question on the Florida ballot that would force the state to clean up and preserve the Florida everglades. The 'Glades had been polluted and harmed by sugar farming down there for decades, and the sugar industry was a powerful lobby in Florida. The goal was to create a constitutional amendment requiring the state to prevent future pollution and to clean up the past effects. The organizations had been trying this for years, but they finally raised millions of dollars to front this referendum and were mounting a serious campaign. In order to place the issue on the ballot, the state was requiring something like 500,000 valid signatures from registered voters, and the campaign had raised millions so that they could pay people $1 per signature to get at least 1 million people signed up. (These sorts of campaigns always build in a cushion to account for signatures that will be thrown out because they can't be verified or are repeats.)

To a college student, $1 a signature sounds like a gold mine...you just find a crowded place and you could have earned $50 an hour. We had heard stories of people who had gone to an outdoor concert or a county fair and made $200 in just a few hours. The $1 per signature was paid out when you turned your signature pad in, even if the signer turned out to not be registered in Florida or to have previously signed the petition another time. My boyfriend and I decided this sounded like a great way to make lots of money very fast.

(This experience gave me some insight into the problems with fake registrations during the 2008 election, as I was fairly certain that the people turning in those fake registrations had also been paid per registration and thus had a powerful incentive to abuse the system. Not that we ever did anything like that with the signatures!)

We got our clipboards full of petitions and headed to a parking lot of a strip mall to accost people heading into or out of the Barnes and Noble. We quickly learned that getting people to sign this thing was tougher than we'd heard, particularly when store management would come out and ask us to leave. We'd move to another strip mall and start over, but we were averaging only about 5 signatures an hour apiece. We discovered that many people had already signed and did not want to fill out the lengthy form to do so again. Others had started seeing the ads run by the sugar industry against the proposed referendum, and wanted to argue with us. After about a week we decided this job was a bust and we turned in our clipboards. I think we maybe cleared $50 each.

Gabe and I worked together on two other occasions with similarly disastrous results. First, we saw an ad in the paper for a telephone sales job and both showed up to the address listed to find that it was circulation sales for the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper. I lasted all of one night before deciding that I absolutely hated telephone sales and would rather starve than try that again. Gabe went back for the rest of the week, because he actually sort of liked pissing people off, but even he burned out by the end of the week. I don't think I made a single sale before I quit.

We also worked for a department store, I think Dillard's faxing sale advertisements to local public schools for a teachers' discount promotion the store was running. We each sat in separate offices in the administrative part of the department store for 2 days faxing the same 1 page ad to several dozen local schools at a time. However, because the department store had gotten in trouble for sending un-requested faxes before, we had to call each school and reach a real live person to get their permission to fax the notice to each one. This was almost as unpleasant as telephone sales, and made worse by Gabe's constant need to make everything into a contest. This was probably why we never worked together again after that 2 day gig. I also recognized that I was not cut out for a career in sales, and vowed never to try to take on that sort of job ever again.

After a month or so of these odd jobs and the fear of living without a steady income, I was thinking of going home to Orlando to work for Disney for the rest of the summer but I was afraid my parents would find out about my school issues. I decided to apply to work for a temp agency, which was where I worked for the remainder of the summer and the fall semester. That story will be a separate post.


Rusty's posts inspired this topic, and Garrett and Thomas are writing about their former jobs as well. Join in the fun, and I'll link to you too!

"Excess men"

The seeds of China's population control programs are bearing scary fruit: right now there are 32 million fewer young women than young men in China, and that gap is only expected to grow as parents continue to abort female fetuses or even kill female newborns, in order to ensure that their one government-alloted child is male.

Many have been horrified by this practice since it was instituted in the 1970's, but we often don't think about the societal impact as this male-dominated generation grows up. One man can impregnate a hundred women, but a woman can generally only get pregnant and deliver a baby about once a year. Necessarily, a smaller population of women means a smaller future population overall. But what about the "excess men," as this article refers to them? The ones who are not able, for whatever reason, to attract a mate? Even if we take traditional relationships and marriages out of the equation, the sheer numbers tell us that roughly that amount will never father a child. I'm not sure if the concerns of researchers are ones that I share (for example, they worry that sexed up young men unable to find women to get with will become violent and engage in criminal actvities; I think they'll probably just go to other nearby countries to find some booty) but it most definitely presents an interesting and unsettling biological problem.

