I can't help it...

Every time I see a sixty year-old+ man driving a flashy sports car, my brain screams: Sorry about your penis!!!!!

I'm such a bad, bad Christian.

I don't have a picture of the lamb, but...

My brother plays in Photoshop. A lot.

The Original:

This remains one of my favorite pictures of me and my brother. I have no idea about the cheekiness; I keep asking my mom if I had the mumps, or something, but she swears not.

And in other news:

One of the things I can always count on (aside from the love of my family and husband, the heat of summer, and the ridiculously trusting ignorance of the American people when watching the news) is the welcome of a new book. I usually have about 5 books going (2 nonfiction of different subjects, 1 novel, 1 book of poetry, short stories, or YA novel) at one time. I recently finished one nonfiction, but haven't settled on the new one I'm starting in its place. And as I mentioned in my last post, I've also finished two adult novels in a row with similar themes (forgiveness, redemption, God, blah, blah, blah). The YA novel came in yesterday and I'm already half-way through it (not just because its reading level is below mine, but also because (as previous reviews have already stated) it's just that good. But I'm having an issue with the adult fiction. It's just not there for me. I have a pretty impressive TBR pile. I look at it and get all excited about one day soon diving back in, but I just don't have it in me right now. It occurs to me that sometimes, I need to finish a few things before starting something new. It it overwhelming at times, my voracious need to have several books going at once. It feels slightly chaotic and ADD. I've done this for ages, though, and only in the last few years met someone who does the same, which does make me feel a tad less like I have reading commitment issues!

Reviews coming soon, I promise (if you care).

Because, really, who wants to hear me whine anymore?

Dear Diary,

Sorry I've been such a whiny-butt lately. I must admit this was partly due to missing my family something awful. This past Sunday was Greek Easter (Eastern Orthodox Easter always falls on the first Sunday after Passover - as the last supper was a passover meal) and in my family (as in many Greek families), Easter is the end all-be all of holidays. There is always a ton of food, including a whole lamb being roasted over an outdoor spit. If I can remember, I'll get some pics to post - the nicest touch is the intact head with tongue sticking out! I guess that's actually pretty gross to think about, but if you recall this post, it's not like I was raised in some lily white sense of animal purity. Anyway, the family was all together over at my aunt's house yesterday and I was, well, at home. Since we've moved from New Orleans to Austin, I've spent every Greek Easter pretty low. The husband tried to cheer me up by grilling some lamb fillets, and for that I am grateful.

I was also reading this book at the time. I don't know why I'm suddenly reading such things. It's not really up my alley, but something about it spoke to me. But that's for another post.

And I'm not very happy at my job, which has never been much of a secret. No, I'm not a teacher. Perhaps if I were I would be happier. Perhaps, as music wench suggested, that's what I should be doing. It's what I wanted to do when I started college. Unfortunately, I found the course of study unchallenging (wow. that's not a real word?) and my classmates vapid future suburban soccer mom wannabes. At the time, I couldn't see past that. Now, I believe I could. My current job is as an operations manager for a funding organization. We assist some very cool grassroots groups in Central America. But I feel too disconnected from the work being done to feel I'm of any use. I'm more someone who wants to be the one interacting with the people involved, not worrying about how much donations have dropped in the past 3 months because I have so much stuff to do, I can't get any actual work done.

I suppose this is pretty weak, considering I now spent most of my apology for whining while whining. Just wanted to explain. Thanks for listening.

Love, D.

Oh Hai!

LOLXENA!
It was only a matter of time.
Thank you, ms. vague, for making my Monday morning that much brighter.
Check out more lolxenas at: LOLXENA

Eco-Libris

The lack of green publishing is one of my hot button issues. Here is a way to help until everyone figures it out.

And now for something completely different...

A group of amateur ballerinas rescue the Pixies "Where is My Mind" from Fight Club.

How does one hire a life coach (and is it expensive?)

Really.

I'm tired of trying to figure it out.

I'm tired of wondering if I'm acting just a tad too self-involved for my own good.

I'm tired of whining about it.

