Oh my god, did anyone else see Laura Bush at the White House Correspondent’s dinner?

I never thought I would enjoy anything coming from a member of the Bush familia, but good god, she was hilarious!

Paraphrased Excerpts:

Introduction:

George would have told you he was delighted to be here this evening. Baloney. He’s usually asleep by now. Here I am married to the president of the United States, it’s 9 o’clock and Mr. Excitement here has been in bed for an hour and I’m watching “Desperate Housewives.” Ladies and Gentlemen, I am a desperate housewife. I tell George if he’s going to fight world tyranny he’s going to have to learn to stay up later.

About the Ranch:

George’s answer to absolutely everything on the ranch is to cut it down with a chainsaw. This is probably why he, Rumsfeld and Cheney get along so well at work.

(It is this rash decision making which has been dubbed “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” by the Bush daughters, says their mother.)

About her relationship with W.:

George and I are complete opposites. I’m quiet, he’s talkative. I’m introverted. He’s extroverted. I can pronounce nuclear (pause), well, you get the idea.

Some things are just meant to be. I was a librarian. I was in a library 12 hours a day, yet, somehow, I met George.

God, some of the other highpoints were her stories about she, Lynn Cheney and Condi going to a Chippendales which resulted in Lynn Cheney’s new secret service name: “Dollar Bill,” how Barbara Bush isn’t the Aunt Mae type but something more of a Don Corleone and how W. once tried to milk a horse on the ranch. – That is, a stallion horse.

She really dug into her husband, it killed me. Definitely the funniest thing I have ever seen on C-SPAN. Keep an eye out for transcript; it’s worth the read.

suddenly i was @ 09:28 pm
(no feathers)

sunday, april 24, 2005

Oh my god, I am so tired right now. If I fall out of my chair, halfway through this entry and never right again, rest assured, I am only in a deep coma.

So I thought I might regale you with a few of the more interesting stories in my life.

Friday, with great glee for so it brought me to leave work early, I went to the ear doctor to see about some strangeness with my ears. I had been having inner pressure problems (think the feeling of being on a plane) and hearing a high-pitched ring.
After mentioning to my coworkers at least 10,000 times, I went, filled out the paper work and was given a little audio test. I was lead into a soundless room, was furnished with headphones and the instructions to press a button whenever I heard a succession of rapid beeps. I did so.
Then waited for some trillion years in the little doctor room waiting for the doctor. When he came we talked about deep philosophical things (why do young people smoke this day in age) and if I suffered from noise exposure (gun fire, concerts- who must he think I am?). Then he showed me my chart. All my hearing is perfect and normal- across the board, until, BAM there’s this sudden random drop off. Apparently, I have high frequency hearing loss!

ME: WHAT?!

And here I thought he was just going to blast ear wax out of my ear or something.

He went on to say, it’s just high frequency loss, so all the lower pitches, voices and the like, I’m very fine with; no worries. The reason for the loss? Mystery. Genetic predisposition to hearing loss (I do have an aunt with damaged hearing) and I have sensitive ears. Since I am so young and already losing bits now, I have to be extra careful.

Though, how much more careful? I already take earplugs to movie theatres!

The doctor said people with this sort of hearing loss, are usually very sensitive to loud noises.

ME: Fork.

That’s me again. I have never liked loud noises and currently think everything is too loud.

And the ringing I hear is actually my brain. See, when you suffer some sort of hearing loss, that portion of your brain ceases to be used. So like a phantom limb, it occasionally will make up sounds, aka the high ringing, to “hear” (you do, after all, hear with your brain, not your ears) to fill the void of actual incoming sounds.
My ringing, for the most part is episodic, so it’s not too bad. He says some patients have trouble sleeping and such, in which case I should turn on a fan or something quiet but which still makes a little noise so my brain can occupy itself.

It was at this point when I asked if the high pitch frequency braincells could reassign themselves to the wake-up-before-late-for-work portion of my brain.

