Think of the kittens… February 28, 2005 ~ 5:19 pm
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I’ve been thinking of this picture that Lori sent me since reading about Sloth’s encounter with The Seam. Enjoy.
Oh, and does anybody know what the term “humpy actor” means? Is “humpy” some new slang I don’t know? And is it good or bad? If you tell me what it is, I’ll tell you why I’m asking.
Not the Academy Awards February 27, 2005 ~ 11:09 pm
Posted by Julie in : Daily Grind , comments closedNot even the WE Bathroom Break Show. Because I didn’t watch either. That’s right, people, gasp. Point. Shudder. I didn’t see any movies that were up for awards, I didn’t feel the need to watch movies I hadn’t seen compete for awards. You know what I watched tonight? Pocahontas. And I still know all the words. Bet you don’t know all the words to “Just Around the Riverbend,” do you?
Know what else I did today? I went and saw The Gates again because Jordana’s mom was in town for the day and wanted to see them. And just for Sloth, I made a point out of referring to Carol (Jordana’s mom) as “yer maaaaahm” to Jordana. And then we went to a flea market and I got funky yarn. And then I went to Circuit City and bought my new flat panel monitor. So now my old, bulky monitor is sitting outside. I feel bad for it. I put a sign on it that says “Free to good home” so that maybe someone will take it. It’s a decent monitor, just too bulky for me now. Am I the only one who feels bad about abandoning inanimate objects like that? I thought so.
I also felt bad this afternoon because I bought shearling gloves. I had no clue what a shearling was, but the gloves were the only pair that have kept my hands warm this year, so I bought them. And then I found out that shearling is a lamb. A little lamb died to keep my hands warm. I still feel kind of bad about that. I told Rick how bad I felt, and he said “Well, maybe the lamb died to be lambchops and the gloves were just a bonus?” That would make me feel a little better. A little less like Satan. This is how I look as Satan, by the way:
A handknit Satan, bathed in the light of the old monitor that is sitting outside. Yep, just checked, it’s still there.
Just call me Satan.
Trump I ain’t February 25, 2005 ~ 12:31 pm
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Neighborhood dogs on a snow-covered car last month.
You all know that I watch The Apprentice like an addict who has at last scored a hit: greedily, voraciously, lovingly. I’ve said in the past that hearing Trump say “You’re Fired!” releases a lot of work-related stress for me. One of the professors where I work and I even have a game - if someone does something extremely stupid, the prof and I look at each other and say “They’re fired.”
Today I had to fire someone in reality. And let me tell you, it’s not as cool as Trump makes it seem. It’s pretty hard, actually. I’m not going to give too many details because I don’t want to get Dooced, but person in question was a work-study student, whom I think wanted out of the job anyway, but has to do things the hard way, which means that I’ve had three conversations with Financial Aid already, and am writing an email describing everything that happened to the head of the Work Study program. Fun.
As my big boss said when I was talking to her about it this morning (pre-firing), “It’s a learning experience. Just look at it like that. It’s something that everyone in management has to do sooner or later.” This only confirms what I have long thought: I would rather be a worker bee than a management bee. I am so not Apprentice material.
I got nothin’ February 24, 2005 ~ 3:17 pm
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‘Cept this lovely picture of my lunch. Note the fluorescent greenness of the pickle. Mmmmm…pickle.
Also checking to see if Photobucket’s latest feature will let me work and blog directly from them instead of having to cut and paste. If it does…oh, the fun we will have. I have about 50 photos to upload from the laptop tonight, including a full walk-through of the Gates for those of you who aren’t here. Won’t it be nice to have pictures everyday again? I think it will. And I won’t have to pay a quarter like I do when I upload pictures from my phone. I’m going to have to look into the program Jon mentioned on Blurbomat, the one that lets you bypass the uploading fees by pulling the pics off your camera phone directly onto your laptop. That Jon Armstrong, showing the rest of us down the path to geekdom.
Speaking of the Amrstrong clan, I thought of them yesterday while I was watching the five hours of Project Runway that I had TiVo’d this weekend. And while Dooce blew it for those of us who TiVo’d the finale of that series last night but hadn’t gotten a chance to see it yet, I’m not bitter. I won’t ruin it for the rest of you, but I’m glad someone I liked won.
It just started snowing here, and while I don’t believe the hype that says 8 inches of snow by tomorrow, there is work that I need to get done. So if you don’t see me around this afternoon, know that I was thinking of stopping by your blog, but real life just got in the way. Somebody has to do something about that, dammit.
Woodstock February 22, 2005 ~ 11:13 am
Posted by Julie in : Daily Grind , comments closedI actually escaped the city this weekend! For those of you who don’t live in New York, this might not mean much. Hell, even for those of you who live here, it might not mean much, if you have a car. But I don’t have a car. I have to rely on the kindness of others to escape. If I recall correctly, the last time I got out was Thanksgiving, and the time before that was for Rick’s birthday in July. And there might have been a drive somewhere in between the two, but I can’t remember exactly when. I’m like an inmate who has just been given a day-pass into the outside world.
