Pop culture junk drawer

aura218 — Fri, 13 May 2011 04:20:44 GMT

"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.

aura218 — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 03:29:39 GMT

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.

aura218 — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 03:04:17 GMT

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.

not for nothing...

aura218 — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 03:21:06 GMT

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.

aura218 — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 18:28:34 GMT

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...

aura218 — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 02:32:57 GMT

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.

hp mashup vids

aura218 — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 03:06:23 GMT

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.

1924

aura218 — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 03:19:47 GMT

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.

cheap food

aura218 — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 02:29:19 GMT

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.

aura218 — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 07:21:08 GMT

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.

aura218 — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 05:41:15 GMT

The Orphanage, Spanish horror film by Guermo del Torro? Fucking horrifying. Terrifying chills down back shaking cowering under my bedspread fucking twisted sick and WRONG. You have to see it.

coming to you festooned in kittens

aura218 — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 14:55:00 GMT

Library director met with us today to talk about plans for the new building. She wants us to write a wish list - programs, materials, collections, space. If you could build the library of your dreams, what would it be? Do you think she'll accept pages from the Gaylord catalogue pasted onto construction paper, letter to Santa style?

In other news, I just checked my school loans and for the first time I made a payment that actually cut into principle, not just interest. I finally feel like my degree is worth something to me, instead of a very good investment for the bank.

aura218 — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 19:33:41 GMT

88.5 XPN wants to know our 10 Desert Island Songs, so it can play 885 of them in September.

This is a work in progress.

Shoot the Moon - Norah Jones
Love Is Everywhere I Go - Sam Phillips
My Way - Sid Vicious
Rock and Roll Suicide - Bowie
~~Nocturne - Billy Joel (from the album Cold Spring Harbor)~~
Fighter - Christina Agulera
Watching the Wheels - John Lennon
While My Guitar Gently Weeps - Beatles (George)
~~Tell Me on a Sunday - AL Webber~~
Freebird - Lynyrd Skynrd
Presence of the Lord - Blind Faith
Romeo and Juliet - Dire Straits

aura218 — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 05:09:28 GMT

The Sesame Street Song Quiz

Score: 100% (10 out of 10)

aura218 — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 23:25:59 GMT

Dear Caesar -

I'm reminded of the country song what goes, "damn this rain and damn this wa-a-a-sted day." I felt *tetchy* all day. I woke up sick and later sat for two hours in a freezing room feeling myself get sicker and sicker; I took a different train and had to walk almost 30 minutes in the humid humid nasty city, I had to talk to Monstra which always makes me feel self-conscious and off, and I had only an hour of Ted Talks for a two and a half hour job, so while I usually enjoy my music well enough, Ted Talks are more entertaining so then my music wasn't good enough. Really, the best part of my day was sitting on the train for two hours both ways reading Sophie's World. I wish I'd just stayed home in bed and been sick and maybe got some writing done. And done homework from my creepy Italian-korean elf.

I'm in the kitchen now. I enslaved Dad to help me make tuna noodle casserole, which I got a yen for on the train home. I guess it's comfort food, ionno. It's noodly and mercury!yay!.

aura218 — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 23:28:08 GMT

Dear Caesar -

I asked the Wee Italian Perfect Korean Friend to help me write cover letters. She put me on a five week course and gave me homework. A lot of it. I submit myself to her terrifying instruction. In return, I'm going to help her with GRE math. Shut up, it's like, algebra. No one expects liberal arts grad students to do logarithms.

Am now watching simpsons on computer (b/c I lost my remote) and drinking funny juice. It's after 5 somewhere -- oh looks, it's here!

aura218 — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 21:17:59 GMT

SIMS 3

aura218 — Fri, 29 May 2009 04:31:18 GMT

When Logo airs Queer as Folk, they bleep out the "fuck"s and "cock"s and "muffdiver"s but also the "dot net" in Ted's porn site, jerkatwork.net. If you type that into your browser, it redirects to Showtime.com. QAF-US originally aired on Showtime; so I'm wondering if Showtime once had a jerkatwork.net to promote QAF and is now maintaining the domain. Meanwhile, Logo is bleeping a phrase in the broadcast for business reasons, rather than FCC guidelines. Kinda strange.

i's born in this county and i'll __ here for sure

aura218 — Tue, 26 May 2009 05:10:39 GMT

Dear Caesar -

Today I miss being alone. Totally and utterly isolated. Before I met you, during summers off from college, my parents would go away for two or three weeks and I wouldn't see a human for almost all of that time. Sometimes I had a part time job, sometimes not. Sometimes I did but I took the time off as vacation. I mostly divided my time between the woods and the library and, sometimes, to change the scenery, the coffee shop or the grocery store. After an exhaustive hike, I'd watch Gilmore girls or make a really fabulous dinner. I wrote a truly epic fanfic and listened to Crosstracks and those songs and Gilmore Girls still feel like that summer to me. It must be five, seven years ago now.

I know it was bad for me. Is it regressing to miss something that, by all rights, you had to grow past to get better? Isolation got me where I am now, which is nowhere; and I gained weight despite those hikes because dinner was the biggest event of my day. (I *don't* miss sleeping too much, those 5pm mornings when I was so depressed because at that rate, I wouldn't get to the woods before the sun went down.

Today was just a long weekend but it felt like a visit to old times. I AM better now, I'm a different person -- I got my woods, my movies, my sleeping in. But I talked to people, I was productive, I did chores. I've forgotten how to brood. What did I think about on those long walks in the woods to pass the time? I was in there an hour and a half and I felt every minute; I never craved music like I do now.