Anyhow, so now whenever I hear the ringing, I think “Ok brain, knock it off!”

I’m going to make those cells reassign or remember to do their jobs if it kills me.

Oh yes, the pressure part of my ears. They’re going through a sensitive time and basically, can’t pop on their own. I have to do it manually and have also been given a nose spray to relieve inner pressure as well.

SO that was my Friday.

When I got home, I was helping my sister choose her classes. She’s been traumatized because she tested for her math class and only got into a 900 level class (opposed to the general 101 starter class).

So while we were looking at her course choices I told her about my ears and we had this little conversation.

SISTER: So, you’re basically deaf now.
ME: Sure.
SISTER: I wonder if we can get into movies and stuff for free. “Hi, she’s deaf.”
ME (about sister): And she’s dumb!
SISTER: Can we get in for free?

Just call us deaf and dumb from here on out.

While I’m talking about my sister, here is an amusing/alarming story about her work the other day.

My sister was working up front, she works in a big electronics store, when some guy took off with a satellite radio or something. My sister yelled at him to stop and when he didn’t, she jumped the counter and gave chase. She chased him out the door to the parking lot, where she found his car and got the license number.
The plates ended up being stolen, but her whole little hero act was caught on tape.
I think what she did was incredibly stupid and dangerous, you never act the hero like that, it’s what gets people hurt, because who knows with thieves, but since she wasn’t hurt, I have to admit, it’s a pretty cool thing.

Well, I think I have to pop into the shower. Wake up. I just watched two movies which were rather good, “In America,” which wasn’t depressing at all, I don’t know what people were talking about who told me so and “House of Flying Daggers” which stars the hottest man alive, Takeshi Kaneshiro, who- it took me a million years to figure out- starred in a slew of Wong Kar Wai movies, including “Chungking Express.”

Hooray Hong Kong New Wave films!

suddenly i was @ 02:50 am
(no feathers)

saturday, april 23, 2005

Gah. Thunder and lightening outside!

suddenly i was @ 07:04 pm
(no feathers)

friday, april 22, 2005

So it's nearly 1 AM.

The phone just rang.

It's my sister.

Sister: How do you spell "Adrian?"
Me: Adrian? There's different ways.
Sister: Well how would you do it?
Me: I don't know, a-d-r-i-a-n, maybe e-n; why?
Sister: Isn't there a "J" in it?
Me: ....

suddenly i was @ 01:40 am
(no feathers)

wednesday, april 20, 2005

Now I know we all get spam. Actually, I don’t really for my email service is magic but heck, I’m almost downright positive you guys do because I make some of it. This aside though, have you actually ever read any of it?

For example, I just received this in my email box at work:

"years. I have just , and from within you could look far over the sea, which dashed wildly against the sea-wall on wh bluishstalks
come from China, where I danced round the porcelai hurch; he toldthose standing round him that he ich the little house was built. The salt waves sprinkled their white
was well, and had never been ill; he,who had been so grievously afflicted, the outcast, t
foam over it, but it stood firm, and remained long after he who had given the bricks to build it soul and now she could never win one. All was joy andgayety on board ship spread 7 those was dead and buried.The second brother of course knew better how to b 8 in of hrown upon"

At any point of time was this actually a real message?

P.S. Just because it’s so obvious, this spam was for free pharmacy meds.

So I am at work. I have really been hauling it this week because I have a doctor’s appt. on Friday and so must leave early. Today I even got here early. Why? My poor sleepy brain.

So whilst waiting for assignments to come down the tube, I decided to write a little entry. It’s not like I have anything to write about, but well, I miss it.

So there’s a new pope. Katy, Eddie Izzard and I very much feel he should have chosen the name, “Pope John Paul George Ringo” but he just COULDN’T be creative. Had to use some name which has been recycled fifteen times prior. Apparently he’s something of a polarizing figure. Not that it affects me one way or the other. All I know is he is off to battle the vices of humankind. You know, the REAL bad sins like, being female, being pro-choice and or ideologies which include liberalism.
Whatever.