I'm tired of doing nothing about it.

I'm especially tired of advice from people who don't know me very well (one of whom actually suggested I go into Real Estate because I like a challenge!)

And I could really really use some new Vincent D'Onofrio pics to cheer up.

So for those of you who don't know me very well, here's a snapshot.

I love: books, kids, kids books, books about kids books, mythology, religion, human nature and social sciences in general, words and word puzzles (but not sudoku), pop culture (except reality TV), music, internet culture (even when it drives me batshit crazy), and social justice issues, to name a few things.

I am: driven, bored easily when unchallenged, patient, self-teaching, curious, introverted, but socially adaptive, detail-oriented, highly flexible, and good at training others.

I care about: this world we live in and the people in it, especially those who might be considered "the least of these," i.e. children, the homeless, mentally ill, poverty stricken and uneducated.

I can do: practically anything I set my mind to, though neurosurgery may require some training first.

Any thoughts or suggestions are welcome. Just no real estate, please.

I believe this is how true crazy is made

I feel quite disenchanted with the world these days. Not in one of those everything's shit, our government sucks, and we're too busy killing each other and buying stuff to notice kind of way. It's more like: Everywhere I go I see beauty and complexity that engages me and makes me want to become more of something, but I don't know what that is.

The more I learn about the world, people in it, my own interactions, the busier and crazier my brain feels. It's as if there isn't enough space in there to process all the thinking that's going on. Do I sound crazy? I feel it, mostly because I don't have anyone to talk to about all this. Truth is, if I were single right now, I'd probably be living in an intentional community somewhere, just trying to love my neighbor and practice radical subversive economics. But of course I can't do that. I'm lucky I can convince my (amazing and very sweet) husband we DON'T need most of the stuff he wants. That the things we have are enough (ask me sometime about the Fry Daddy incident - I. could. kill. his. mother.).

And then it occurs to me that I'm a hypocrite. I like stuff. I buy books almost weekly. I just purchased a new set of sheets for the bed, not because we needed a new set of sheets, but because I thought they were cool. But I'm basing the health of my marriage on whether or not I can convince the husband to switch from bottled water to a water filter (I'm almost there). And the one person I felt I could talk to about Jesus just sent me an email with the most disappointing and formulaic anti-feminist crap in it...I responded, attempting to educate, but then I figured oh, what is the fucking point!?!?!? People are going to believe whatever they fucking well want to believe. Isn't that how Obama lost Pennsylvania? Because no one wants to think outside their little comfort zone? And if everyone is so happy there, why can't I just settle in and be happy too?

So on one hand, I'm trying to convince myself to give up. Stop trying to engage the world in my own radical way. It doesn't matter anyway, and all that ends up happening is my own despair when I turn on the TV and see so much horror and apathy. But on the other, I am still engaging, still getting the optimistic shit beat out of me every day, and still waking up the next morning wondering what good I can accomplish; looking forward to the tiny surprising thing that'll happen (as it seems to always) to keep me from giving up.

Sometimes I have to accept that keeping one's mind open is an invitation for all sorts of mischief.

My quote of the day:

A Christian is committed to the belief that Love and Mercy are the most powerful forces on earth.

- Thomas Merton
Passion for Peace

Something I'm Thinking About

From PostSecret, of course...

In case anyone was wondering...

My favorite NOM, just for ms. vague

Craptastic posts for most of the week as I'm (standing in a wedding) visiting family in NOLA...

Poetry Friday in honor of National Poetry Month

Rhapsody

by William Stanley Braithwaite

I AM glad daylong for the gift of song,
For time and change and sorrow;
For the sunset wings and the world-end things
Which hang on the edge of to-morrow.
I am glad for my heart whose gates apart
Are the entrance-place of wonders,
Where dreams come in from the rush and din
Like sheep from the rains and thunders.

(bibliographic information can be found here)

Unfug the READ poster - go, Iowa!

Your Neighborhood Librarian: Unfug the READ poster - go, Iowa!

(thought I'd be polite and do an actual linkback...)

