One more week until The Keys. It’s a sunny 82 degrees there. I need to maybe get something to wear that’s not jeans. I look terrible in shorts, so maybe capris?
Oh dear god I cannot wait to get on that plane and get the hell out of town.
David’s camping and kayaking right now. I think he was glad to get out of the house this morning simply because he was tired of the barrage of worrying questions such as “will a bear eat you? will a wolf eat you? will a badger eat you? did you know cotton kills? i learned that once! Are you going to hang your food from a tree? will you freeze to death? do you think the badgers have their own fire brigade? will you fall out of your kayak? will you lose your food? do you have a first aid kit? what if you get lost? what if you stumble into Deliverance?”. It wasn’t pretty.
When I’m left alone for any extended period of time the first order of business is to get very very unhealthy take out food and pig out. David, being aware of my propensity to abuse my body, left me with a kitchen full of vegetables. Damn.
Breakfast is Sunday at 9am, I’ll post the location when I figure out where it is.
I’m going to miss the first $1 hot dog night Twins game. Sigh. Worth it though, I’d rather go to florida.
So, they read the Pope’s will today. He didn’t leave me anything. Damn. Actually, he didn’t leave anything to anybody. He had no earthly possessions. He was the head of one of the largest institutions on the planet and he never bothered to go shopping, no one ever gave him a birthday present or a christmas gift. I mean I guess what do you give the Pope on his birthday? I know I’d be stumped. I bet he would have liked new slippers though, or maybe a home made scarf. He also wanted his personal notes burned which I think is sad, too. Busy, intelligent man, would have been interesting to see his notes. I wonder if he wrote about his moments of doubt or his times of despair? It would seem to me that stuff like that would be helpful for people to hear. If the Pope feels doubt on occasion then maybe it’s okay to question your faith, i think that’s how you strengthen it.
I was going to leave work early today, but there was a showing at the house. Dammit.
Monthly Archives: April 2005
A Scandal in Bohemia
My coworkers in the office next to mine like to listen to conservative talk radio. They like being conservative and they like repeating those things they’ve heard on Rush or whatever they listen to. Now, I’m very much a liberal, but I appreciate different views and don’t begrudge them their political leanings at all…
except…quite often their facts are wrong and this makes me crazy. They’re making arguments based on incorrect information about peoples and places. It makes me insane.
Believe what you want to believe, argue your point, but base your arguments on actual research and facts. Remember that repeating what a politcal pundit spouted off is not research, remember that those who are biased are not going to give you the most accurate information. I mean this for all sides of the political spectrum.
I read Salon every day, the articles are interesting and whatnot. My problem with Salon is that they are so liberally biased that I don’t really trust all their political writings. I’m aware of this and take it with a grain of salt and do other research n other places for those issues that take my interest.
Consider your sources people. A biased opinion is not research, and false data and incorrect assumptions will not support your argument.
Mercury in Retrograde through April 12!
I’m not huge into astrology but I read up on it and sometimes when I read gives me pause and makes me think things through. A friend sent this to me, my comments are in italics.
What happens when Mercury retrogrades? You miss appointments, your computer equipment crashes, checks get lost, you find the car you just purchased during Mercury retrograde is a lemon. (Or, you hate your haircut, the lamp you bought shorts out, your sister hates her birthday gift.) There will be countless delays, cancellations and postponements—but know these will benefit you in the long run. Don’t fight them, although your frustration level and feeling of restlessnes will be hard to cope with at times.
Hmm, i’m getting a haircut on Thursday and I’ll be bleaching and coloring on my own. Maybe not such a good idea? Luckily I leave for the Keys after this.
All machinery and things with moving parts—such as computers, VCRs, camera equipment, garbage disposals, and so forth, will reveal any weak links now. It is critical that you back up your data system and be more careful and vigilant than ever. Projects will demand more time and money than anticipated this month.
My dvd is on the fritz, but it’s been like that for a while. Other than that I have my standard fear that something in my house will break soon, but that’s just because I can’t afford to have anything fixed right now.
In matters of the heart, if your boyfriend or girlfriend breaks up with you or says something hurtful, take a wait-and-see attitude. Since Mercury rules speech, they may not mean what you think they are saying now. Let them have some space, and wait to see if they mean in October what they said in September.
This is more important to David than me. I’ve been so cranky lately, all snapping at people and being mean. Hopefully, after my hormones even out again I will be back to being all jovial and fun. I’m still planning on being mean to my coworkers, it’s a fine release.
When traveling, leave early and allow for extra travel time. Have all bags double-taped closed, count your belongings, double-check addresses and reconfirm appointments. Things get lost when Mercury messes us up. Take NOTHING for granted. The sector of your chart that Mercury happens to be skating through will be effected most dramatically, so check your forecast!
Again, luckily I’m trveling after this is over or I’d be worried. David’s going camping/kayaking for a couple days, I wonder how this will affect him if it does.
Why would the Universe give us Mercury retrograde? Because to move forward it is sometimes necessary to backtrack and reconfigure our paths in life. It is important to reconsider, repair, reflect, and reconnect. Mercury forces us to slow down and fix what’s broken, and in so doing, rethink things. It also gives us time to get to projects we have put on the back-burner.
I’m a huge believer in this, i know that sometimes things must be destroyed in order to make room for new creations and I know that sometimes the best way to move forward is to move backwards. Sometimes an inconvenience is a good thing as it forces us to retool our outlook.