In no other species where a sex population gap became so prominent would you expect it to work itself out without consequences. What will the consequences be for China? A sexually frustrated, aggressive mega-military? A rash of rapes and suicides? A bustling prostitution trade? Or something we're not thinking of?

I find things like this fascinating. When I imagine it not as the Chinese, but as a population of, say, dogs on an island somewhere, I can envision all the ways in which evolution might find a way to solve the problem. The physically strongest would be the ones to take mates, thus leading to a generation of physically more dominant dogs and probably a rise in their innate aggression as well. Any fertility problems in any of the females would be immediately magnified because they are so outnumbered. (This also makes me think of the Handmaid's Tale.) And I would expect to see a drop in the life expectancy of this generation, to account for the rise in male members who generally don't live as long as females.

The thought of an excess of men leads me to other questions...who will care for the single men when they get too old and feeble to care for themselves? No longer will they be able to count on a partner or a child, and I would expect long term care expenses in that country to rise dramatically. Asian culture has long emphasized the children taking in and taking care of the parents when they become older, but that will obviously not be an option for these men. Also, won't more men living alone for most of their lives also compound the overpopulation problem by further reducing population density? A couple living with their children are certainly going to take up less individual room than one man by himself.

The implications of this gap were certainly not well thought out when it was instituted, but at this point it is too late to undo the damage. It will be very interesting to see exactly how it all plays out. Life finds a way, but not always or even usually the way that you might want.

Random Post-Christmas Babble

I've lost my blogging mojo. There's so much going on at this time of year, and yet so little that feels like it's worth writing about. But because I feel guilty when I go more than 5 days without posting, I figure I should give a little quick and dirty snapshot of the things bouncing around my addled brain.

* Despite the pronouncements from the family that this would be a low gift giving year due to the economy being in the shitter, I really did clean up quite nicely. I got some wonderful bath stuff, a buffet from Pottery Barn, a Kitchenaid stand mixer (finally! and I didn't even have to get engaged or married to get one, either!), a new wreath for my front door because my mom decided the current one is "sad," and a terrycloth loungewear set. I am also allegedly getting a 2 parent painting crew to finally finish the painting of my house. And finally, I got at least one of the intangible cosmic sort of things I was hoping for, and still have my fingers crossed on a couple others. Hopefully the universe will deliver on those too.

* We had three vegetarians at Christmas dinner this year, and you would think my mother was told that these people would die if they accidentally touched meat the way the news threw her into a state of confusion and panic. She could NOT figure out what to make for a Christmas dinner meal that would be appealing to vegetarians, and then suddenly she decided that as long as we had eighty-two types of vegetables on the table, she could serve ham AND turkey. The vegetarians brought a quiche with fake tofu ham in it, and all was well. But the week of menu planning with my mom before she just decided to make every vegetable in the known universe, that was not fun to be a part of.

* We have this new stupid Christmas tradition here in the office that I'm very unhappy about. The new head of our department brought in a little stuffed elf doll that is supposed to "do mischief" to people's offices. Basically, whoever gets hit by the elf is supposed to pick another target and mess up their workspace somehow. Predictably in a place filled with soulless lawyers, this has been taken to serious extremes already. Last week saw one poor secretary's workspace blocked off with boxes floor to cieling, behind which there was tape 12 feet across in all directions from her filing cabinets to her desk to the walls of her cubicle. It took her several hours to undo the damage.

Despite my prounoucement that I found this whole thing stupid, some brave soul decided to mess up my office in the elf's name sometime before I got here on Friday. We're supposed to send a cheery little email to the group about how Paul the elf messed with our space, but I refused. Instead, I fixed everything he'd messed up, took the elf to another associate's office, and took every piece of paper on his desk and stacked it on top of his bookshelf. That was enough. There was no taping, no crazy decorating, no fire hazardry. And this associate has not sent a cheery little email about the elf's mischief, either. I think hopefully people by now have realized that a) Christmas is over and b) this idea was pretty dumb to begin with.

