playing catch-up

It's hot here in my makeshift computer room, so I'm probably going to keep this short. Let's see, I suppose I have some catching up to do. Friday night Dan and I headed up to Ithaca for the last time (at least while I technically live there!) with the intention of bringing all of the rest of my things (mostly kitchenware and my desktop computer) home in my little Civic. I guess I didn't realize either how much I still had in Ithaca, or how small my car is! Or, probably both. I spent a stressful weekend trying to clean, pack, and get rid of things I couldn't bring back with me. I ended up having to leave a lot of the nonperishables with Dave, in hopes that he would either use them or throw them away (something I have an awful time doing, since I hate to waste anything - thanks, Mom, for that character trait! haha).

In any case, the one nice, brief moment of respite from the overwhelmed feeling I had this weekend (i.e., how in the WORLD am I going to make this in one trip?!) was when we went to see March of the Penguins! What a wonderful movie. I learned a lot without even noticing that I was - the best way to learn, I believe! It was incredible how like humans a lot of the characteristics of penguins were. I'm sure a lot of it had to do with me, as a human, ascribing the way we act and feel to the creatures, and also that they walk on two feet! (And can't fly, for that matter.) And it really did appear that they had emotions, but again that could have just been characteristics I (and the filmmakers) gave the penguins because we as humans often feel the need to associate with non-human creatures that way. Well, in any case, it was a wonderful movie. Don't know that it's one I'll want to watch over and over again, but I did enjoy it. Very amusing (although I was often laughing just at how like little old men they look when they waddle around!).

So to get back to the rest of the weekend, we finally got everything packed up and (mostly) taken care of, and were on the road back to CT by around 6pm on Monday evening. (I took the day off unexpectedly, because I realized I wasn't going to be able to get any work done while I worried about packing the car! And it's a good thing I did, because it ended up taking most of the day.) The drive back was uneventful except for our unplanned stop for a very late dinner at the Buckhorn Restaurant in upstate NY...very Southern-ish/truck driver-ish - Dan even bought himself a cowboy hat! But, no incidents or anything.

And, now we're back in-state for good until our move-in day on September 1! Yipee - I can't wait! (Well, I CAN wait for the physical labor of actually moving, but not for once we are in our awesome apartment!) Till then, I'm just kickin' around house-sitting for my parents while they are in Kenya. I visited Grandpa today at the hospital, and he looked much better than when I had last seen him. He has a lot more color in his cheeks, and he was very talkative! He's finally allowed to eat again (for 5 days he was on IV!). The visit was really pleasant; I'll go back again tomorrow.

I guess I didn't need to narrate my life like that...but, as usual, there's very little news to report! Oh but one thing that shook me up today was driving past the ruins of two semi-landmarks in my hometown: first, the big white church that my mother, sisters, and I attended every Sunday for almost 20 years is being torn down, and today I noticed that they had demolished the steeple! It's so sad to see something like that go - it was a beautiful building. Unfortunately it was also falling apart, and the new chuch is of course much more stable and all, but it is still so sad to see such an institution go. I don't feel a connection to the church per se so much as to the memories I have of it. A lot of my childhood was connected to that place.

And the other "monument" that's kind of been kicking around my town for a while is the charred remnants of what was once a Dunkin Donuts out on route 4...it burned down on my birthday this year (I only remember the date because Chandra was visiting that weekend, and we looked at photos of the fire together), and has ever since stood as a burnt-out skeleton in the same spot, with a chain-link fence surrounding it! Everyone was confounded as to why it was still there and not being torn down. I kept speculating that maybe it had to do with insurance - as in, they had to do full inspections before they could alter the "evidence" - but do inspections really take 3 months?! In any case, it's now been reduced to a concrete slab...I've heard they plan to rebuild another DD there. We'll see how long that takes.

Hmm, didn't I say I wasn't going to write much? I think I'll leave things here, for now. I need to go lie down in front of a fan with a good book...

