sexual chocolate.

maybe the funniest thing ever.
did you get some in YOUR halloween basket?

from Coming to America (1988).

images (passing the time while my car is inspected).

it's official...



WHO's old?



free coffee (if you'll go through the trouble of scraping it off the bottom of the decanter...)



straw flower.



richard is never dull.



me, looking strange.



gumballs.



camera case? or MONSTER?!?



you talkin' to me?!

random varied images (i went home this weekend).

traffic. i wasn't able to leave until thursday at about 4. i caught all the people looking forward to a long weekend.
at least i tried.



yoda stretching. i love this cat. i wish you could know how soft he is.
if you do, you already know you're lucky.



my little brother isaac doing something very mysterious/mischevious with the ginger sauce. oh, but he loves the ginger sauce...



my elderly lady tubby. i love this cat. she is unbelievably beautiful.
evidence of god? maybe.



mom squeezing richard's eyes out.
(lovingly, of course...)

baxter and austin pic; charity survey.

here's a sweet picture of my sweet brother and his sweet wife.

and here's a silly survey from me.

1. Who was your first prom date?
my best friends. i never had a date-date.

2. Who was your first roommate?
patsy/lorraine was my first roommate at college.

3. What alcoholic beverage did you first drink?
everclear and koolaid. then i had newcastle. it's no wonder i still prefer beer over liquor.

4. What was your first job?
cashier at the fresh market; across the street from guilford college, which is my current dream job.

5. What was your first car?
82 buick regal. bro-bro. the only car i've ever had with automatic windows and door locks. and velvet interior. very fancy, just old. like me. :)

6. When did you go to your first funeral?
at age 5, my grandpa ralph. very sad.

8. Who was your first grade teacher?
ms. whitfield.

9. Where did you go on your first ride on an airplane?
my dad took me and my brother up with a friend of his in his friend's plane when i was about 5. it was very exciting, and possibly the first time i experienced a sense of my own mortality. age 5 was a tough time. my parents got divorced, too.

10. When you snuck out of your house for the first time, who was it with?
baxter and i used to sneak out, but i was technically an adult at the time.

11. Who was your first best friend and are you still friends with them?
my first best friend was allison smith, and no, we're not still friends. we were friends because our dads were friends. when my parents divorced and i moved with my mom, my relationship with allison suffered, which is fine. my next best friend, bibi, was more interesting anyway. she had about 50 hamsters.

12. Where was your first sleepover?
i think at allison's.

13. Who is the first person you talk to in the morning?
usually myself. i usually talk to sam first thing, but he's not technically a person.

14. Whose wedding were you in the first time?
my mom's and stepdad's.

15. What is the first thing you do in the morning?
moan a little bit. hit the snooze button.

16. What was the first concert you ever went to?
the first real concert was the indigo girls swamp ophelia tour.

17. First tattoo or piercing?
ears when i was 5, i think. geez, that WAS a big year.

18. First celebrity crush?
kirk cameron? jennifer connelly? who knows, really.

19. First crush?
although i had a "boyfriend" when i was 4-5, i think the first guy i was really crazy about was andrew williamson in the 7th grade. i thought the sun rose and set around him. i was surprisingly boy crazy from that point on (considering how shy i was and how i never dated).

20. First TRUE love?
i was simultaneously in love with hooper and allen in college, which was extremely problematic for all three of us, i think.

21. When was your first detention?
i had to stay in during recess in kindergarten coz this girl beside me was talking during arts and crafts and ms. sharpe thought it was me, which really broke my heart, not just because i got blamed for something i didn't do, but because she thought i would talk during class. i LOVED class! and then i had to take a frowny face home to mom instead of all my perfect behavior smilies. that was very sad. i also got detention in 8th grade from mr. hill, that short little troll.

by special request: sam and max.

sometimes, they are the most boring cats in the world.


sam and max (not) doing interesting things. i swear they were playing with this thing earlier.


max kneading while i talk on the phone.

tecate weekend: may 06 (update).

images from the weekend in lenoir this summer with mom and richard.
see blog entry: unfinished.


this sign is the only thing separating the smoking from non-smokings sections.
contrary to its imposing appearance, it was not an effective barrier.



instead of "no shirt, no shoes, no service,"
lenoir signs warn "no weapons, no alcohol." interesting.



tecate and sudoku in lenoir's most terrifying hotel.

viva las vegas! part one: fremont street.

i won't be able to post part two for a while (even though these pictures are from july, i'm just now getting to them) since i haven't gotten them developed yet.



my beautiful hostess: nikki aka felicia.


oh, the desert mountains. so beautiful!


the powers that be decided fremont street would be better if it were covered by the world's largest television screen or some such nonsense. i am sad i will never see the cowboy and his cowgirl with the night sky behind them, lit only by the neon from the surrounding signs. times they are a-changin' i guess.