Bah Humbug. (Yeah, they say I should be more positive at work. What of it?!)

* Pray for my friend Jen, who is going to the dentist for the first time in years tomorrow because she has a serious tooth issue. She's very nervous, and she will need the support. I sent her to my dentist, who you may remember treated me mostly OK when I showed up there after nearly 9 years without a dental visit back in 2006. It helped that they gave me Nitrous, and then Valium when I didn't like the Nitrous. I told Jen to ask for both!

* I have absolutely zero plans for New Year's Eve as of right now, though I must say that the event at the Graveyard with a burlesque striptease that Tessa wrote about certainly sounds like it has potential. Or, there's always the incomparable Francine Reed at Blind Willie's, if I want to pay $50 for a reserved table seat. (Probably not.) I am not someone who feels the need to have crazy New Year's plans every year, and in fact I have not particularly enjoyed some of the more memorably over-the-top planned events I went to in years past. But still, I want to do SOMETHING to ring in the new year. (Other than watch a certain wedding webcast...)

* So maybe it's because we were drunk, or maybe it's because we were reminiscing about the geeky former life in which we both met, but Jen and I had a hilarious conversation just before Christmas about....bacon. We were talking about the problem with earthy crunchy people--the type who always eat healthy, do outdoorsy shit and are environmentally responsible (you know who you are--and I prounounced that I do not trust anyone who does not eat bacon. And I meant it! Seriously, bacon is one of life's great unexpected pleasures, and anyone who does not recognize its innate wonderfulness is suspect in my book. Fine, eat turkey bacon if you must, but do so with the recognition that you are attempting to compromise between bacon-y goodness and your earthy crunchy ways.

Along similar lines, I proclaimed on Christmas Eve (again a little drunkenly) that "mayonnaise makes everything better." You might expect to see a new blog dedicated to these concepts in the near future, as soon as Jen and I get off our asses and make it look like an actual blog.

* I can feel the natural progression of my sports allegiances to Atlanta teams occurring now, particularly as the Falcons and Hawks are actually pretty good this year. (Braves are going to need to work harder to win me over from the Red Sox.) You may recall that I have a pretty solid record of bringing sports championships to my city, and yes I do take all the credit for it. I've now been in Atlanta for 3 years, so it's about time for things to start turning around. I believe in Matty Ice! And I would totally have his babies.

* Congratulations to Jen and Tony, who in just 2 short days will be tying the knot in Vegas on New Year's Eve. I can honestly say this will be the first wedding ceremony I will have watched over the internet, but somehow it all makes sense. Have a great time, and best wishes for a wonderful life together.

See, thinking and talking about those two taking the big leap snapped me right out of my curmudgeonliness from earlier in this post. If that isn't a sign of real inspiration, I don't know what is.

Blog Year in Review

It seems top 10 lists are all the rage in the blogosphere right now. Inspired by Griftdrift’s excellent Top 10 Blog Stories of 2008, which you should read if you haven’t already, here are my favorite blog posts from each month of 2008:

January: My Second Poker Trip, to Tunica
It didn’t really turn out that much differently from the first poker trip, except that I lost more money this time. But I had a blast.

February: Primary Endorsement
In which I inadequately attempted to explain why Barack Obama inspired me to vote for him.

March: Questioning the Sexism Canard
It is now conventional wisdom that Hillary Clinton was the victim of rampant sexism during the primary campaign. But is that really why she lost? It didn’t feel that way to me back in March.

April: Signs, Signs, Everywhere Signs (of an impending economic collapse)
Sometimes being right sucks.

May: My Poker Trip to New Orleans
It was the best vacation (OK, the only real vacation) I’ve taken in years. And I still didn't win any money.

June: The Supreme Court Restores Habeas Corpus for Gitmo Detainees
...and I was inspired enough to write a lengthy love letter to the Constitution.

