Movin’ On Up April 28, 2005 ~ 11:35 am
Posted by Julie in : Daily Grind , comments closed
I swear, I will someday live here. Upper West Side, NYC.
I am recovering from the apartment let-down. I really believe that the universe has a reason for everything, even when we can’t see it. Who knows, maybe the reason behind this one is that it’s going to be really freakin’ hot during the time period I would have been moving, and by not getting the apartment I have saved one or more of my friends the heart attack they would have suffered while helping me. Or something.
But I have a plan. I have several plans, actually. My long term plan involves living in the building pictured above, after living in a spiffy building in Brooklyn that overlooks the waterfront and the Statue of Liberty. Both of those will have to wait until I am making far more money, however.
Current plan is this: I’m putting out feelers with my friends, letting them know I’m looking for a place to live in Brooklyn. I don’t think I want to move until September, thus saving everyone a heart attack, and saving me on an air-conditioned electric bill. (I don’t pay for the electricity in my current digs - that was the landlord’s concession to putting me in a hole. That, and my apartment is almost surely illegal.) Also, I won’t miss the light while I can get out and play in the park, as I can in the warm weather. It’s only when it starts getting miserable out that I will feel trapped. I hope.
During the summer, I will also be checking out Craigslist to see what the offerings are in the price range I want. I will be putting back money so that I have more of it for the move. And I will be replacing two really decrepit pieces of furniture so that when I move, I will have a nice dresser and tv stand/entertainment center. Because my dresser, while an antique, is falling apart. Nobody has really maintained it, and the back of it is falling off. Plus, it ain’t that great of an antique. I want a new dresser. And my current TV stand housed my parents’ stereo back in the day. It’s large and unsteady, and I would like something more streamlined that doesn’t carry the threat of death by television falling on me. I don’t think that’s outrageous, do you?
So you see, I am making plans from my bunker-like apartment. And soon, I will come out and take over the world. Or at least a new apartment.
Political Rant April 28, 2005 ~ 9:51 am
Posted by Julie in : Daily Grind , comments closedThe Republicans have yielded the point on their new ethics rules. Which means that we go back to the old rules. The “new” rules said that “complaints could have been dismissed within 45 days if the committee could not decide how to proceed, one lawyer could represent both the subject of the inquiry and other witnesses, and lawmakers would get new rights of notification and appeal.”* In other words, they were a giant loophole for Tom DeLay to slip through. But now, he doesn’t have that. Even if the committee deadlocks, they could send complaints to an investigatory subcommittee.
I, for one, can’t wait for the fun and games to begin. CNN.com was saying that the DeLay hearings are going to be on scale with the Clinton-Lewinski hearings of the 90s. All I have to say to that is “Except this time, it will be over something worth spending tax dollars on.”
Now if only they would have spent those tax dollars punishing the officers in charge of the Abu Ghraib debacle. And don’t tell me that one brigadier general and one major getting punished is fair. In any other situation in the world, the ones in charge are the ones who bear ultimate responsibility for what their staff does. If a member of my staff fucks up, you can bet that I will be called into my boss’s office before the day is over and asked to explain. Because I should have been supervising, because that’s my job. Only under the Bush administration do the people on top get away with murder. Literally.
*taken from the New York Times