truth and fiction.

i recently finished the kite runner by khaled hosseini (website). it's a good book. i've wanted to read it for a while but put it off. it's about a man who grew up privileged in afghanistan before the taliban took over. by the time they did, he and his father had been smuggled out of the country and gone to the united states. he goes back years later for various reasons, largely hoping to make peace with the demons that haunt him, i think, and finds his homeland unrecognizable. at times i thought the book was a little too hard to read. parts of it were very violent and overwhelmingly sad. the story is about redemption - it says so on the back cover - so i knew something bad had to happen in order for someone to need redemption, but i'm not sure the story of the redemption he finds is worth having those images in my head, because they do remain there. on the other hand, reading about such a place, and the beauty that used to be, the beauty lost, gave me a new perspective too.

i remember after september 11th, when the bombing of afghanistan by "the allied forces" began, i felt so helpless and overwhelmed. i could see and hear the echoes of innocent people screaming when i closed my eyes. every night on the news there would be names of more cities being bombed, more colorful dots on the stylized maps of countries many americans had never heard of, much less seen. and images of cities crumbling and faces crying would linger behind the reality where i was struggling to exist. so i was glad to read this book, because through the narrator's eyes, i was able to see the beauty of a country before it was torn apart. or earlier in the long history of it being torn apart, more accurately. afghanistan has a long history of being torn apart, and what really saddens me is the fact that behind these terrible rulers and terrible laws and crumbling economies and crumbling buildings, there are people trying to live from day to day. the images of kids during war tear me apart. it reminds me of a nanci griffith song: it's a hard life. it really breaks me up. i have been so lucky. when i was in nyc visiting my brother, i saw kids roaming the streets in packs, and thought how odd it was that their parents would let them wander around, so exposed to the dangers of big city life. then i read the kite runner. i guess in some ways i'm naive, but i just don't think it's fair that kids have to suffer at all, especially because of wars that started before they were even born, wars that they don't understand, but yet come to experience more personally than many of the people who started them. it literally breaks my heart. maybe i'm too sensitive, but i guess that's what comes from having parents who wanted, tried, and were able to protect me from true suffering.

i opened up the news today and saw that another suicide car bomb in afghanistan killed several people (source). what kind of life is that for kids? seeing that kind of stuff every day, it seems you might get to the point where you don't really even fear it, you just accept it as part of life.

oh, and madonna's adoption of the boy from malawi is being challenged by a "leading child rights group" there (source). this also reminds me of the book, but you'll have to read it to know why.

It's a Hard Life
(Nanci Griffith)

I am a backseat driver from America
We drive to the left on Falls Road.
And the man at the wheel's name is Seamus,
We pass a child on the corner he knows.
And Seamus says "what chance has that kid got?"
And I say from the back , "I don't know."
He says there's barbed wire at all of these exits
And there ain't no place in Belfast for that kid to go.
'Cause it's a hard life, it's a hard life, it's a very hard life
It's a hard life wherever you go.

And if we poison our childred with hatred
Then the hard life is all that they'll know.
And there ain't no place in Belfast for that kid to go.

Cafeteria line in Chicago,
The fat man in front of me
Is calling black people trash to his children
And he's the only trash here I see.
And I'm thinking this man wears a white hood
In the night when his children should sleep.
But they'll slip to their windows and they'll see him
And they'll think that white hood's all they need.


'Cause it's a hard life, it's a hard life, it's a very hard life
It's a hard life wherever you go.
And if we poison our children with hatred
Then the hard life is all that they'll know.
And there ain't no place in Chicago for those kids to go.


I was a child in the sixties
When dreams could be held through T.V.
With Disney and Cronkite and Martin Luther
And I believed, I believed, I believed.
Now I am the backseat driver from America
And I am not at the wheel of control.
And I am guilty, I am war, and I am the root of all evil,
Lord, and I can't drive on the left side of the road.


'Cause it's a hard life, it's a hard life, it's a very hard life
It's a hard life wherever you go.
And if we poison our children with hatred
Then the hard life is all that they'll know.
And there ain't no place in this world for those kids to go,
'Cause it's a hard life wherever you go.

the dangers of halloween...

donnie darko.

ps. dumbest costume ever?

source.

recent interesting news.

- chavez (ergo venezuela) pledges to protect bolivia if the bush the devil (ergo USA) attacks (source).

- yankee pitcher cory lidle was killed when his small plane crashed into a building in nyc (source).

- al gore's an inconvenient truth won a literary award (source).

- pinochet faces another trial related to his role in the murder of one of the thousands of people whose murder he played a role in when he was dictator of chile (before he left office, he awarded himself immunity for all of his human rights violations. the courts can go back on a case-by-case basis and strip him of this immunity, but then he can appeal. oh, and he's too sick to stand trial and suffers from dementia - what? he doesn't want to remember? - so he has yet to be convicted or cleared for any of these crimes). sigh... (source).