July: The Odyssey of My Car Being Towed
I may never know exactly why my car got towed--was it where I parked it? Had someone already stolen my tag when the cops showed up?--but the saga that followed was nothing if not entertaining.

August: I've Been to Saraland, But I've Never Been to Me
For years I’ve known about this tiny town in Alabama called Saraland. I have wanted to visit, I have hoped for a T-shirt. And this August, on the way to Biloxi, I finally made it there. It wasn’t that great if I'm really honest about it, but I still had a nonstop smile for the entire 14 hours we were there.

September: Troy Davis’ Clemency Petition Is Denied
It looked pretty grim for Davis at several points in September, but at the last minute he received a Supreme Court stay. Then a denial of certiorari and a new execution date. Then an 11th Circuit stay. The rollercoaster was tough on everyone who cares about seeing justice for Davis. But as of today, he is still alive. That appeared very unlikely back in September.

October: In Defense of Sarah Palin getting a new wardrobe
Sure, it shouldn’t have cost $150,000, but I had to take up for the small town Alaska girl getting to do a little shopping before taking her turn on the international stage. I would want to hit Saks and Bloomie's too!

November: It Finally Happened
The night Obama was elected President is one that I will remember for the rest of my life.

December: Who Knows?
I like to think my best blogging this month is yet to come. Or not.

Randomness

I have a lot of stuff going on in my life and in my friends' lives right now, but none of it is really safe to publicly blog about. Hence the virtual silence around here of late. So, in no particular order, here's some random stuff bouncing around in my empty head:

* I have to decide whether to go to the trouble and expense of getting a Christmas tree this year. I had one in 2006, but did not buy one last year and didn't really miss it all that much. I still have a million ornaments that match perfectly and look beautiful, but do I really want to take the hours upon hours it will require to decorate the tree, only to worry about the cat knocking it over? (Yes, that has happened before. Many times.) I've been in kind of a bad mood lately because of the aforementioned unbloggable stuff, so maybe a forced infusion of Christmas spirit would help. Or maybe it would just make me homicidal and poorer. You tell me.

* Speaking of my lack of Christmas spirit, which I struggle with every year, I tried to make a Christmas list the other day and just failed miserably. There are so many things I'd like for Christmas (a new job!...oops, did I say that out loud?) but precious few that I can actually provide to friends and family trying to decide what to get me as a gift. What I really want from my friends is their companionship, support, and happiness in the coming year. That goes a lot longer than any gift. And for my family, I want prosperity and health. It feels really lame saying "oh yeah, and a Kitchenaid Artisan mixer and cashmere gloves" at the end of a list of such far more important concerns.

* Sometimes, I can be a real pain in the ass. Even when I might be right. I need to remember that.

* I can't decide whether to have a holiday party, a Super Bowl party, both, or neither. I haven't had a party at my house in almost 2 years, since a falling out between some close friends that has made me wary of holding any event to which I would want to invite both. But the hostess bug is hitting me hard, and making me want to bring new people together from the many friends I have made in the last 2 years, and the holidays seem like a natural time to do that. I also always love an excuse to craft a menu and cook far too much food for people.

However, I also worry that everyone is booked up with other holiday parties already and wouldn't be able to come anyway. Decisions, decisions. So, readers...tell me. Are you already booked for every weekend day between now and Dec 25th? If so, the Super Bowl is a really easy, natural time to have a party and my last one was a success. I will almost certainly try that again this year, especially since my Pats won't even be sniffing the playoffs this year from the looks of things.

* Speaking of football, I am so impressed with the way the Falcons are beating expectations that I am thinking I need to start going to more professional sporting events here in town. The Falcons are pretty good, the Hawks are pretty good, hockey is fun even when your team sucks, and the Braves at least have the chance of being decent. Yet, our sports teams are among the lowest attended in the professional leagues. It's time for those of us who enjoy watching and rooting for these teams to start showing our appreciation by putting butts in seats. Who's with me?