No, it’s worse than that. When I get into a car, I’m like a dog. I am so excited to be going for a ride in the car-car that I can’t see straight. I’m talking non-stop, I’m looking out all the windows, hell, if it’s not cold, I’m sticking my head out the window to feel the breeze. Freedom! Freedom from the city where millions of people are all trying to run me over! Freedom from the subway! Freedom to go to a place where there are trees, and streams, and mountains, and if I’m really lucky, to go for a walk in the great outdoors! I am now perfectly sympatico with the canine impulse to go nuts when they get into a car. I am one with you, my furry brothers and sisters!
God bless Rick for putting up with that craziness on the way to Woodstock this weekend. I think I calmed down after the first hour in the car, but I’m not really sure. My truly benevolent liberator also saw fit to take me to Michael’s (the craft store) on the way. And he came into the yarn section with me and submitted to multiple entreaties to “feel this one! it’s so soft!” as I held out skeins of yarn. If he isn’t the perfect man, I don’t know who is. The only thing he wouldn’t do was let me buy a lacrosse set when we went to Modell’s. I think he’s a little scared that one or both of us will end up broken and bruised, because this is the third time he’s rejected that idea. Pffft.
We stayed at a friend’s house outside of Woodstock (said friend was away, so we had a nice cabin to ourselves this weekend), and I finally got to see all the nature I’d been craving. Deer, hawks, trees, stream, snow, we saw it all. We even got to go hiking for a few miles, which is one of my favorite things to do. And then we went window shopping in Woodstock, where they have not one, but two yarn stores. Can you feel the excitement? I didn’t buy anything, though, because as with all small yarn stores, the yarn they carried was beautiful but pricey, and I am finally trying to learn the difference between wanting something and needing something. I promptly forgot that lesson when we found a candy store that sold Aero bars and Clark bars, but dammit, I needed a Clark bar.
Came back Sunday night and stayed with Rick until yesterday afternoon, when I finally decided to take pity on my cats and come home (had a three day weekend for President’s Day). This weekend was just the break I needed. Now I just have to find my motivation so I can get going with work again. After I surf some blogs…
Killer Angels February 18, 2005 ~ 3:27 pm
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Caution: to some of you, this post is going to be way out there and a bunch of bullshit. Perhaps a lot like the X-Files. But remember in the X-Files, Mulder was often right.
I’ve mentioned before that I was a history major in college. My friend (who could be referred to as “Me-in-a-different-body,” but that name is too long) Kim L., was a history minor at the same college. Between the two of us, we came up with the theory that our interest in specific time periods probably comes from having lived in that time in another life. I’ve always had an interest in the Civil War, and when I was in college, I had something happen to me that confirm my belief that I lived then.
When I was a sophomore in college, I took a course in Civil War history as part of my major requirements. The prof had us read a bunch of Civil War novels as well as texts, so that the battles and the men who fought them would be more than just names on a page. One of the novels he had us read was Michael Shaara’s The Killer Angels, which is about Gettysburg. I sped through it - it’s an amazing book. The night that I started it, though, I dreamed that I was on a battlefield, dressed in Confederate grey, running towards a clump of trees behind a wall. Men were falling on both sides of me as I ran, and when I was almost to the trees, I was shot in the head. I woke up, drenched in sweat because the dream had been so real.
The dream came back the next two nights. Just as vivid, exactly the same as the first night. It scared the hell out of me all three nights, but I chalked it up to having read Killer Angels before bed. What was interesting to me, though, was that the head wound that I got in the dream was in exactly the spot I’ve had cluster headaches in my whole life. I had no idea what the connection was, though.
Spring break came a couple of weeks later, and as my then fiancee, a friend, and I headed to Philly, I suggested we detour to Gettysburg. I wanted to walk the battlefield and see the spots I had read about in person. They agreed, and we rambled all over, ending up where Pickett’s charge had taken place - the so-called High Water Mark of the Confederacy. I had been to Gettysburg before with my family, but had never walked that particular stretch of the battlefield. As I did, I looked up, and saw a familiar clump of trees. A wave of deja-vu washed over me, and as we got three quarters of the way across the field, I started crying. I couldn’t help it. I realized why the trees seemed so familiar to me…they were the ones from my dream, and the spot I was standing in was the exact spot where I had been shot and killed in the dream. I told my fiancee what was going on and he said “Did you ever think dream was about another life?” Possibly the only smart thing he ever said. I think he was right. Why else would my dream have been so vivid? I had seen that copse of trees before, but from a car as we drove past, and that had been years before. How could I have remembered so well what the view was like from that spot when I had never walked it before?