Currently Reading:

TITLE: The Overspent American
AUTHOR: Juliet B. Schor


TITLE: The God of Small Things
AUTHOR: Arundhati Roy

BookCrossing post

I just spent a few minutes this morning reading and subsequently posting on a topic that interested me at BC - here are both the link to the topic (regarding "non-reading children", as the first poster labeled them) at BookCrossing, and what I wrote:

(link to the thread)

I don't know what I would (will?) do if my children don't like to read- it will be hard for me to identify with them! But I understand that there are plenty of people out there who don't enjoy books...I wonder if there's anything really genetic in it, at all. Another nature vs. nurture, I guess! I grew up watching my entire family read- I am the youngest of 3 girls, and everyone was reading before me (of course), so I think a lot of what got me started in the first place was wanting to be like my older sisters & parents. I remember once when my family traveled to Mesa Verde and everyone read "The Haunted Mesa" (Louis L'Amour) - I wanted so badly to be like them that I read it, too, even though I was only 8 and was so scared! The same thing happened with Stephen King's "The Eyes of the Dragon." So I think that a good example (having family members who are avid readers) is definitely a good start for kids, but of course it doesn't always do the trick. It's wonderful to have a reading family, though, because we are constantly passing books around. My grandparents (both sides), aunts, and uncles are almost all avid readers, but my cousins never seemed to take a big interest in books, which I could never understand. I think a large part of it (but this is just my own probably silly theory!) is that children who are very active don't want to sit down with a book when they could be running around. Of course that seems very logical when you think about it; the question from there is, is that some kind of chemical imbalance (ADD, etc.) or is it just who they are (which is of course also some kind of chemical thing, I suppose), and if so, why should they be forced to do something they don't want to do? I myself don't like to run marathons, so why should I be pushed into doing that when I would just be miserable?
That being said, I DO have a really big problem with children who don't read, and with houses where not a single book can be seen (those houses scare me). So maybe I should take some of my own advice. But it just makes me sad that there are people who can't enjoy the amazing worlds created by books. (And I hate to admit it, but I know that sometimes I think "how can non-readers be as intelligent if they aren't soaking up the vocabulary and knowledge of books?")

I've gotten better recently, though; my boyfriend is a big reader of mostly non-fiction, and at first that bothered me a bit- but then I realized that a book is a book, and that we can sit down & read together for long lenghts of time is what matters to me. (Since I can't live without reading!)

Sorry for such a long post. I guess a lot of my thoughts were stirred up by this dicussion! Thanks for hearing me out. :)

Happy reading, everyone.

Dan & I went to see Charlie & the Chocolate Factory yesterday night (after a dinner of sushi first, yum!). I never had a thing for Johnny Depp like what seems like 99% of the rest of the female population in the world, but I DO think he's an excellent actor. He did a very good job as Willy Wonka. And I always love the looks of Tim Burton's films - they are fantastical, amazing, fantasy worlds. He's definitely got an eye. I don't remember enough of the first movie adaptation to compare the two, but I think I liked them both about the same. Gene Wilder was also a winning character, and just as adept as Depp (heh, that sounded funny) at playing the eccentric and rather creepy Mr. Wonka. From what I recall of the book, though (which I read years & years ago, so I'm not a great judge of it) was that the Great Glass Elevator featured at the end of the book, wasn't in the first movie, and WAS in the second, but more than I remember! But, that could just be my patchy memory. I really ought to read the book again; I'm intrigued. I do think I remember correctly when I say that "Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator" was the title of the subsequent book, but I don't remember if it was part of a series or just those two. Guess I'll have to take a mosey on over to Amazon.com to clear things up!

Oh, and Grandpa Joe was played by the man from Waking Ned Devine, one of my favorite movies! I knew I recognized him! Yay.

For now, though, back to work.

p.s. It's 11:11, though - make a wish! xoxo

Currently Reading:

TITLE: The Overspent American
AUTHOR: Juliet B. Schor


TITLE: The God of Small Things
AUTHOR: Arundhati Roy

go in peace, Mr. Biscuit...

