Whatever April 26, 2004 ~ 8:58 pm
Posted by Julie in : Academic Office Monkey, Coupledom, Rick , comments closedAnother long day of proofreading. I’m making my way through 20 pages of 8 point type in 4 columns. That is a lot of names to proof. And I know that if I miss one person, that is the person who will show up in my office on Commencement Day wondering why their name isn’t in the program. Never mind that the ceremony is going on and that’s what they were really there for, no, these people will come in, dragging their kids to tell me how embarrassed they were in front of their family that their name isn’t in the book. And will threaten to sue. Never fails.
All this and Rick’s car got towed. So instead of leaving for Massachusetts to pick up his mom at 12, he had to track the damn thing down to Brooklyn, take public transportation out to Gravesend, be told that the car wasn’t there, and take more public transportation to Red Hook. Let me tell you a little secret we Brooklynites like to keep to ourselves…there aren’t any subways to Red Hook. When they built the parkways in the 60s, Red Hook got cut off from the rest of the world. If you don’t take a car, you are spending a lot of time switching trains to wind up taking a bus. Which is what Rick did. And finally got the car back at 6. And then he came to my place for a while, since he was basically in the neighborhood. It was really nice to see him, but I felt bad that he had such a shit day. Now he’s on his way to Massachusetts, only to come home with his mom in tow tomorrow.
I walked home through Prospect Park this evening (before Rick showed up). The rain kept almost all the pedestrians away, so I had a good time watching the birds and squirrels. Rain doesn’t bother them. Also had a long time to think about things…my mind was wandering all over the place. Top of the list: how glad I was I skipped the reading at my “resident” company tonight. Closely followed by “It might be time to get out of there if they are doing readings of Hamlet: The Musical. Then trying to plan when I’m going to see Bourgeois Gentleman again. And in the middle of all of this was “Goddamn I’m lucky Rick and I are together. I really love him, and he loves me.” I mean, really, how often do you get that in life?
Weekend April 23, 2004 ~ 3:29 pm
Posted by Julie in : Shorty , comments closedWell, Mom is coming up to see my show this weekend, so I probably won’t have time to post much before Monday. So if I don’t “see” ya before then, have a good weekend. And watch out for the Fucktards.
Fucktard Alert April 23, 2004 ~ 3:23 pm
Posted by Julie in : Academic Office Monkey , comments closedOkay, one of my biggest pet peeves: people who do not bother to find things out for themselves before pawning the work off on someone else. This really just happened to me:
A person who is semi-high on the college totem pole just emailed my supervisor asking her to help a student who was under the assumption that he had graduated. Supervisor asks me to find out why student has not graduated. I find out, and email her to tell her. I also email the student’s professor to see if he has petitioned for a grade to be removed from the student’s record like he was supposed to. He emails back, saying he has, and *semi-high totem pole woman* has approved it. He cc’d her on the email and said yes, she approved it, and will be sending the paperwork down to my office soon.
WTF??? This means that Semi-High Totem Pole Woman not only knew that the student hadn’t graduated, she was the one who was in effect holding him up. And yet she couldn’t email the student to tell him that, instead of sending me on a freaking useless wild goose chase? I just want to beat people sometimes.
Assassins April 23, 2004 ~ 11:31 am
Posted by Julie in : Reviews , comments closedBen Brantley reviewed Assassins in the New York Times this morning…click here if you want to read it.
I saw this play two weeks ago in previews, and it is un-fucking-believable. This is America through the eyes of those who seemingly try to destroy it. Through the eyes of John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, Sqeuaky Fromme, Sam Byck…those who succeeded in assassinating a President and those who only attempted it. You get sucked in trying to understand them and realize in the end that you can never entirely do so. It’s deep, it’s moving, and it’s funny as hell. Cannot stress that enough.
And I would probably go further into it, but all hell is breaking loose at work and I can’t concentrate. Hopefully I’ll update later.
How Green Was My Bonzo April 22, 2004 ~ 4:22 pm
Posted by Julie in : Academic Office Monkey , comments closedI work with older women. I will say that up front. Two women in my office are in their 70s. One of these women decides today that it is of vital importance to figure out what movie Ronald Reagan was in where he lost his legs.
The only Ronald Reagan movie I’ve ever seen was “Bedtime for Bonzo”. You are asking the wrong person this question.
But now the entire office is trying to figure out which movie this was. I guess I could check imdb.com, but what the hell? I don’t think they have a search category called “Physical Anomalies of Main Character”.
The other 70-some year old woman thought it might be “How Green Was My Valley”. Another movie I’ve never seen. Then she calls her daughter and asks her. The daughter says no, that was Robert Mitchum. Another name I don’t know. This woman tries to describe the plot of the movie (”How Green Was My Valley”? The legless Ron Reagan flick? I don’t know) for me, saying “He loses his legs in a coal mining accident. I don’t think he got an Oscar for it.”