Believe what you want, but that cemented it for me, years before I ever heard of Wicca. There are past lives, and I had walked in the footprints of one mine.
what the fuck was that about? February 17, 2005 ~ 11:35 am
Posted by Julie in : Daily Grind , comments closedAfter spending a good part of the morning looking for online dream dictionaries to explain last night’s weird-ass dream, I’ve found bubkis that means anything to me. So I’m opening it up to you. Play Freud, play Jung, whatever, just Analyze This:
In part of my dream last night, I was looking into a mirror when I realized my two top canine teeth were loose. I wiggled them, trying to get them back into their tooth-holes, but to my horror, they came out in my hand, root and all. I looked in the mirror again, and saw more loose teeth, which also came out, so that I had a total of four teeth in my hand. I looked in the mirror one more time, trying to see if I was going to lose more teeth, and that’s when I realized that there were new teeth coming through the gums - it was just as if the teeth I lost were baby teeth and my adult teeth were growing in again. As I realized this, I looked down at the teeth in my hands, and none of them had roots anymore; they looked just like when your baby teeth come out and just the top of the tooth remains. I looked up at the mirror again, and saw that two teeth were trying to come in where only one could fit, so one of them fell out and joined the other four in my hand, but then the teeth in my mouth were the same as they’d ever been. And then I realized it was a dream, and I woke up.
Now, can someone explain what the hell was that about?
Screwing yourself up the ass ain’t easy February 17, 2005 ~ 9:51 am
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Haven’t had a picture in a while, so here. Jesse in his French whore pose.
Betcha thought that this was going to be a sex post, didn’t you? Between the title and the cat’s come-hither look, I can’t blame you. But no.
I love hockey. I love playing it, I love watching it. I like watching a really good game as much as a really good fight. I’m just brutal like that. While not nearly as fierce as my devotion to the Steelers (what could be?), I am loyal to the Penguins. They’re from Pittsburgh, after all, and I bleed Black ‘n’ Gold, baby. But in the eyes of this hockey fan, the NHL screwed itself up the ass yesterday, and that includes the Pens.
There’s not going to be a professional hockey season this year, because the owners and players were too greedy and couldn’t come to an agreement about salary caps. After missing 127 days of the season, even an abbreviated season wasn’t feasible. You know what I say? Who the hell cares?
We’ve gone 127 days without professional hockey this year already. Either we’ve found out that the farm teams play better, want it more, and have much cheaper tickets, or we have decided to forego the hockey altogether this year. Doesn’t really matter…how many people do you think are willingly going to shell out the mega-bucks to see teams that basically said “Fuck you” to their fans? I don’t know of any.
In the meantime, someone wanna pass the NHL some lube?
Micro-post February 16, 2005 ~ 2:21 pm
Posted by Julie in : Daily Grind , comments closedSo short it can’t even be called a mini-post. Two things:
1) I bought these mints at the bookstore this afternoon:
2) My cousin now has a blog. And she’s addicted to blogging, so there are updates all the time. I like that about her because it gives me something new to read on a regular basis. She’s funny, too. Go visit her. Comply. This is her: Linguistic Alien Acrobats
Voice February 15, 2005 ~ 12:56 pm
Posted by Julie in : Daily Grind , comments closedI’ve been thinking about this post for over a month, and since I’m trying to settle down from dealing with idiots at work, I figured I would finally write it. Blogging as therapy, who knew?
When I was a kid, I had a friend named Dana. Dana’s mom swore she could tell who Dana had been hanging out with by the way Dana talked when she came home. She was probably right. I think humans in general tend to absorb and adopt the speech mannerisms of people around them - that’s how we get regional dialects. It’s also how many of us have started talking like characters from Friends in the past ten years, from Chandler’s inflections to Monica’s “I know!”. I do it, and you know you do, too. Just admit it.
I have a tendency to do the same thing with my writing. No, I don’t ape Hemingway or Fitzgerald, I’m not that good. Instead, I write short little blurbs like Dooce after I visit her site. Or I might write stories from my past after reading Lois Lane’s stuff, or Michael’s, or Gooch’s. Or a sex post after visiting Regan’s. Or…well, you get the picture. I have my own voice, but sometimes it gets a little distorted if I post after reading everyone else’s stuff. So I struggle to get my own writing style out there, and some days I’m still not sure if I’ve done it successfully.
Then there are the things that I wonder if I can share with you all. Have you gotten so used to my humorous Chandler-esque ramblings that you would find something serious completely out of place? Could I tell you about the strange moment of deja-vu I had on Saturday while I was getting my hair cut, when the stylist curled the hair on either side of my face, and I realized that I knew that hairstyle went with my face, but in another lifetime? Can I talk about the rambling garden path of thoughts on reincarnation that moment led me down? Would you listen if I wondered aloud about whether we have the same face from life to life? Or would you totally disregard that post and hope for something funny to replace it so you could forget about the awkward blog moment, leaving it a commentless redheaded stepchild of a post? See, all of that goes into the voice I put out on this blog, too, I just don’t show it very often. Should I?