Because it's Friday and Because I can

Stolen from Your Neighborhood Librarian, who has been very vocal about the fugliness of the current crop of READ posters out there.

Just Some Random Thoughts

I feel blue lately. I don't know why. I should be excited. It's almost Friday. I'm leaving Sunday to visit with friends and family in New Orleans (of whom I don't see nearly enough for my taste - which is something along the lines of every other day...). My bestest friend is getting married in a little over a week and she seems pretty blissed about that - which in turn pleases me because I love to see my loved ones happy. And I get to wear a pretty dress as her best woman (do NOT ever call me the matron of honor, please - I may be married, but there's nothing matronly about me but my bosoms). I even just finished reading a pretty fucking heartwarming book that didn't make me squirm once. Usually I'm the sort of person that always looks for the moments of joy that secret themselves in our lives. But lately it seems I'm the Queen of Doom. And no one wants to hang with the queen of doom. Queen of Dom, maybe, but no.

I keep waiting for this other shoe to drop: the one that tells me I did seriously fuck up at work, I shouldn't have let my irreverent sense of humor go that far, everyone I love is gone and there's no getting them back. WTF?

I haven't even been able to cheer myself with pictures of my not-so-secret obsession, and that's something I can usually count on.

I am a seeker by nature. I am always looking for answers, reasons, angles, new perspectives. Sometimes I think I overload my brain with too much information and instead of helping, all that info makes me want to crawl into a dark space and curl up into a trembling ball. This world confuses me with its constant onslaught of agenda, rationale, violence, and heartbreak. Even when I know in my bones that isn't all it is. I know because of the people I work with who give so much of themselves. I know because of the people I love who embody so much more than greed and blind acceptance. Yet even in knowing this, I still carry the weight of every negative aspect of the world on my shoulders as if I alone am responsible for saving it. Yeah, yeah, I know. Get over myself. Right? Please allow me the indulgence I would allow you in these same circumstances.

How can I feel so down when I see God in the face of every person I pass?

Thoughts? Comments? Random insults or indulgence? Feel free to share in the comments.

Intellectual LOLCats! How can I resist?

For Val

New blogger friend Val puts together some of the most beautiful slideshows and posts on her blog Life and Vincent for us VDO obsessed. I admire her dedication to getting some of the best Bobby tongue shots I've ever seen, and through her and her band of fellow obsessives, I was introduced to the concept of hand porn. She recently had to bury a beloved pet. I know the heartbreak involved in that and wanted to share some of my personal porn: grizzled!Vincent (I do so love the stubble)

Possibly I'm going to Hell

Is it wrong that I find naked Harry Potter hot?



I do so love a goody trail...

Wanted Poster for Christopher Columbus

I don't think one needs to be fluent in Spanish to understand what is being said here. This is a picture my co-worker took while in El Salvador to monitor the 1994 elections. I think it's awesome. I don't know about the rest of you, but I feel Columbus Day is something that should be wiped from our holiday roster out of shame.

Here is the translation for those interested:

WANTED

Christopher Columbus

Great thief, Guilty of Genocide, Racist,
Initiator of the destruction of a culture.
Violator (rapist), Torturer, and Oppressor of the Indigenous People,
and Instigator of the Great Lie.

500 years of resistance, struggle and hope.

We Tell Stories

Penguin Publishers has found new and intriguing ways to use the Internet to tell stories.
Because stories are good, right?
...RIGHT?!?

In the following, YA author Kevin Brooks invites the reader to help.

I'm having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day...

It occurs to me I have become a misanthrope of sorts.

As I've mentioned before, I am not a loner (though I once thought so until I read this book and realized, "hey! that's not me!"), but an introvert. As an introvert and a quasi-ambidextrous (and therefore dual-brained) person, I take twice as long to process nonsense and crap before I figure out that it is nonsense and crap and therefore not worth my ire. This is very true, for example, of most of what I encounter on the Internet. Seriously folks, if I took every comment I either agreed with or didn't that is posted to every blog I read (talking mainly about The Very Serious Ones here) and responded emotionally to them, I would go batshit crazy in about a week. I just forced myself - forced myself, I tell you - to stop even visiting a certain blog because I had become embroiled in the most inane comment discussion about a certain television show. Don't get me wrong: I love discussing TV I love, or hate, or hate to love, or something like that. What was inane about the whole thing was that the person with whom I was having said discussion and I basically agreed about everything, but were just tied up in the logistics of our own perceptual filters.