Speaking of religion, man, why did I ever leave Chicago?

suddenly i was @ 08:14 pm
(no feathers)

friday, april 15, 2005

Oh, this week has been long. This morning I woke up with the most terrific sharp pains in my abdominal region, acute enough, the pains actually woke be before I had to get up. For those who know me, getting up before my alarm goes off? What?
When I got out of bed I was so bloated I couldn’t believe it. The most bloated I have probably been in my entire life. I might as well have been 4 months pregnant (immaculately conceived, of course) and it hurt so much.
I LOVE the special happy time of the month.
All day I suffered bodily issues, especially with my stomach. Everything upset it, even though I was hungry: my juice, cheese, apple, everything. I was even made to gag once or twice during the day.
Great times. I love TMI.
Yesterday was also a tough day at work. I have this one coworker, who though his intentions are well enough, thinks he’s my boss. No, not just my boss. Everyone’s boss. I honestly believe he’s is trying to help out, but it comes off as controlling and belittling. Also, if I don’t do something to his specifications right away, he will get into my work files and do it for me, unbeknownst to me. I only find out later when I go in ro get my original file or whatever.
Yesterday he was really out of control. There was this bad html tag in an email being sent out- which neither my teammate or I had ANYTHING to do with, it was given to us. I have spent a week working on this email, trying to get it right. I finished everything up to the bad tag (a dynamic thing which pulls information from a database) but I had no idea someone else had made it live. I had even spent about 15 minutes in this person’s office the day before asking for help, but whatever the thing went live, untested and of course, wasn’t working. So at this eleventh hour, my coworker comes in, grinning ear to ear because he deeeeeeeelights in pointing out others’ mistakes, to announce, like a shining knight he has come to save the day, he’s found the right tag. This act however was so offensive to my teammate and I and likewise noticed by everyone else in the office, I just about went Vesuvius. As I worked on through out the day, this coworker (who I have actually discussed before) was wild dishing out help to everyone who wasn’t interested.
At about 4:30, I was informed the homepage design which I had made, had been enjoyed by other employees and which had been live for about 24 hours, its colours were too bright and I had to make a new one. – though the bright colours HAD been live for the entire day and the matching spam email creative had already been sent out to the several hundred thousand club members.
Now, I can take crits. I can redo my work and compromise my own self esteem as to make stuff which I find so aesthetically appalling I would never admit to close friends to doing it, but I CAN’T STAND going back to correct things which need no imminent correction. I figure say, “colours are too bright, don’t do again.” Instead of 30 minutes before the end of the day, telling me to redesign everything, which normally takes me at least 3 to 4 hours thus pushing all my other scheduled work items to be a whole day late as the REST of the day had been spent battling this obnoxious, stupid other project which never should have gone live in the first place!
It was at this time I left my desk to cool off. When I returned the selfsame coworker came by and said something. My teammate snapped. When our real boss walked by she called out to him and told him this coworker “is trying to be our boss.” You know it’s bad when the new employee (second week this) asks, “isn’t he our boss?”
So Real Boss pulled in the coworker, shut our office door and we had to have an intervention of sorts.
It was so awful. I can’t stand confrontations and I felt so terrible because I kept thinking how my coworker must feel and though I was not the one being reprimanded, I was seriously, about to cry. There were tears in my eyes.
My teammate told our coworker how he made us feel. He told us what he was trying to do, our boss told the coworker to be self aware and then I told the coworker, it wasn’t so much what he said it was how he said it. Then I told him how to talk in crit language. If my college education taught me anything it was a. how to talk critical advice (or dismiss it and b. how to give it to other people.
I told the coworker walking into the room saying, “You have this tag wrong and you made it live” sounds hostile because it is directed at “you.” It puts the “you” on the spot and they are belittled and made to go on the defensive because they are being called out, in these cases too, unnecessarily. I told him in crits, say, always use “I.” Put yourself into the equation, because a. you can only account for what you know (ie “you made it live” in this case was wrong, “I see it’s gone live” would have been more correct) b. by putting yourself into the equation makes people more receptive to anything you have to say because they are not going on the defense every .7 seconds.
I told him there was also the royal “We.”
“We made it go live, why?”
We is also less threatening. Even if it’s not true, by saying “we” it makes it seem like you are sharing the responsibility and again, opens a listener up to hear whatever it is you have to say.
Needless to say, the whole intervention was awful and it is totally not going to change anything because it is just his personality.
Oh, also. Work has officially become perfectly cookie cutter. Basically I am to follow coworker’s style and mimic it. White background, 18 pt text, product image.
No colour. No design. Just template drag and drop.
At the end of this month I am beginning to move into plan B, because now what pathetic little bit of pretend creativity has been stifled out of my work day, I think I have to find something more closely related to what I actually want to do with my life. It’s time.

