aura218

"Things I Lost in the Crack Up"
a poem in list form

1. 2 friends
1. My bosses' faith in and goodwill towards me.
1. My dignity
1. My pride
1. My hope
1b. My fear of being found imperfect
1b. My fear of sticking around after things have gone sour.
2. My work badge
3. The boxes I put around people.
4. A sliver of atheism.
4. A good deal of naivete
5. The Autobiography of Jane Pittman, paperback, half-read, lent by the San Francisco Public Library.

Dear Caesar,

You keep pressuring me to go out and while it's sometimes fun, there's a dilemma there. I don't know how to talk to strangers. I don't know how to carry a conversation. I don't know when to STOP a conversation. I don't like meeting new people for the uncertainty of the intense self-consciousness caused by focusing on another person so hard.

It's true I'm lonely, but going out -- that mythical invocation -- is a temporary fix. I seek a friend tonight, a kindred spirit. Standing with my drink staring at other people having fun only makes me feel more alone.

Dear Assholes who design web job app sites:

First crime of online job app sites is don't make me retype my resume into your little boxes. Do you understand what a dick move this is? Let's look at the breakdown:

"Customizing" resume for this job: 30 minutes
Creating perfect cover letter: 1 hour
Stalking company online so I sound knowledgeable in letter: 15 minutes
Stalling out of crippling anxiety: 2 hours
Time spent hunting down stupid nitpicky information on Google to fill out the little boxes so I can press "send": 2.5 hours.

So that's almost 2 unavoidable hours, plus 2 variable mental health hours, required per app. Plus two and a half complete bullshit hours. Times 400 applications.

Second crime is, don't prevent me from going ahead when I don't want to answer questions that will prevent me from getting hired. It's none of your fucking business how much I made in a job I held 10 years ago, and you don't get the name of my references before you've even talked to me. But I know if I don't put these things, you'll throw my resume out along with 150 other applicants with a shred of integrity and pride left, leaving you a pool of workers who are stupid or scummy enough to tell you anything for a scant hope of getting hired by someone, anyone.

Dear Caesar --

It's been a while since we spoke. I live in San Francisco now and have a real life. It's a lot to adjust to.

Meanwhile, my brother has spawned, so his life has legitimized in other ways, too.

This is an indelicate dovetail to:

I just got the video of my nephew's baptism. A light sprinkling from the man in the dress, words of condescension and mass agreement. When the papal chieftain asks all the bobble heads to agree to "raise this child in Christ," I officially decide to tell this child that his auntie is 'one of those' as soon as he's old enough to ask the question. I'm not hiding anything from this kid who will surely be sheltered in upright, white Christian goodness.

Dear Caesar:

Is it possible to change your career plan like, on a dime? Cuz well, I kinda had no career plan and then I just took this placement test and I got urban planning 98% and I looked it up and like. Bolt from the heavens. It's so me. Lookit this:

You have to solve complex problems; I live for that. It's about helping people by finding what's wrong with their environments and making it right; that's like, my default brain setting. You spend time in the office and in the field, you have to work in teams and communicate, and you spend a lot of time researching, planning, and developing; it's not the same thing over and over, you're constantly running around. Plus, you get projects and complete them and then move on. You get a sense of accomplishment, it's not the same grind day in, year out, decade after decade. Best part: you. are. God. Urban planners invented the suburbs, the "Gaybourhood," the shopping mall, even little things like seating areas near the bus shelters. Where would we be without a covered bus shelter? How would hookers get their blow?

I just feel like this is me. It's all about people but not, like, teaching. It's social and persuasive, it's thinky and hard brain work, it's probably not often boring, it's specific projects daily, it's self-directed, it's open-ended. San Francisco has thousands of urban planners and it's a growth industry, and anywhere that is willing to pay for someone else to do the research to save the city money will always need an urban planning because, urban decay? Expansion? Poverty, crime, vandalism? Planetary epidemic.

So that's another master's I gotta collect...

I have to disagree with this guy'stheological reading of HP. Based on the text and interviewsfrom Rowling, I think it's clear that they are existentialist and secular humanist. The strongest themes in the book are the power of the best sides of humanity -- love, confidence, loyalty, rising above our base desires. It's our choices that make us, not who we're born to or what religious group we belong to. There are good bad guys and bad good guys.

To my mind religion says the opposite; that if you pass the test and prove you are faithful, then you are a good person. Religions believe that everyone in the in-group is good and everyone outside the group is, at best, mistaken. This worldview is precisely what Rowling is opposed to.

Some cool mashups vids that use HP and my favorite musical theater songs. I call them mashups rather than vids b/c I feel the editors did more than just set scenes to music, but made the effort to tell a story using HP vid and the music as tools.

Harry wants Lady Luck to know that he's stuck here:


Lucius Malfoy enquirers about Harry's strange unique plant, which he found during a total eclipse of the sun. (Dah-do.)


Lily's Eyes. For this one, you must suspend disbelief: that Remus likes girls, and most importantly, that Harry is "the girl" who has Lily's eyes. Regardless, the vid adds an extra element to Snape and Lupin's conflicted feelings toward Harry in PoA.


A *horrifying and wrong* delightful Sirius/McGoogles vid. Let's just say Sirius got away with a lot on charm alone.

Went to pick up my grandma's laundry today and we got to talking. She told me her mom was a telephone operator. In 1924. If you wanted to make a call, you picked up the receiver, told the operator the number, and she -- my great grandma -- plugged a cable into a socket and the call was connected. And then if there was something juicy going on, she flicked a switch and listened to your call. It was the south and the telephone operator was the queen of the gossip mill.

K so, I've been playing this game that's set in the 20s and the game says no one saw the purpose of a phone 20s. And that they were so expensive, you rented them from the phone company instead of buying one. According the the intarwebs:

"in 1921, using "phantom circuits," which allowed three telephone conversations to be conducted on two pairs of wires" Which worked out fine b/c there were probably three phones total in Macon, GA.

"1927 Transatlantic service from New York to London became operational, transmitted by radio waves." 1927 January 7 First public trans-Atlantic telephone call via radio; May 12 from Columbia, Missouri to London"
So you couldn't call across the ocean until then, and when it was introduced, you had to be a pretty techy operator to place the call. I am sure my great grandma was a telephone line diva.

"1924 - - More than 15,000,000 telephones in use in the Bell System. On May 19th, the first transmission of pictures over telephone wires is publicly demonstrated by Bell System engineers." Ooookay so there were a few more phones than I thought. But still, Macon was like three feed stores and a church.

Kristi's Pritty Dam Gud Smoothie

Frozen Blueberries
1 Bananana
Ice (optional)
1 cup strawberry yogurt
Little bit of milk

Blend together. Eat. Makes 1 big smoothie or 2 sensible ones. As with all smoothies, don't try to save the leftovers unless you freeze it. In the fridge, it'll stratify unpleasantly and never quite taste right again.

It's 3:20 AM and there's is like, a bird or something right outside my window and I think it's dying or mating or composing an opera. It sounds exactly like the flamingo croquet mallets in Alice in Wonderland and IF IT DOESN'T STOP SHRIEKING I'LL GIVE IT SOMETHING TO SHRIEK ABOUT.