I love perceptual filters. They influence everything we see, do , hear, watch. They color every conversation and interaction. And most people aren't even aware of their own and the role they play. Most people don't even realize they possibly - for example - view every mixed-race couple in mainstream media as a relationship of abuse and power, and so therefore the creator of a show which features such a couple is obviously a racist fetishist, because that's what she experienced in her own home. No, this is her opinion, and she is an educated and intelligent woman, ergo she is right and everyone else can just suck her left one.

People like that exhaust me and the Internet is full of them. Every article, popular blog, and flickr photo has someone who has apparently no other venue by which to voice his or her opinion and that opinion must be voiced.

Why? I have opinions every damn second of every day and keep them to myself and for good reason: The majority of them aren't worth the air I would use to speak. Added to that, aside from my obvious slacker-like tendencies today because (see blog title), who the fuck has the time to get that involved?

As I mentioned in a recent post, I have seriously cut down on my time spent in a certain TV-show-based fan forum. First it was all fun and games, but then I was ready to put someone's eye out. I suddenly felt weighed down by the sheer frustration of, oh, I don't know, the pointlessness of it all? Was discussing one particular character trait with someone I felt wasn't understanding the character's motivations changing my opinion of the character at all, and really who gives a fuck? Because when you boil it down, it's a TV show. And the characters? They aren't real. I like them. I enjoy looking at them and seeing how they grow or develop. But other people's opinions of them are no more real than the characters themselves. They are just blips on a screen that I wasted too much time reading. And those opinions I was sharing? As worthless as everyone else's.

Help me, online diary (that I post to in a public forum because in this mixed-up crazy 21st Century world, I have become as exhibitionist as the next assclown with a blog), help me let go of all these other opinions and their (seeming) importance so that I can continue to enjoy my Internet time and not feel I have to go find out what that jerk Anonymous is saying now!

4 Things Meme (the Goddessdster's take)

Four (of the shortest) jobs I have had in my life:

1. Lane Bryant Sales Person (2 weeks - and I was fired!)
2. Barista (2 days - I lied and said I had another job)
3. Project manager for a construction company (1 day - essentially told the truth and said I couldn't stand the work)
4. Horse Walker (1 day - pretty much disappeared altogether don't ask)

Four (marginally bad) movies I've watched more than once (despite everyone's ridicule):

1. The Order (Heath needs a hug!)
   
2. The Seventh Sign (Biblical Apocalypse!)
   
3. Constantine (Keanu needs a hug...and a cigarette)
4. While You Were Sleeping (yeah, I know)
   

Four places I've lived (for less than a year):

1. Westport, Connecticut (6 months - 3 years old)
   
2. Houston, Texas (3 months - 13 years old)
   
3. Shelbyville, Tennessee (5 months - 21 years old)
   
4. Lewisburg, Tennessee (1 month - 21 years old)
   

Four television shows I like to watch (alone):

1. Law and Order: Criminal Intent (really? you need a reason?)
2. Bones
3. The Universe
4. Torchwood (don't judge me my kinks!)

Four places I have been (more than once):

1. New York City
2. Athens, Greece
3. Los Angeles
4. Pensacola

People who e-mail me (even when I ignore them for weeks):

1. Anna Marie
2. Rebekah
3. Maria
4. Mom

Four of my (least) favorite foods:

1. raw tomato anything
2. cooked carrots
3. Spanish rice
4. raw tomatoes (no really, I freaking despise the things, it deserves being listed twice)

Four places I would rather be (reading) right now:

1. on my couch
2. on my bed
3. on the john
4. at the dining room table

Four friends I think will respond: no one, but feel free to add your own in the comments section!

Okay

I try to remind myself of this all the time.
Sometimes it's harder than others...