Some activities are lucky or actually improve when Mercury retrogrades. You are likely to bump into old friends that you haven’t seen in years. Adopted children tend to find their birth parents during Mercury retrograde periods, or people locate their long lost siblings. Prosecutors often find clues to crimes that had previously remained unsolved for years. (Although sometimes the reverse is true—there is a greater danger, or example, that police can bungle evidence during a Mercury retrograde period, for clear thinking doesn’t come easy for any of us then.) Mail that went astray weeks or even years ago shows up during Mercury retrograde. Some things that were lost reappear.
Yeah, hopefully the cops will bungle any investigation they might have going on me right now. Hatchets are hard to get clean.
Now is also a good time to dress old wounds, clean up relationships or to simply bury the hatchet. Some people have great breakthroughs in psychotherapy during a Mercury retrograde period. For salesman, it is a positive time to backtrack over previous contacts rather than call on new ones. It is a perfect time to schedule work on projects that you haven’t had time to do and you’ve let pile up. Bring your resume or portfolio up to date, and clean out your closets. Take time to paint the house. Clear your decks.
So it’s time to find the map and get on the high road again. yes, mom, i’m on my way.
Just try not to start new things. If you have to start a job during a Mercury retrograde period know that the nature of the job is likely to change dramatically over time. Perhaps the person you report to will leave, or your responsibilities will be very different from what you thought they would be. Or your company won’t be ready to take you on, and you won’t have much to do until things are reorganized. But remember, if this was a position that you tried for in the past, then you’ve got the vibes working for you rather than against you.
Okay, so there you have it, things are going to get messed up so take the time to consider whether or not they’re working for you in the first place. Forgive miscommunications and be patient.
Science and the Human Body
This is how the pill works, this is how it keeps you from making a baby in your tummy. The pill goes into your body and it clicks a switch that makes you mean and angry. Then you sit on the couch next to your boyfriend and you are cranky and mean to him. You sulk and fume and pout and get all irrational.
As a result there is not a single person in the world who wants to share your company thus making it impossible to conceive.
Thus the experiment ends and we move forth to find something equally effective but less disconcerting.
I’m also hoping that going back off the pill will make me stop hating my new coworker so very much. I really dislike him. Apparently the phrase ‘I do not work for your department’ is some hypnotic trigger that makes it so he can’t hear me. I recognize that the proximity of my desk to his might confuse him at first, it MIGHT seem like I work for his department, but he is wrong. So very very wrong. The ironic thing is that he is replacing the woman who had the same position as me in that department so the things he’s asking me to do are actually in his job description. They are not for me to do, they are in fact, for HIM to do.
Also, he checks his voicemail on speakerphone every hour AND he likes to announce his level of education to us. I bite my tongue and don’t point out that I am a female college drop out that makes more money than he does.
Coffee run with the chicas.
Keep humping my foamy peeps. That’s right, you just stay foamy, stay humping. Hump and foam and foam and hump.
To love a pet
Recently, John Scalzi’s cat, Rex, passed away and just a few weeks ago, my boss’ cat, Mickey Man, passed on as well.
I’ve had innumberable pets over the years, all of which I’ve loved dearly and every pet’s death brought me to heartbroken tears, even the death of the fish when I had the aquarium.
Ghengis is the first pet that was completely and entirely my own. The fish were for the most part, but also fish don’t cuddle. When I first brought Ghengis home he was just a little 11 week old puppy, so very small. I’d never had a puppy so young. I’d made up a little bed for him but realized immediately that I could not lock him in another room to sleep alone.
I brought his little puppy bed into the room with me, set it up on my bed next to me and fell asleep with my hand on his back.
This seemed to work well, so the second night I installed his puppy bed again in my bed next to me and drifted off with my hand in his bed. Eventually, he stirred and squirmed and there was a little thump as he rolled himself out of the puppy bed and onto my mattress. He whimpered once and curled up next to me with a sigh and he’s been there with me ever since.
The thing about that moment is that I was struck with thoughts of his death. It seems so morbid and wrong, I know, but he was laying there falling asleep next to me and I knew he was going to be my companion, he was going to be my dog-buddy, and I knew that (if things go well) in 12 or 14 years I was going to be standing in a vets office telling him what a good boy he is and thanking him for being the best dog ever. I’d had my dog for less than 48 hours, he wasn’t even 3 months old yet and already I was sobbing because SOME DAY he was going to die.
And this, people, is why I don’t have children.
So, yeah, I just replaced $684 worth of eyeglasses (but only paid half, thank you gods of the ‘buy one get one free’ coupon), the interior of my car is completely covered in mud, he’s eaten remotes, knitting needles, shoes, shirts, books, my very treasured security blanket and probably a number of things I don’t even know about, but…
But, he’s a loyal companion, loyal almost to a fault. He’s taught me to calm down and be patient (especially when housetraining him), he wants very little more than scritches behind the ears and the occasional snausage but you can see the joy when he gets a new stinky dinosaur or settles in with a giant rawhide (he’s not a big dog, but he has the jaw of a big dog so all his chew toys must be very big). He’s jealous of David and occasionally acts out and yet he loves D for taking him running around the park when I’m too tired and for feeding him when I’ve forgotten.
He IS the good and loyal comapanion that I always hoped a dog would be and though he is only a year old, i do definitely know that when it comes time for him to go, a part of me will go with him.
Morbid? Yeah, but also very happy for getting to have this delightful little monster creature with the big eyes and the dopey face.