What else has happened?

I am excited about my script finally, which probably means it has just taken a turn down Sucky the Street. It’s finally got itself out of the plot hole beginning points to the real meat where all the exciting fun happens. This is when all my fun-time Italian Immigration to America research may come into play.
I am still so traumatized over the story. For those who don’t know, my first script, aka novel outline (hur, long), was meant to be Dickensian and ended up being set in early 1900’s New York. It was about a boy who learns about the nature of love. When if rist started writing it, I didn’t know the details of where or when things were happening, but the more I got into it and once I had chosen my time era, I fell in love with that turn of the century epoch in American history. It is so fascinating and is virtually ignored in history, but for the First World War and brief mention of a mass immigration. I looked every where for a film about immigration- no where! I mean you have your “In America,” “Avalon,” “Godfather II” and “Gangs of New York,” etcetera, but those stories aren’t really about the immigration process; their stories all take place after the fact, or immigration is a side note to the real narrative. “American Tail” is the closest movie I could find which really went into any sort of detail.
I’ve read a bunch of books. History ones. Memoirs. Biographies. The average immigrant story, is amazing. People literally thought, especially with the late Italian Immigration, gold was in the streets! Just the courage it took to get here, then live here. Those people started at the bottom and now their childrens’, childrens’ children are the middle class, the upper middle class and the people who own the bank of America (once the immigrant bank “The Bank of Italy.”)
Anyhow, I totally fell off on a tangent there. I love the era so I decided to go back and write in it again, but really try to write short. Write a script-script. My other was in format, clean (a bit heavy on screen direction and headers, but hey, it was my first!) but it is very long. So I grafted a character who was wholly unexplored and decided to tell a story with him, but I don’t know how it’s going to go. The story involves all situations I am very opposed to normally: infidelity and such. I don’t know if my main character will be sympathetic. My first 1900’s protagonist was easy to like. He starts out being 5 and you stay with him until he’s 20, more than half of the time he spends fawning over someone he fancies. He’s innocent. He’s easy to be engaged with; my new protagonist- no so much. He’s older, almost 40, he should know better. He has a wonderful life (HAR) and totally can’t see it. He’s the exact inverse of my original character in ways, but also exactly the same. If my first character grew up and was never allowed to solve what vexes him, we would have been my new character now. The challenge is: will this new character, sans innocence and youth be able to provoke sympathy at all?
I want the message to be- he’s not bad, he’s not good. He’s just human. Do I care if people in the end feel for him? Or do I go Trainspotting and leave him unspoken for? He just is who he is.
I don’t know.
He makes mistakes, well, just one huge one, but he spends the rest of his life regretting it and working to make up for it.
I don’t know. I just don’t know. Maybe it’s all stupid in the end anyhow. I just wanted to talk about it.

Random Notes:
The theme of this story is Blake’s theory of Innocence and Experience.
The visual motifs are: Birds, flowers, the Virgin and eyes.

The End.