Is this why I cant' write? Have I lost some part of my me-ness?

aura218 — Sun, 17 May 2009 23:22:06 GMT

Dear Pandora: Plz to tell me how Bowie, the Velvet Goldmine soundtrack, and Iggy Pop leads you to conclude I want to listen to Amy Grant. What the fuck.

aura218 — Sun, 17 May 2009 00:49:38 GMT

I just went to take a drink of water a poured water down my cleavage. Nice.

ugh

aura218 — Sat, 16 May 2009 21:23:43 GMT

Holy crap I slept til 4:50 pm today. Haven't done that since I started the medi-go-round. Let's blame it on the "skelelax" for my back, shall we? I injured my back fucking SWIMMING so the doctor put me on 600 mg 3x/day of ibuprofin plus a muscle relaxant that someone seriously must have saw Harry Potter and thought "skelegrow" sounded nifty.

My back DOES feel better so I guess it was worth it to lose most of my Saturday. I just hate doing this.

away i go

aura218 — Wed, 13 May 2009 20:53:14 GMT

I'm trying to enjoy using my computer outside but I can see myself in the screen moreso than what's ON the screen and it's giving me motion sickness and a migraine. It's nice out here, dammit. Parentless. Stuff is blooming purple and yellow. I missed the lilacs b/c if I brought them in, the damn cats would have eaten them and drank the water and killed the vase but I'm only a little horridly bitter I didn't get to enjoy my favorite ephemeral flower. My flower in the style of Brigadoon. Maybe I can con my cousin to overnight me some from England in a month.

callmemrgod got me playing my first (I can't do the acronym) ... massive multiplayer ... something something? City of Heroes. You get to be superheroes and you don't have to collect a ton of shit other than a few powers. I made a petite but stacked steampunk Croftian witch, sort of. She's an archer and can fuck you up with purple energy beams from her fists, and the basis of her powers is magic but as far as I can tell, that doesn't really matter. She's mostly green and wears big boots, that's the important part. Only thing is, since she's like 5'3" she runs slower than I do so callmemrgod's satyr sprints ahead of me. He's srsly a foot taller. But it's fun! One of my powers is sprinting so I hope I can just become The Flash and be done with my stupid mortal coil restrictions.

Back in the real world, my boss cut my hours by a day per week with a generous 12 hour's notice. I thought I had until the end of August before that happened. She just doesn't get it, she seems to think that I work there out of the goodness of my heart or something. Like I don't need money. So I'm looking around. Good thing I didn't spend my tax refund, considering I just bought a ton of summer clothes and paid for the writer's retreat at my alma mater. So I put in to be a tutor at a learning center and a diet counselor where my cousin K works and maybe today I'll get around to applying for a real job...

Huh. A bunch of the vynal siding like forty feet up just came undone. Maybe I should tell someone about that. Also, a robyn just attacked my head. I think I'm going in.

wagon to a star

aura218 — Tue, 12 May 2009 04:06:12 GMT

So, boss cut my hours with, um, less than 24 hours warning. I should go to HR about that except there isn't one. I should express concern except I work with women and you can't be a bitch or you don't work at all. Anyway.

This job wasn't really working. It doesn't pay enough, there's no benefits, it's boring, my back hurts badly. I want to just pack up and go but I've never been good at that. Baby steps, someone once told me, and she was right. I applied to two places where I hope I can pick up a few shifts and still keep the library job. And I talked to someone at the Big House to maybe do tech services on the day my boss cut.

My goal for right now is to make enough money to move out. That's all I can handle right now so that's the star I'm hitching my wagon to. No one said you could get your dream life -- good job in a great city with a circle of friends and a tolerable apartment -- in one fell swoop. Aim low, as Marge Simpson said. Aim so low you can't fail.

aura218 — Mon, 11 May 2009 00:06:34 GMT

I just saw Star Trek (the new movie) and it was pretty awesome. I wouldn't call it a great movie, but it was a great time to watch. The acting was great, the plot was servicible, the directing was better than most Trek movies (not Riker's), and the music was appreciable. Jennifer Morrison was lovely, Winona Ryder was terrible but luckily she didn't say much. And we have further evidence that Uhura is the awesomest thing on the bridge.

- Wait, so, Spock and Uhura are a thing? Bein all adorable together up on the transporter pad? Guess I missed that in the 40 years when the K/S shippers were inventing the term "slash."

- Too much exposition makes Kristi go mad. I know it's an origin story but really. There's no need to tell us what a Vulcan is.

- See, people? Be careful what you wish for. We complain when they use time travel to hit the reset button, and then they go and kill 10 billion Vulcans.

- Archer's beagle reference ftw! I was hoping they'd stick Bakula in the movie somewhere, since by canon, he should be running Starfleet Academy by now. I really thought he was the guy proctoring the Kobyashi-Maru.

- I love when they modernize Trek and make it less geeky and pathetic. Loved the opener, which really felt like a real spaceship and not a comic book come to life.

- The Bones/Kirk banter over his hilarious side effects was cheesy and contrived and I loved it and will not apologize dammit. That goes double for the "I'm a doctor not a" and "I am and always will be your friend." I'm a fan, I'm not made of stone!

- +1 for using the miniskirts and making them look like businesswear or those running skirts. Also, love the rework of the long sleeved unis so they don't make everyone look fat. It's nice how they actually used canon, even the awkward parts, and made it work.

- Are they doing another one? Cuz HELLO, Spock is trapped in the past and there's BILLIONS OF DEAD VULCANS. Don't you think that'll have a few repercussions???