* But my college team, that's one that is not getting my butt in a seat for at least another 9 months, if ever. I haven't blogged about the woeful experience that was the Florida-Florida State game because I don't know if I can ever put into words just how much it sucked. We got our asses kicked by our arch rivals, it poured rain on us for much of the game (and for virtually our entire drive to Tallahassee & back), and my phone got wet and shorted out even though it was in my purse the whole time. SUCKED. My seething anger at Bobby & Co. might be blogged someday, but not today.

* Saturday night, after I was in a mood and needed something cathartic, I went to see the incomparable Francine Reed at Blind Willie's blues club. Oh Lord, was it what I needed. If you have never seen Ms. Reed live and in person, you owe it to yourself to check her out. Here's a video of her doing my favorite song she performs, Ida Cox's "Wild Women Don't Get the Blues."



And with that, I guess I better just get wild and crazy, because I really can't stand to have the blues anymore.

What you're Googling

I haven't done this in quite awhile, but a recent trend has emerged that inspired me once again. In order of frequency over the last week, here's what you're Googling to end up at this blog:

Sarah Palin hairstyle/hairdo/hair
Sarah Palin fashion/clothes/outfits
Sarah Palin makeup
Sarah Palin shoes
Sarah Palin jewelry/earrings

These were by far and away the most-Googled search terms in the last week. The rest, also in approximate order of frequency:

Twin Peaks
Five Factor Diet recipes/reviews
Sudafed or Mucinex
Mudflap girl/woman
Bobby Bowden
The Constitution

Isn't that just sad? The Constitution loses out to diets, cold medicine, a TV show from 17 years ago, and five different searches for superficial shit about Sarah Palin. Now I'm depressed. Now I feel like killing myself, but luckily I'm too depressed to bother. (Name that movie!)

There was also a little spurt of hits for "Tiffany Michelle's bad behavior." I have no idea what that's all about, but apparently something happened to cause half a dozen people to Google it.

Random

I don't have the mental clarity or time for mutiple blog posts, so some tidbits bouncing around my brain to tide folks over:

* Troy Davis dies in a week. I really want to go to protest outside the execution, but I don't know if I will be able to get out of town in time. If not, I will sit on my front step that night and light a candle, and pray. I encourage all who find the decision to execute this man without full consideration of the grounds for his appeal to do the same.

* Tonight I am going with a group of folks to try Taverna Plaka. I haven't had greek food in ages, so I'm very excited! Review forthcoming as soon as I find the time.

* This weekend, I'm going to the FSU-Virginia Tech game. Considering that we lost the Miami game I went to last year, and the 3 home games I went to the year before that, I am a little apprehensive about whether I might be jinxing the team. However, I bought new gear to wear in the hope of exorcising the old demons.

* My darling Red Sox are out of the playoffs, but they really overachieved in making it to game 7 of the ALCS given the injuries they were struggling with. Now I have to root for the Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays, since I grew up in central FL. However, I suspect most Braves fans would be rooting against them because if the Rays win they will have eclipsed the Braves' "worst to first" record in 1991...when the Braves lost in the World Series.

* Pretty much everything I watch on TV these days is disappointing and doesn't seem worth the time. Grey's Anatomy sucks, True Blood is cheesy and porny (and badly written), Project Runway was a mere shell of its former self in this last season on Bravo, I lost interest in Fringe after 2 episodes, I couldn't get back into watching the Sarah Connor Chronicles or Pushing Daisies, and Heroes is clearly in the category of one-season wonders previously occupied by Friday Night Lights. Even Gossip Girl isn't as good this time around. Are there any shows that are lighting up your TV screens that I should be watching? (Excepting those on Showtime, which I don't have.)

* This weekend, I attempted Operation Convince the Family to Vote for Obama. It didn't go so well. My grandparents aren't going to vote at all (which is better than a vote for McCain, I guess), and my parents are both so afraid of Democrats having unfettered control of government that they won't be swayed. At least that is their reasoning, rather than fear of a secret Muslim or focus on his alleged relationship with William Ayers. But still, Habersham county is apparently McCain country.