Okay, so I knew I was pretty gullible, but I never realized how much! Apparently when I was around age 15, someone told me that "Pax vobiscum" means "Go in peace, Mr. Bisuit"...or I heard it somewhere, whatever. In any case, I had forgotten all about it, but I found a piece of paper with that "translation" written on it, so I decided to Google it today to see what the deal was. Turns out it means something like "Peace be with you" in the plural sense. Aw, that's so boring! Oh, well. I understand now why I tend to take everything with a grain of salt, these days...I've kind of been trained into it! Haha.

Also, speaking of "haha", check out the Wikipedia definition (they pop up on the latest version of Trillian when you hover over any underlined word!) of that phrase: "An onomatopaeia of the English language to mimic the rough sound of human laughter. Often used in instant message chats to express laughter. Haha has found increasing usage in SMS messages between cell phone users to express the same. Can also be expressed as hahaha. Additional ha's can be added to the root haha to express an increase in laughter duration." Heh! Sometimes I also use "additional ha's" to express the intensity of my laughter. I prefer it to "lol" because I don't really like those little "shortcuts" that have developed in IMs, like "r" and "u" for "are" and "you". But anyway. Gotta go. Ciao for now!

haven't i read this before?

So I'm really, really confused right now. Last night, I spent about a half hour before bed reading the first 50 pages or so of Test of the Twins (it's a really fast read; I'm not normally that good!), trying to ignore the strange nagging feeling in the back of my mind that I had read it before. I put it aside to go to sleep, but this morning I spent almost an hour scanning the book to see if I recognized plot points - but all of it sounded, weirdly, vaguely but not solidly familiar. (I think a lot of it is because there are something like 8 or 9 books now that have the same characters or their descendents, and thus I can't ever really keep everything clear.) I even dug out my old "Books Read" list from last year - that starts on January 4, 2004 - to check whether I had written the book down, since I could have sworn I've read it before, but nothing. And the book wasn't published until 2004! I mean, it's still in the "New Releases" section of the library! So, when in the world did I read it??! I am going slightly crazy because of this puzzle. It makes no sense. Who would I have borrowed it from? And when?

Not many people even know that I read the Weiss/Hickman Dragonlance books. I don't admit it to or share that secret a lot (although I guess I just did, now, heh). So I am kind of distressed by this big mystery, as you can tell.

The last chapter of the book, and several plot points, were DEFINITELY familiar. And I can't imagine that the authors would employ things like that twice, so I'm something like 95% certain I've read the book already. ...But I've no idea!!

Otherwise, last night I had a ton of fun going through some of my old things...Mom & I are "purging" - trying to get rid of a lot of the crap that we've managed to collect over the years of living in this house. I know I need to do that, because the last time we did a real, thorough cleaning was when my parents had us pack all of our stuff into boxes and store them upstairs, to clear out our rooms for guest rooms. But at the time, I was still too closely tied to my high school years, so I felt the need to hold on to ticket stubs and programs and notes and the like. Now, I'm much less attached - in fact, I've found a lot of things already that I wonder why I even held on to them, what their sentimental significance was. It's sad that I've kind of forgotten, but on the other hand, it's really nice to be able to clear a lot of stuff out! I don't need those tangible things to hold on to the memories, you know?

All right, I have to go get back to work - and to the frustrated feeling about that book that I could swear I've already read! Ugh, oh well. I'll keep you posted if I remember!! (For now, I don't plan to reread it, though.)

And lastly, happy birthday, Daddy!

Currently Reading:

TITLE: The Overspent American
AUTHOR: Juliet B. Schor


TITLE: The God of Small Things
AUTHOR: Arundhati Roy

asshole.

I just got back from a lovely crepes lunch with my mother and grandparents (her parents) for my mom's birthday. It was a very cool place, but I was quite pissed off by this asshole who thinks they own the world, or at least are the only one in it:


What do they think, that those yellow hazard lines are there for decoration? They are probably the stupid people that think "why do lucky handicapped people get all that space and the rest of us have to park so far away? duuuhh", followed by some drool coming out of their mouths while they ponder this perplexing question. I don't know, jerk, maybe, just maybe, handicapped spots give the people that park there room to get their wheelchairs or their crutches or their canes out of the car??!? What the hell. Now if a handicapped person with a wheelchair shows up to eat some crepes, they can't park there because you felt the need to be a big asshole. Very good.