- jen and vince have not split (she said on oprah), madonna and guy are adopting a boy from molawi, kevin federline claims his children come first, katie holmes has her wedding dress, and posh spice looks awful naked (source, source).

peace out.
charity :)

hello new york city! page five: images.

the empire state building.



light. i think this was on 42nd street.



crossing the brooklyn bridge.

hello new york city! page four: the phone...

my brother is hilarious.


union square.



on the bus on 2nd avenue, right after i saw SPIKE LEE doing the right thing.



it's not ALWAYS fun and games. don't get on my brother's bad side!!

hello new york city! page three: madison square park.

taken by baxter.







a man and his pigeon.

hello new york city! page two: roaming the streets.

in front of the library.


near the empire state building i think?


in soho.


in the subway.

hello new york city! page one: amnh.

the american museum of natural history! yeah!

fun quizzes at work. i'm so glad today's an early day...

You Are Cameo

You are understanding and very empathetic. You don't tend to have acquaintances. Everyone is your friend. And all of your friends tend to be friends. You have a knack for bringing very different people together.

What Color Orange Are You?

You Are A Weeping Willow Tree

You are a dreamer, and you're into almost any kind of escapism. Restless and capricious, you love to travel to exotic places. You are easily influenced by others, as long as they don't pressure you. You tend to suffer in love until you find that one loyal, steadfast partner. An empathetic friend, you love to make others smile and laugh.

What's Your Celtic Horoscope?

Your Wrestler Name Is...

Mistress Wildcat

What's Your Wrestler Name?

You Are Bert

Extremely serious and a little eccentric, people find you loveable - even if you don't love them! You are usually feeling: Logical - you rarely let your emotions rule you You are famous for: Being smart, a total neat freak, and maybe just a little evil How you life your life: With passion, even if your odd passions (like bottle caps and pigeons) are baffling to others

The Sesame Street Personality Quiz

Your Monster Profile

Insane Lunatic You Feast On: Starbucks You Lurk Around In: Public Restrooms You Especially Like to Torment: Emo Kids

What's Your Monster Name?

Your Inner European is Irish!

Sprited and boisterous! You drink everyone under the table.

Who's Your Inner European?

doltergeist: a spirit that decides to haunt someplace stupid, such as your septic tank.

(sorry about the formatting weirdness, but i got this in a forwarded email; charity :))

Neologisms

The Washington Post publishes a contest for readers in which they are asked to supply alternate meanings for various words.

Coffee (n.), a person who is coughed upon.

Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.

Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.

Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent

Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightie.

Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.

Gargoyle (n.), an olive-flavored mouthwash.

Flatulence (n.) the emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.

Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.

Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam.

Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified demeanor assumed by a proctologist immediately before he examines you.

Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddish expressions.

Circumvent (n.), the opening in the front of boxer shorts.

Frisbeetarianism (n.), The belief that, when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck there.

Pokemon (n), A Jamaican proctologist.

Bustard (n.), a rude bus driver.

Semantics (n.), pranks conducted by young men studying for the priesthood.

Spatula: n. A fight among vampires.

Excruciate: n., the ligament that attaches your ex-wife to your paycheck.

Perplexed: adj., lost in a movie theater.

Population: n., that nice sensation you get when drinking soda.

Racket: n., a small pair of breasts.

Nincompoop: n., the military command responsible for battlefield sanitation.

Ineffable: adj., describes someone you absolutely cannot swear in front of.

Pontificate: n., a document given to each graduating pope.

Pimple: n., pimp's apprentice.

Discussion: n., a Frisbee-related head injury.

Ozone: n., area in which the G-spot is located.

Flattery: n., a place that manufactures A and B cup brassieres only.

Cabbage Patch: A patch for those trying to stop eating cabbage.

Sudafed: A software program on how to file a civil action against the government.

Pop Secret: Paternity suit settled without publicity.

Oral-B: Monica's grade on her last intern evaluation.



The Washington Posts Style Invitational also asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the reader who doesn't get it.

Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.

Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of obtaining sex.

Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously.

Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease.

Karmageddon: End of the world due to a build up of bad-vibes.

Glibido: All talk and no action.

Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

Intaxication: Euphoria at receiving a tax refund, which lasts until you realise it was your money to start with.

Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.

Tumfoolery: When a middle-aged man sucks in his stomach while being introduced to an attractive woman

Fadavers: Last year's hot fads.

Main Geeze: How an elderly, unmarried couple refer to each other.

Polarvoid: The state of having no baby pictures, a condition that usually befalls the second-born child.

Dozie: The lie a person tells when a telephone caller wakes him up and he denies that he was sleeping.