I am such the dork

Since I've installed Google analytics out of curiosity as to who accidentally ends up here (as I know only about 3 people read this site and they all know me personally), I've been having the most fun with the map function. What can I say? My BA is in Geography, I'm a nerd like that. But the fun it brings. Someone in New York state has visited my blog (and my other blog)! From Brooklyn, no less! I am such a dork that this excites me! Even if it's one of the 2 awesome people I know who live in Brooklyn! Can I have anymore exclamation points on this post?!? I think so!!!

Oh, if for some reason you stumbled upon here accidentally and stayed to read a thing or two, feel free to say hi in the comments.

That is all.

No, really, carry on.

I can't believe I'm so late to this...

Sadness and the Grand Experiment

I am not afraid to admit I love TV. I'm beginning to love it less in these days of so-called reality television, and have managed to hone down my must watch shows to a handful from the every-night-of-the-week habit I'd accumulated a few years back. In the absence of new episodes in recent months, I have taken to visiting fan forums for a show or two, hoping to exchange thoughts and quips with fellow fans. I've also joined some of these forums so that I may join in the conversations. That was my first mistake.

One particular board is actually pretty thorough. It isn't populated by flamers or trolls. I'm under the impression this board was started due to dissatisfaction with the official fan board run by the network's web site. Moderators make it a point to state they welcome dissenting opinion and promote healthy discussion. That is--for the most part--true. But there is still something wrong, and I can't quite put my finger on it.

Maybe it's the way they give hierarchical rankings to the members based on number of posts. I suppose it is meant to encourage newbies to engage in board discussions instead of lurking. At first, being at times masochistically competitive, this excited me when I moved up the hierarchy one step. But now I feel it is pointless. Why make others work so hard to feel included? I don't care how democratic a discussion claims to be, I have noticed, through observation, automatic weight is given to those with the highest ranking. Those of us in the bottom tier are left to wonder if anyone is even reading our posts at all.

I don't believe this was the intention of the board moderators. I'm sure in their eyes it was all meant in fun. But every time I think about posting, I'm reminded of a far-off time when I was part of another fan forum which did something quite similar and of the negativity and dissent it bred, how left-out many members of the forum felt, especially when their questions would go unanswered or their contributions virtually ignored. A graduate student once did her thesis on this subject by studying this particular forum (I'm even quoted!); about how members of any community (even an online one) tend to segregate into circles of influence. Why this especially stinks in the online forum is the veneer of social equality that doesn't reflect reality at all.

I examine my feelings too closely in this regard. I wonder if I'm feeling stung because I want too desperately to belong to something greater, bigger. I wonder if my issue isn't just with my lack of automatic popularity. And I really don't know (except for the last one - I've never craved popularity and the pressure involved). What I can say is I've little desire to prove to anyone I deserve to belong in those upper ranks. And as long as I persist in posting little, thereby keeping myself in the lowest level of the hierarchy, those posts I do contribute will garner little notice or regard, no matter how insightful (or not) my words. And while I can live with this, I get a little pissy at this idea of fake equality for which the mods of this board pat themselves on the back. While they cannot control the thoughts and ideas of those reading and responding on their forum, they helped put forward those thoughts by setting up the system in the first place. I wonder if it occurred to any of them what the end result would be.

Am I feeling a little superior in this? Most likely. But I won't be driven by self-righteousness to stay away. While I may never get up in the inner circle of fabulousness on this or any forum, I also refuse to pad my ranking by posting platitudes to the queen-bees of the board. I will do what I do best: speak up when I feel I can no longer keep my opinion to myself, keep it brief, check and see if anyone even notices.

On another note: I just found out Angela Lansbury has been diagnosed with ALS. I cannot express how sad this makes me. I think she is one of the classiest, most beautiful (still!), and talented actors I had the privilege to watch while growing up. I used to watch Murder She Wrote with my grandmother and still love to catch it sometimes. Jessica Fletcher is my hero: full of grace, wit, courage, and brains. She was feminism in action and an awesome role model for me. Even if dead people showed up wherever she happened to be.