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Bryn, I know you're a regular reader here, so this entry is for you, since I don't really have an email for you. :)
The other day, I was colouring with the little boy of a friend of mine, who's about six years old. I went to colour the hair of one of the girls in the picture, and I picked up the blue crayon to do that. He immediately said, "You can't do that! You can't colour her hair blue!" And I said, "Why not? Hair can be blue. Besides, this is my colour page and I can colour it whatever colour I want to!"
I then remembered you saying almost the exact same thing to me one night when we were colouring in my old bedroom at the Patton House. I must have been very young, but I remember you distinctly saying that to me - and I think the colour was even blue! How odd that that stuck with me for so long and I even repeated it to another child when I was adult!
I thought about it, and that's actually the only memory I have of you from when I was small. Every other memory is of you when I was older - your wedding, and I think we got a postcard from you when you were in England - that sort of thing.
It's funny the things we remember, huh? :)
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Ok, so in a complete turnaround from my last post...
There is a song by a country group named Sugarland, called "Baby Girl". It's basically about an aspiring musician who moves to L.A., and then is sort of writing a letter back to her parents. "Dear Mom and Dad, could you please send money / I'm so broke that it ain't funny..." goes the chorus.
I've been having a debate with Sean and the other guys that I work with about a line in the middle of the song which I feel is actually pretty risque for a country song. Now, they claim that the line is so totally innocent - a reference to praying. But I disagree, totally. Let me reprint the lyrics, with the line in question in bold, so you can all judge for yourselves. (And here's the video on YouTube so you can judge by actually listening, if any of you are willing to listen to a country song in order to weigh in here. :-p)
Black top, blue sky, big town full of little white lies.
Well, everybody’s your friend: you can never be sure.
They'll promise fancy cars and diamond rings, all sorts of shiny things,
But, girl, you’ll remember what your knees are for.
I'm sorry, she's talking about blowjobs. She is TOTALLY talking about blowjobs. "They'll promise fancy cars and diamond rings", and then "you'll remember what your knees are for"? She's talking about giving head! I am so right about this. She may publicly be talking about "prayer", but I'm sorry - the rest of the lyrics in that stanza have nothing to do with God or prayer or hoping or asking or any of that. It's about getting on your knees in return for the fancy cars and diamond rings!
Come on, now. I know I'm right about this.
Right?
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Frank was sentenced today to 96 months in prison.
He's already served 23 months, and he'll get 12 months off if he does a drug treatment program (though I don't know how that works exactly). He also only has to serve 85% of his sentence, and he can spend the last six months in a halfway house.
But even with all that taken into account, he'll still spend the next 3.5 years in federal prison.
Frank made a very articulate and sound plea for a lesser sentence, and his mother spoke very sincerely about it, too. The judge acknowledged that his was an unusual case for a drug dealer, what with him being educated and very employable once he gets released and actually very capable as a human being. The judge was also impressed by the continued support of Frank's family and friends through this whole ordeal.
However, he said that Frank's case had to be "a deterrent" to other would-be drug dealers. He had to give Frank a harsh sentence, so as to make other people think that being a drug dealer comes with dire consequences.
My thoughts about this are: Who is going to even know what Frank's sentence was, except for his close family and friends, none of whom are or are even going to be drug dealers? Who, exactly, is his eight-year sentence going to deter? Me? His grandmother? Seriously.
Also, if Frank is unlike most of the other cases you hear, in the sense that he is educated and capable and supported by family and friends and obviously already rehabilitated by the system (which is rare - how many people can you actually say go through the prison system in this country and come out a better person? You want to know the most sure way to make a criminal re-offend? Put him in prison.), then why in the world would you choose to make an example of HIM? You can see his family members all crying and begging and pleading, you can see he is articulate and intelligent, you can see he is admitting his responsibility and his guilt, accepting the burden and moral obligation that he now has to make amends not only to his family, but also to his community. What about this person says to you, "He needs to be in prison for eight years."?
How do judges like that even sleep at night? How do they sleep at night, taking an obviously loved and loving person off of the street, after he has already been sufficiently rehabilitated by the system? Two years is a long time, and prison has not been a walk in the park for Frank; he has suffered immensely, and he has come to these realizations through much soul-searching and reflection. The goal of prison is both punishment and rehabilitation. Frank has been both punished and rehabilitated, which is highly unusual! Long prison terms are not necessarily a deterrent to crime. Prison is prison, and "years" is years, whether it's two years or eight years - the "deterrent" factor is not that much different between the two numbers.
Surely Frank should actually be a prime example of the how the system is supposed to work - punish an offender accordingly, while simultaneously rehabilitating him so that he can then go back out into the world and become a law-abiding, tax-paying citizen, which is something Frank will clearly do upon his release.
I just don't get it. I just don't. How does this judge sleep at night?
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Nick, being the lovely boyfriend that he is, steals the paper for me everyday from the LSU campus so that I can read it and do the crossword puzzles for free. He normally brings me both The Advocate (daily Baton Rouge newspaper) and the Reveille (daily LSU student newspaper).
While reading yesterday's Reveille this morning (normally how it goes, unfortunately, I'm always a day behind), I came across the Opinion page, which I normally find very interesting. Today, the 'Travel' column was about studying abroad. Besides the fact that the content itself was the most cliche garbage that every American who's traveled to Europe comes back to the US spouting, I noticed this gem and almost choked on my own throat.
"Most locals can spot Americans in their cities because we are either loud or obnoxious or hogging the sidewalk.
And before this trip, I didn’t know the French king’s name or that Tony Blair was no longer England’s prime minister.
If Americans want to step away from the “dumb American” stereotype, we should learn more about our government and those of the world."