Yesterday I went on a walk. I haven’t had a Spring outside of the big city in a long time and I don’t have a window at work, so it was nice to get out and think for a while.
Here are some things I saw which made me happy:

Little Hummingbird Moths. I don’t know if they were really Hummingbird Moths, because they were so small, but they hovered over the flowers and looked just like the real macoy, just in miniature.

A blue jay feather.

A piece of quartz rock.

A black and white dog who barked at me.

A covey of quails.

News Worthy

Britney Spears is on the nest and her press agent let slip it’s a girl. When this came across Yahoo a few days ago my office couldn’t stop laughing. I recommend you look up the story of her wedding for a good time. Three words, “pink velour sweatsuits.”

My teammate’s friend works at Stella McCartney New York. He celeb clients include such starlets as, Lindsey Lohan and Ashley Olsen. The word from her? The Lohan casabas. Oh. They’re real.

I made this.

I watched ‘Vera Drake” and “What the Bleep Do We Know.” Both good.

And to finish: holla!

Not going to proof read, too tired. Apologies for grammatical crashes, typos, entirely missed words, homophones, wafting thought bubbles et al.

suddenly i was @ 03:10 am
(no feathers)

saturday, april 9, 2005

I love movies. I love movies. I LOVE movies. I just finished an evening of watching a couple of favourite movies. Say what you will, but when you get a good movie, I mean a real good movie, not just one you enjoy for entertainment value. It is art. Just pure art. It starts with a story then it goes here then here, then a producer picks it up, a director signs on- and before you know it, you have dozens, hundreds sometimes, of different people working toward one singular goal, to creative one cohesive thing; and a good movie is just that, an entity, which no one of those extra hands leaves a print on. It’s a whole separate world and the screen acts as our window to look through and see what ever it is we might see. A story told with images.

I am in just constant awe of film. There is nothing so magical when it is done right. Film combines all mediums. It is the book, the stage, the painting, the photograph, the concerto- all in one! All in one. I want to be surrounded by it forever. Fill myself with good films. I like to watch movies I love to remind myself what they are, what they can do to you. Sometimes when you think critically of something for so long you forget the, for lack of a better word, magic it innately has; you lose touch with the energy of it.
It’s good to watch a movie on a Friday night.

suddenly i was @ 04:27 am
(no feathers)

friday, april 8, 2005

Oh em gee. I cannot call myself a man now. I never, in my whole life, before this moment! - made the connection.

Ren of "Ren & Stimpy," is so Peter Lorre. I was just watching the "Maltese Falcon" and Lorre spat, "You iiiiimbelcile. You bloated iiidiot!"

Granted, Ren's line was always "You FAT, bloated iiidiot!" but I feel the shout out was totally there.

The eyes, the voice- how could I have been so blind?

suddenly i was @ 12:45 am
(no feathers)

thursday, april 7, 2005

I love my video store. I mean, really love it. Today I visited on a quest for crtikitiki and there was a charming lad at the counter. He had a fine dewlap, let me tell you. Fine.

And yes.

I did want to touch the dewlap.

Due to some cruel twist of fate, however, I was fresh from the gym, grimy, with my “genius slacker” shirt and VPL at 800 miles, so I had to refrain from saying, “Dewlap. Lick.”

It was one of those special trips. I go in for a movie (in this case, “Tender Mercies.”). Be quick! I tell myself. I go to drama. Stare.

For a really long time.

I find, “Tender Loving Care,” but that’s not the same at all. Finally I go over to Dewlap and say, “where is ‘Tender Mercies?’”

HIM: Drama, under T I think.
ME: I knew it! I must be blind. I like to go look, not find things so someone else can come over and point it out its obvious position.
HIM: I always do that and I work here!

So we went over and both stared at the T drama section forever. Then I found it (Ah ha ha! Here it is!) and we cheered.

The end.

I wish I could even pretend to have a life to write about, remember when I did things? How do you start up a life? It was always something which just happened before. Now it’s all dead.