Yes, I get a bit impassioned about that kind of stuff (oh by the way, I checked - there was NO handicapped sign either on their rearview mirror OR on their license plate), but I not only was handicapped (on crutches) for several months myself - which is doable without a handicapped spot, and I would often forgo taking advantage of my placard - but I have a friend who is in a wheelchair, and I feel fiercly protective of her. She's already so fabulous, and incredible to me, so I am sure she could do without the parking spot there. But why should she have to?? Besides, that jerk looks to me like they'd be the same person who would park in a handicapped spot when it was the last one, forcing Tanya to have to park 5 miles away. Believe me, it's happened. Ugh.

That also reminds me of the time I head some stupid college jock guy complaining about the new "maternity" parking spots that seem to be popping up in many places, offering expecting mothers a chance to not have to walk so far. The stupid jerk made some comment about how his mother did just fine without those when he was young. I really wanted to turn to him and say "okay buddy, YOU try walking around with another human being in your belly and see how that feels! and, by the way, it's too bad that she made it to term with you in the first place - it's too bad she didn't miscarry while she was hiking across the parking lot to get her groceries one morning!" Haha okay so that last part was a little harsh, but I didn't even say a single word when he was around (I always wish I had more guts than I do), so now I get to really have at him, haha.

Well, I have to get back to work, but I just felt the need to rant about that. Oh, and don't worry, I didn't finish both of the 2 books that I started reading just the other day - I just realized that I have to read another one first because it's a new book, and thus can't be renewed (and is due earlier than the others). So, I unfortunately had to put the others on hold. I will definitely return to them directly after I am done with the Weiss & Hickman one.

All right, ciao for now!

Currently Reading:
TITLE: War of the Twins
AUTHOR: Margaret Weiss & Tracy Hickman

into the wild...

Sarah, Liam, and I had a blast releasing some books into the wild yesterday night! We met up at Liam's apartment in Farmington and then drove around to West Hartford and New Britain, leaving books at bus stops, coffee shops, etc. It's so weird how much like criminals we felt! I hate that feeling - we are GIVING something away for free, and yet we feel like we have to be sneaky. I think a large part of that feeling stems from all of the heightened security that we have been put through in this country since September 11, 2001. From that day forward, we've watched our country turn from a fairly open-minded place to a hotbed of something akin to a police state! With the Patriot Act, it's like our country has some kind of carte blanche to do whatever they want to any of us, all under the protective blanket of the Act. If they choose, for example, to arrest us for suspicion of leaving bombs somewhere (which really were innocent little books, that wanted to get out and see the world!) then it seems that they would have every right to prosecute, saying that we had endangered our fellow Americans. Ugh.

That was really poorly worded and I didn't nearly say all I wanted to up there, but that last paragraph taught me a very valuable lesson: never journal while listening to music, Arianna. See, I was listening to a bit of Against Me!, because Dan and I are going to see them and Green Day (one of his favorite bands and one of my favorite bands, respectively) play in Boston right after we move up there! Yay! So I was in the mood to listen to Cavalier Eternal and a few other songs, but realized how incredibly distracting that was while trying to articulate my thoughts. So it looks like the boys'll just have to wait till I'm done with this.

Really, I'm pretty much done, anyway, though. Today was rather uneventful. Worked at home, went to visit Grandpa in the hospital again today (he was groggy because we woke him up, but it seems like he might go back home soon!), worked some more, and then had dinner with Sarah & Liam. They stopped by because it's the last chance Sarah'll have to see Mom & Dad before they leave for Kenya next weekend! I hope they have an incredible time. I wish I were going... :)

But, almost as nice, I get to housesit with Danny for a week and a half while they are gone! I love having the place to myself...I don't think it'll matter how old I get or how many of my own places I have, I still really enjoy being on my own at my parents' house. Maybe part of it is that I feel so grown up. Maybe that means I'll stop feeling that way when (if!) I own my own house someday. ...We'll see!

Anyway, I'll leave you with a really cute (if rather raunchy) joke that Danny told me the other night, and that I have since been passing on to anyone who wants to hear it - it's one of my new favorites, haha!