* I bought Mario Kart last weekend for my Wii, and I can't stop playing it. The race that takes place in a shopping mall is so incredibly hard, I want to kill myself every time I try it. But I keep trying it anyway.

* Work is busy, but busy is good. Even though the tension in these parts is pretty thick right about now. Everyone's waiting for the other shoe of the financial crisis to drop, and wondering if it will fall on them. Not the greatest of environments in which to spend my days.

* The election cannot get here fast enough. I am officially sick of it, and ready for Obama to just WIN ALREADY.

Observations from the Ob/gyn

If there's one thing that women never look forward to, it's a trip to the gynecologist. Last week when I went to refill my birth control prescription, I discovered it had expired, meaning it was time for an annual trip to the land of stirrups. Don't worry, this post won't involve the sort of graphic descriptions you're afraid I'm going to provide, so you can stop cringing now.

My ob-gyn is across the street from Northside Hospital, in a large practice that apparently delivers about a bajillion babies. I know this because every time I am forced to go there, the waiting room is littered with women who look like they are smuggling basketballs and watermelons under their shirts. Normally I have an afternoon appointment, which means I am sharing the office with women getting their regular every 2 week checkups as their pregnancy progresses. But today I had a first thing in the morning appointment (or at least it should've been if it had started remotely on time), and apparently first thing in the morning on a Thursday = appointments when the daddy comes along. There were at least 3 uncomfortable looking men in the waiting room when I arrived. Two of them were with women who were visibly pregnant, one was with a woman who was not.

At this particular office, there is one huge main waiting room and then a smaller waiting room in the back where you are taken after the medical assistant takes some basic information and weighs you. (What a joy this is to find out that for yet another year I've gained a couple pounds since the last time I was there.) This back waiting room is small, and uncomfortable, and when I arrived there were 5 other people already back there. The couple that interested me in the main waiting room was there, and though neither of them said a word, I could see their story clear as day. They were not married, potentially not even seriously involved. But she was pregnant, and coming to the ob-gyn for the first time. And he was terrified.

I waited and watched, hoping to see some small sign of reassurance between them, anything other than the complete terror and panic on both faces. I wanted him to reach over and hold her hand, or give her a smile, or to say something to cut the tension. Instead, they sat there, not touching, his leg bouncing uncontrollably while she eyeballed the rack of pamphlets about infections and birth control options and elective surgeries on the wall.

If I was a telepath like Sookie on "True Blood," I suspect I would've heard her telling herself something along the the lines of:

Well, he's here, and that means something. But I have no idea if he will still be here in 6 months. Can I really do this without him?

And if I could have heard his thoughts, it probably woul've sounded something like this:

WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T I WEAR A MOTHERFUCKING CONDOM?! OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD...

After 10 minutes or so of uncomfortable silence, they were called off to an exam room where the poor guy undoubtedly got an education in what we women go through with a vagina. He would've seen a wand, about 8 inches long, coated with lubricating jelly and inserted into her in order to do an internal ultrasound and see the fetal heartbeat. He would've heard an estimated gestational age and due date, and then all of the discussions about all the decisions that will need to be made. And yes, he was there, and that is something. But just like the girl fears, I don't know if he will be there in six months. He looked pretty freaked out.

Then I had to go into a small room of my own, pee in a cup, put on a paper "gown" that essentially consists of an unfolded paper napkin wrapped around my shoulders and another one strewn across my naked lower half, and sit on a table and wait. There is no confidence or comfort in that moment, only a recognition of our utter ridiculousness. I am wrapped in paper and waiting for someone to come poke, prod and hurt me while asking uncomfortable questions about my sex life and the fragile ecosystem that is my nether regions. But thankfully, I have an empty uterus and no panicked guy next to me trying to keep it together and do the right thing. I was given a clean bill of health and another year's worth of birth control prescriptions. As added bonus, this time they came with a heaping helping of incentive to use them carefully, lest I ever put a guy of my own into that state of mortal terror and me into a world of doubt. There but for the grace of God...