Does anyone know anything about scanners?

suddenly i was @ 11:34 pm

tuesday, april 5, 2005

If you really want high altitude, lick that lichen.
It smells like dog, but tastes like chicken.
When you see Carebears, stop licking.
It’s a rock.
No… I think it’s poo.
Oh, I thought it was an arrowhead.

So yes, the father and brother of Katy crashed my pad for the weekend. That was my family on a hike above. More proof we are quite possibly the most annoying people on the planet. It wasn’t even the full famdambly, just my parents a spare cousin, uncle and myself. Can you even BEGIN to imagine all of us together?

Anyhow. Such fun! I don’t think they have been here, for what? Years. I don’t even know.
The snow was perfect for their ski snowboard adventures, the weather fine, we saw the Weasleys incarnate (a family of 6 children, all, plus mom and dad, red heads), all in all? Quite the success.

We went and saw Sin City on Friday. I have to admit I had about… negative zero interest in seeing the picture. I am so incredibly sick of the male libido playing itself out on the screen- and Sin City was full of it: naked lesbians, young chicks in chaps falling for Gramps, women who weren’t afraid to smack it to ya while wearing leather- a world where the ultimate punishment is de-balls-ation.
It was the masculine Id out of control.
This said, I quite enjoyed the film. AMAZING visuals. No doubt about it. The closest a movie, in the truest graphic sense, has come close to representing a comic on screen (the other good one, which wasn’t based on a comic at all, being the original Matrix I think).
I thought the story was interesting in its dispersed nature; a ramble through the sex, lust, violence, corruption, evil and power which makes up Basin City. It wasn’t the story of any one person, but the stories of people who make up a place. The Place. Sin City. It was the story of Sin City.
Again, not a personal preference in a film to watch over and over, but I can certainly recognize its uniqueness. The film set up to create a feel and adapt a famous graphic novel series and achieved both goals with flying colours and as such, Sin City may recognized as a success for what it is, even if you personally did not enjoy the nature of the subject matter.

This said.

MOM to Cousin: So have every one of your male fantasies come true?
UNCLE: And nightmares!

Ok. Looking at Journal. Now I just feel bad for my last entry. Of course I type it up and 8 hours later the poor woman dies. - Speaking of dying. The Pope finally passed just in case you read the New York Times, which on Sunday reported him as being alive.

Oh em gee! Like Elvis!

I understand the need to distance yourself from mainstream media, NY Times, but please.

I actually thought it was funny. There was some worldwide confusion about the matter. In case any one wanted to know, on Friday Yahoo had him confirmed as dead as well; within 20 minutes they recanted.

This said.

I think the public viewing is a little morbid. I swear the body is turning blue.

Which I just spelled as “bloo.”

So tired… have I mentioned how much I DETEST Daylight Savings?

I feel a little bad to see the Pope go. Not that I know anything about him, not that I care for anything religion-wise, but he was tough guy. I also heard a nice little story on the news about him in his pre-papacy days during WWII. Apparently he helped a starving 13 year old girl who had escaped from a concentration camp and the two stayed in contact all the way up until last year. Isn’t that amazing?

Sin City. Pope. What else is there to talk about?

Oh Jesus (no pun intended!). My script. I am having the worst trouble writing these days. All my energy is zapped with work and no one seems to care. I can cope very well with things, until it invades my mind and pushes out my ideas. Those are what I live for; they’re what I love and enjoy- when those are blocked from me, I might as well just vanish from life. They’re all I have to hold on to and escape with (/ drama).
Anyhow, yes. I don’t know about my story. I need it to get from point A to point B which heralds in the second act of the story, but I can’t seem to do it.
The story seems dissipated, vapid. Does anyone care about any characters? I think the whole thing is a mess. I am trying to hard and it’s so lame it’s pathetic. And now, I can’t even get anything OUT to be lame. It’s just lame and blocked.

Sigh.

Oh I know what else I have forgotten: thank you kelly for my surprise! I love you. Is there anything you would like in return?

Love.

suddenly i was @ 01:32 am

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