And there you have it, ladies and gents.
Kill Me Now April 22, 2004 ~ 3:18 pm
Posted by Julie in : Academic Office Monkey , comments closedIn honor of Earth Day (at least I think that’s the reason for it), the college I work at is having a concert on the quad. A very loud concert on the quad. Have I mentioned that my office looks out onto the quad? The bands aren’t good, they are mostly rap and gospel and r&b (none of which do anything for me), and they are loud. It’s impossible to concentrate with this “music” right outside my window, and is making work very difficult. I’ve got Queen’s “Innuendo” pretty loud on my computer speakers, but it just doesn’t mesh well with the shit outside.
A guy in the next office said it sounds more like “Scorched Earth Day” that they’re celebrating. I just wish it would stop.
UPDATE: The concert stopped five minutes after I wrote the above. Thank you, JESUS! (and yes, Wiccans can say that. “Thank you Goddess” just doesn’t have that Evangelical ring to it, no matter how hard you try.)
AIDSWalk New York April 22, 2004 ~ 12:05 pm
Posted by Julie in : Deep Thoughts , comments closedThis is me asking for money for a good cause. In a few weeks, I’m going to be doing AIDS Walk New York, a massive fund-raising walk benefitting the Gay Mens’ Health Clinic. This organization helps men, women, and children who are living with AIDS. Despite the fact that we don’t see a lot in the media about AIDS anymore, it’s still a huge problem. There have been some medicines developed that can help those living with AIDS, but there is still no cure for the disease. The money raised will be used to help those living with AIDS, and be used to do more research for a cure. So…I’m asking anyone who wants to help to click here, which will take you to my homepage where you can make a donation. Thanks in advance!
Cheers for my mother’s generation. April 22, 2004 ~ 9:40 am
Posted by Julie in : Fambly, Random Insanity , comments closedThe generation born immediately following World War II. These are people who didn’t spend their childhood swaddled in cotton wool to protect them. They had lead-based paint on their cribs. Helmets weren’t mandatory when riding bikes. Cars didn’t have seatbelts (and if you had ever ridden in a car my grandma was driving, you would see why her children surviving to adulthood was such an accomplishment!). And they had to invent their own games. Like mumblety-peg. Which as near as I can tell was supposed to be like Twister, putting one foot down and then trying to put the other foot down wherever your opponent had thrown the “marker”. I’m guessing the point was “Try to make your little brother do a split.” But my mother and her little brother took it to a new level. They played with a “marker” that was a pair of kitchen shears. And they were both under 5 years old. Imagine a 5 year old chucking a pair of kitchen shears to make them stick in the ground by her 3 year old brother.
Yet another reason it’s miraculous that my grandmother’s children made it to adulthood.
And years later, my mom wondered why her 4 year old daughter (that would be me) felt compelled to do a log roll down the stairs from the second floor to the first. Looking back, I guess you have to blame it on genetics. And hey, kids bounce. 
Hey, you! April 22, 2004 ~ 12:39 am
Posted by Julie in : Reviews , comments closedYeah, you. You reading the blog. You want some entertainment? Go over to apple.com and click on iTunes and listen to William “She Bangs” Hung singing Elton John’s “Rocket Man”. I didn’t think human beings could hit notes like that. Notes that only dogs can hear. That being said, I laughed my ass off listening to it. I almost traded in one of my free Pepsi iTunes caps for one. But alas, I did not. I decided I needed an MP3 of Harry Connick Jr. sincing “The Lonely Goatherd” from The Sound of Music instead. And yes, I realize just how pathetic that is. But it makes me laugh, so there. 
Gather Round the Watercooler April 21, 2004 ~ 1:46 pm
Posted by Julie in : Reviews , comments closedI just realized that blogging is occasionally like “water cooler talk” in the office. Many of us tend to watch the same shows and check each other’s blogs for what people thought of last night’s episode. Our offices are thousands of miles apart in some cases, but the cyber water cooler brings us all together. It’s kinda cool.
Anyway, has anyone been watching “Showbiz Moms & Dads” on Bravo? I watched for the first time last night, and some of those people are just nuts. I mean, really, feeding your kids pixie sticks at 10 am is okay “to motivate them” for a pageant? Some of the kids seemed really well-adjusted and you can tell that their parents are doing the right thing by letting them do what they want to, but there are others (like the Nutter family, what an apt name) who just seem to live in fear of their parents. Why force your kids to do something that you want them to do? I’m sorry, your childhood is over, you can’t relive it through your kids. If you missed out on something, do it now, or just suck it up and face the fact that you’ve missed your opportunity.
Rick’s an actor and his ex is a singer, but they would never force their kids to be anything other than what they (the kids) want to be. You cannot live your life again through kids. You just have to sit back and watch what they do.
Thoughts?