I Twittered While Rome Burned

So I've been busy as hell at work, which is a good thing because busy lawyers bring the firm money and therefore are less likely to be laid off, but the consequence of all this busy-ness (in addition to stratospheric insanity level) is a lack of time to blog. I've been twittering a fair amount, though, and since I had to take my twitter feed private a couple months ago I feel like my most random and therefore potentially interesting thoughts aren't making it to the blog anymore.

So, in a week when the Democratic ticket plummeted in the polls, and it serious politicians were forced to divine the meaning of "lipstick on a pig" and argue over whether anyone really understands the Bush doctrine, and our financial markets are so fucked up that people have started using third rail words like DEPRESSION, and the entire state of Texas was ruined by a hurricane, and FSU managed to win its first two games by a combined score of 115-7 (if that isn't a sign that the world is ending I don't know what is), and my social life dwindled down to nothingness faster than Mary Kate Olsen at a fat farm...here's what randomness has been keeping my brain occupied--aka the good, bad, and ugly from my recent Twitter feed:


We're in 80's time warp. Woman running for VP, culture wars bloom anew, fear of war w/ the Russkies, really old Republican running for prez.

ABC reports Palin said we might have to go to war w/ Russia if they invade anyone else. She is so not ready for prime time. SO. NOT. READY.

Reading old blog posts of mine. Once upon a time, I kinda knew how to write. Now I suck.

Can't move. Too tired.

Too tired for beer. Seriously, that is really f'ing tired for me.

I have a scab on my arm and absolutely no recollection of getting injured in that spot. I'm either going senile or need to stop drinking.

I am going to use "lipstick on a pig" in every single brief I write for the rest of my life. Starting with this one. Just because I can.

Home. Quote of the night from Nora: "Thank God I wasn't born as Wm. Shakespeare." 2nd funniest: "He just started talked about licking butt."

So shocked and heartbroken that the Board of Pardons and Paroles denied Troy Davis' clemency request. This makes me sick to my stomach.

So confused as to why a guy who I stopped talking to because he acted like an asshole would suddenly try to reinitiate things after 10 mos.

Hearing about a case in which a guy fell in a hole and "hurt his balls."

It only took an hour for me to be able to successfully open BOTH eyes this morning.

Wow. Just watched the "Bush doctrine' part of the interview. That was painful...because she's SO. NOT. READY.

Wow, Peyton Manning sucks this year.

Might be going to So Fla next Fri. So, 1 of those 2 disturbances lingering in the Atlantic should turn into a tropical storm any second now.

Going to bed, hope that the folks in Galveston and Houston get a weaker hurricane than anticipated & the loss of life is lower than feared.

I take back every nasty thing I've ever said about "the View." (Except the stuff about Elisabeth.) Those girls GRILLED McCain good today.

If the scores hold, I lost by less than a point for the second time in as many games. I should win a bad luck trophy.

Yet again I will lose fantasy FB in a squeaker. This is getting old and it's only the 2nd week. Ugh.

Purchased baby shower gift for this coming weekend, since I'l probably be too busy to shop. Also, I don't need to go near a baby section.

Rethinking my previously purchased halloween costume and trying to decide what I might go as instead. Little Red Riding Hood? I dunno.

Weird, weird dreams last night. For example, @amberlrhea was piloting the space shuttle. And was meeting us in Gainesville to go bowling.

Why oh why did I wear the red high heels that I know pinch my feet? What price, fashion...

The moment when all the adrenaline fades and you are just left with overwhelming exhaustion and relief is such a weird, conflicted time.

Turkey on rye and potato salad from Goldberg's tastes like about the best thing in the universe right now. I might be moaning while I eat.

So I have McCain to thank/blame for being tethered to my job 24/7 by my Blackberry? I'm guessing this won't go meme like Gore & the internet.

Friday Randomness

Not enough for their own posts, these are the snippets running through my head today:

* John Edwards admitted he had an affair with that woman he previously claimed he didn't screw. You know, the one who everyone found out about last year when she was 6months pregnant and Edwards' campaign manager claimed he fathered the baby. The one who Edwards was caught by the Enquirer trying to have a clandestine rendezvous with a couple weeks ago. *That* woman.