Q: Why did Barbie dump Ken?
A: Because he came in a different box.

Heh, all right. I am sorry my life isn't more exciting. But I don't mind. I always manage to amuse myself, as you can see...and for now, that's all I need!

Currently Reading:

TITLE: The Overspent American
AUTHOR: Juliet B. Schor


TITLE: The God of Small Things
AUTHOR: Arundhati Roy

une baguette

Sitting here watching the most TV I have seen in god knows how long. Saw a really bad Crocodile Dundee movie this morning, then a couple of episodes of Full House, and now it's Short Circuit! Heh at least it's a good geeky movie to keep busy with. Besides, what else is there to do?? It's soooo hot here! Ugh.

So yeah. Last night Dan, Aaron, Nickhi, and I drove over to the Waterbury Barnes & Noble so that Nickhi could pick up her copy of the latest Harry Potter book. I guess I'll read a copy eventually, but I can definitely wait, heh. Dan and I went because we had nothing better to do, and then ended up wandering over to the TGI Friday's nearby to get drunk and eat steak while we waited, heehee. Fun night. Even picked up a free green plastic bracelet that read "July 15, 2005", and Dan got a pair of black plastic HP glasses, that I managed to promptly break (sorry!).

(Harry Potter always reminds me of when I read the first book in French (when I was living there). For the longest time I thought that, instead of wands, they were using long sandwiches - the word for "wand" in French is baguette, which makes sense because those kinds of breads are very long, well...wands. Haha.)

I'm currently trying to write some long-overdue letters to a couple of my friends, but that's going slowly. Too damn hot to really think straight, ugh. I think I'm gonna go veg out some more. Kisses.

Currently Reading:
TITLE: The Overspent American
AUTHOR: Juliet B. Schor

lots of random stuff

As I told Kristen earlier, today I realized today when I was looking at the Carbonleaf website just how much I love Irish guys...I have always found myself inexplicably attracted to almost every Irish boy I've ever come across...who knows why! But it definitely explains my thing for Casey Affleck, I'd say. And good thing Danny's half Irish. :)

Although I feel the strong urge to point out that Bono never really did it for me.

But tell me, is it really weird that I find the author of Sasser kinda cute? Okay, it's probably just because he's a huge computer geek, but he's also got a nice face. And, hey, c'mon, he did say that he wrote & released that worm in order to catch & stop viruses that were already out there...so he sounds like he could be a good kid, or at least have good intentions. Hey, not all of us genius computer geeks are bad people! Haha kidding, I'm not nearly that smart. But still. He doesn't seem like a bad kid. It just sounds like it backfired, unfortunately.

Anyway, in other news, Katie Holmes has definitely gone crazy. Ugh. As Tool says, "Fuck L. Ron Hubbard and fuck all his clones."

And I have told my father to never, never send me games at work again. He emailed me a link to The Crimson Room the other day, and I spent so much of that workday completing that and the two other rooms, ugh! I am so easily distracted as it is. Games don't help!

I have started to look into things I want to get involved in when I move back to Boston. I really would like to feel like I'm connected to there again, especially because my work will still be in CT. I already heard back from the CodePink girl that I emailed, yay! I also tried to get in touch with the director of the Massachusetts Youth and Government program, since I had such a great time doing that in high school. I really want to try to get involved as an advisor, so I can help high school kids now get as much out of it as I did. (Okay, granted, I probably really loved it my senior year because I met a boyfriend, but...haha. No really, as much as I hate goverment, I really love the procedure of it. All the rules, and being able to break them, heh! Especially when I was majority leader of the House, wow...anyway, I'm digressing into many other stories which probably shouldn't be told here. Let's move on.)

Lastly, recently I found this place called Rosie's (a shelter for women) that I would love to volunteer at! I'm going to look into contacting someone about getting involved there sometime soon. Or when I move. Whatever. :)

Okay, I'm on the phone with Jen right now, and then I want to read some more. So...I'm gonna get going for now. More soon! <3

Currently Reading:

TITLE: Why Girls Are Weird
AUTHOR: Pamela Ribon