Hooternanny: The au pair you thought was especially promising, but your wife sent back to the agency.

Alexpandria: A town known for its buffet restaurants.

Apocalypstic: The little smudge I came home with on my collar that makes my wife act like it's the end of the world.

Defenestraction: A ruse to divert the cop's attention while you throw the evidence out the window.

Accimental: Caused by a Freudian slip.

Algaebra: What the Little Mermaid wears over her chest.

Aliass: A body double for a nude scene.

Arbyss: The deepest part of the stomach, reserved for two Giant Roast Beefs, large Curly Fries and a chocolate shake.

Avant-harde: Before the Cialis kicks in.

Doltergeist: a spirit that decides to haunt someplace stupid, such as your septic tank.

Guillozine: a magazine for executioners.

Decafalon (n.) The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

Arachnoleptic fit (n.) The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

Beelzebug (n.) Satan in the form of a mosquito that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

Caterpallor (n.) The color you turn after finding half a grub in the fruit you're eating.

laundry, spaceship flowers, and musings on the subject of death.

this crazy flower is randomly growing in the middle of the yard across the street. i saw it yesterday while i was doing laundry. it's the yard of an apartment building, but somehow this flower found its way there. i remember a flower like this sprung up mysteriously in our yard when i was in grade school. i looked in astonishment at it, and made my mom take a picture of it. "it looks like a spaceship!" i marvelled...


courtesy of my new iPhoto.

i watched the series finale of six feet under last night. i really enjoyed it. i've been thinking a lot about death lately. about how we as a culture (to put it loosely) deal with death. i've just been so struck with how everpresent death is, and yet how scared we all are about it. we see images of death and brutality every day, and we've become desensitised to it, and yet we don't really prepare for it or we think somehow we can protect ourselves from it. we live in constant fear of coming down with a terminal illness, and yet think that somehow, if we live right, we can prevent it from happening. death is the one thing we will all, eventually, have in common, and yet, we live each day trying to prevent it from happening to us.

i tried talking to a friend of mine about this and felt like i just went on and on (this will not surprise anyone reading this who is actually my friend, i'm sure) and didn't really know what i was saying at the end. i remembered the buffy episode where her mom dies. it was similar to the six feet under in a very important respect. these shows, which are centered around death, which have as their main plot lines the death of others, don't actually incorporate many of the details of death, usually. even six feet under, where the deaths are the business (so we see preparations of the body and funerals, and the grieving of others), keeps us far enough away from it to really feel the ache of loss. that's why i think it was important for the show that someone important to us (after having watched 5 seasons) dies. so we can see how the combination of things really works: the realization that despite the overpowering loss you feel with the new vacancy (the questions of where the person is, are they happy, how will you live without them?), you have to do the practical things still, like arrange for the body to be picked up, clean up messes they left, plan a funeral, go to the grocery store, get over it, learn to live again without them there.

when buffy's mom dies, she keeps trying to find supernatural causes for the death, which to me strikes me as a way to move death from reality to nightmare. since she is so accustomed to dealing with the supernatural as her calling/job, she feels compelled to move her mom's death into this place. if she successfully does this, she will be able to see it as a problem to be solved rationally, rather than experiencing it as the unbearable loss and vulnerability it threatens to be. in six feet under, when david has to deal with the death of someone close to him, he too shuts out the emotions at first, and spends all his time and energy on the practical aspects-- planning the service, cleaning the body-- before cracking, becoming inconsolable and completely unable to deal. he almost moves from reality into nightmare as well.

to me, death seems like the most unbearable thing you can share with another person. when people close to me have died, i have been so confused, feeling my emotions, reaching out to them, seeing them in my dreams, unable to let go. it wasn't until i lost someone as an adult that i really found (out of necessity more than anything else, really) my faith. so in that sense, the unbearable pain was necessary to push me to find out what i really beleived. what DID happen to these people? why DO i feel like they are still here? who really IS it that comes to visit me in my sleep? what will happen to me when i die? will i ever see these people again?

my mom once told me about a man she knew who had experienced so much loss. hearing his story, my mom was overwhelmed, not just with disbelief or sadness for him, but with how happy he seemed to be. she asked him about it. he said "all that i have lost has enabled me to identify with and provide comfort to others, and for that i am grateful." sadness is selfish, and trying to prevent the inevitable is a Sisyphean task. death is all around us, and it's not something to be taken lightly, but it happens everyday. like everything, there are good and bad parts. the important thing to realize is that while we are still here, we have to keep going. and that's a blessing. [in this incarnation] we are only born once, and we only die once. what happens in between is up to us.

before i saw the series finale, i listened to this story on npr about the romanian film newly released on dvd: the death of mr. lazarescu. the commentator raises interesting questions and i think i'd like to see the film.