And all I can think is: anyone who cheats on his wife while she's dying of cancer is the king of scum. I wish I were surprised, but frankly Edwards never really lit my panties on fire as a political entity. He's probably a hell of a trial lawyer, but he was never going to be President. This little mishap just ensures he will never be Vice President either.

I hope Elizabeth kicks him in the balls and leaves him.

* Tonight, I'm crossing something off my "things you must do at least once when you live in Atlanta" list: I'm seeing a movie at the Fox. Specifically, we are going to see Iron Man. Hey, it beats going to World of Coke...

* So in my practice group, we have this thing where someone brings in bagels on Fridays. For a long time a secretary in our group was bringing them, but when we decided that was too expensive a burden for her to bear, we set up a list by seniority of attorneys bringing in bagels week by week. Amazingly, we made it 2 months before someone forgot to bring their bagels in. (No, it wasn't me. I'm next week.) You would have thought the world had come to an end the way people were whining about not having breakfast here waiting for them. Now we have had a day filled with drama and snarky emails as a result. Over bagels. These people need to cut their carb intake, clearly.

* I am inordinately excited about taking another poker trip in a few weeks. I don't really have any reason to be hopeful after the last 3 have been disappointing, but I just have a feeling. Maybe it's because this time if I crash and burn, I can just go to the beach!

* I'm wondering why people don't seem more concerned about the whole Russia/Georgia hostilities today. This seems like a huge instability threat to me, and I can remember a time when talk of Russia invading a neighboring country would have sent people scurrying into bomb shelters. Are we just unimpressed with this sort of thing now that the US has marched into a few sovereign countries and started bombing shit? Or is everyone really just distracted by the Olympics?

* As I said to my parents over breakfast yesterday, I could not possibly give less of a shit about the Olympics this year. I used to love watching them when I was younger, and can even remember watching things like Greg Louganis' dives, the 96 women's gymnastic team, the dream team, the amazing swimming finishes, etc. in years past. But this year, I think the combination of the time difference and not following most of the sports featured that closely anymore has me feeling blah about it all.

I believe they call this ennui

I am inexplicably and hopelessly bored with life. I find no stimulation at work, apart from worrying about whether I will have a job in six months and how I will pay mortgage and car payment and such if I don't. No social activities are particularly lighting my panties on fire, it's just a lot of the same old, same old. I have zero romantical prospects that interest me and even when I find something mildly intriguing the thought of investing effort and giving a shit just makes me sigh with fatigue. I think of doing things like painting my bedroom, buying new dining room chairs, or taking on some other home improvement project to shake me out of my funk...and I can't even muster the energy to go through with it.

What do you do when you fall into a funk like this? Do you just keep swimming through the cold water, waiting for something or someone to strike your fancy? Do you shake things up completely and figure change will certainly make things more interesting? Do you take a vacation somewhere restful or fun and hope that reignites your sense of adventure? Because I'm stuck, and I need something to unstick me. I'm tired of having nothing to look forward to, nothing to work towards, and nothing that gets me excited. I need a kick in the ass.

And to stop whining about it and start doing something.

The cat will live

Thanks for all who have expressed concern in comments, emails and tweets for my cat Claudio's health issues. We went to the vet this morning and after 2 rounds of sub-cutaneous IV fluids, some antibiotics, and a mouthful of Cat Lax, he was sent home with me with a diagnosis of vaccine reaction. I am supposed to go find baby food to try to get him eating again, and in particular ham flavored baby food. If that doesn't work, we are going to get him onto appetite stimulating pills. I never thought this fat little fucker would need an appetite stimulant, but at this point all I want is to see my piglet back to his normal self.

After he was a holy terror at the vet on Friday, I was surprised at how relatively subdued this visit was. Either kitty really did feel like doo-doo, or he finally realized the futility of resistance and decided going with the flow might work out better. A few hisses, a few growls, but overall he was fine. And by the time I got him home I could already tell that he was feeling better. Hopefully by nightfall he will have a tummy full of baby food.