Now, um, I'm not sure if this girl, Victoria Yu, and I took the same world history classes. I'm not sure if we received the same education in the Baton Rouge high schools or at LSU. Quite obviously, we did not. Because I know, and I hope you would know too, that France has not had a king since the Revolution in the 18th century. Nope, not one. Really.
That statement makes the following paragraph nothing short of disgustingly ironic.
I can just picture a scene between Ms Yu and some quick-witted and slightly mean Parisian gentleman, trying to pull one over on her, going something like this:
Parisian: Americans know nozing! You're all clueless and stoopeed!
Ms Yu: Like, nuh-uh! I know lots of things, try me!
Parisian: I bet you don't even know ze name of ze king of Fraance!
Ms Yu: Oh, hehehe, I do so! It's...um...I didn't know France had a king. :(
Parisian: But of course we do! See, you silly Americans, you know nozing!
[Parisian then goes off and laughs with his friends. "Did you hear zat? She actually believes that we have a king! Ha Ha Ha ha!"]
Oh God, I wish some people weren't so dumb. Less than a minute of fact-checking on even Wikipedia would have filled her in. Seriously.
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My vegetarian-but-pretty-much-full-vegan boyfriend likes to go fishing and is totally ok with using live bait (i.e. worms) while he does it. Can anyone explain this to me?
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Ya know, for as smart as he is, my father sure is a terrible manager and a terrible parent.
If I actually had another job, I would give my notice at this job today.
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Yay! It's time for fun facts I learned today which I'm going to share with you! I love learning things, woohoo!
1. In the entire 132 years of Major League Baseball history, there have only been 17 perfect games pitched. According to current regulations, a 'perfect game' is when a pitcher or combination of pitchers does not allow any batsman on the opposing team to reach a base, for a minimum of nine innings. By definition, the game has to be both a no-hitter and a shutout.
2. The last man to pitch a perfect game was Randy Johnson, who achieved the feat in 2004. He was also the oldest man to do it, by far, at nearly 42 years of age.
3. Yuri Gagarin, a Soviet, was the first person in space and the first person to orbit the Earth. He was chosen from a pool of 19 candidates at least partly because he was the shortest of the lot, and the pod was very small. After he returned from space, he was lauded as a national hero and went on international tours to promote the Soviet space program and boost national morale. The government would not at that point allow him to participate in any 'dangerous' space missions where his life could be put in jeopardy, and he worked mostly in a lab as a shuttle designer and engineering assistant. He tired of this quickly, and decided to return to his pre-space program job as a fighter pilot. Just a few years later, he was killed in a routine fighter pilot training exercise.
4. Teddy Roosevelt was the youngest man to serve as US president, at 42 years old. JFK was the second youngest, at 43.
5. The Statue of Liberty has seven points on her crown.
6. Snow White was the first full-length animated feature made by Disney.
7. The strongest bone in the human body is the temporal bone, on the top of your skull. The femur (knee to ankle) is also remarkably strong and is also the longest bone in your body.
8. My dad fired the crackhead! That one wasn't really anything I "learned", per se, but it's still a fun fact. Yay!
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Umm....what??
Regardless of how you feel about the gay marriage issue, how does this woman's commentary even make sense? She's equating the legalization of gay marriage to the subsequent complete destruction of American society. Huh? Is this really how the anti-gay-marriage-ers feels? Really? That legalizing same-sex marriage will undermine the very foundations of society and lead to the inevitable collapse of civilization, world-wide? Really? Because...wow. That's a huge logical fallacy. Huge.
Do these people actually just not listen to themselves when they speak? Do they actually not understand the value of research or falsifiable evidence when purporting these preposterous claims? Honestly?
*sigh* What is wrong with people these days? We're so intelligent, and yet some of us form these peculiar and counter-productive (and damn near counter-intuitive) notions about the nature of society and the very nature of our intelligence and existence, and yet it's all so ridiculous. We made these notions, people, we can change them! Why is it not ok for people to just be happy? Why worry about what your neighbour is doing with his or her life and happiness? You're wasting your own life and happiness by trying to interfere with his.
Gah! Happiness. Equality. Serenity. We're all in this together.
...right?
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( Who comments the most on this journal? )
So ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) cressesgirl put this in her LJ, and then I was curious, so I did it, too.
And want to something funny, some of these people, I don't even know who they are! Maybe they were old LJ friends that have come and gone, maybe they've changed their usernames and that's why I don't recognize them. But seriously, there are a lot of people on this list that I don't even know.
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Today, while at work, I reread The Tao of Pooh, which made me happy.
I did that because there was literally that little to do in the office. As much as I am content working here for the time being, it really should be a one-person, part-time job, instead of me and Sean sitting around bullshitting and gossiping for 30 hours a week and working for 8 hours a week, while getting a full paycheck.
But at least we're not like the crackhead whose "friends" "run out of gas" every other day, which explains why he's either late to work or has to leave early, and then claims that time on his time sheet. At least we're not the crackhead who actually writes on his time sheet that he was in an "AA meeting" for 3 hours on the Friday afternoon that he "went to lunch" and never came back, and then wants us to pay him for it. (Yes, I swear this has happened - more than once.) And he makes $10 more per hour than I do. So I don't feel so bad.
If Mike wants to pay me to be here at his beck and call, whether he actually needs me or not, here I sit.
Also, this made me happy a few minutes ago.
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It's been almost two weeks since my last post, so I suppose I should somewhat bring you all up to date, huh?
So there's a boy. And he is awesome. He's tall, and he makes me delicious, ridiculously healthy food, and he hugs me with awesome hugs all the time, and he's already come up with an adorable nickname for me and it's soooo cute when he calls me it, and he thinks I'm just as awesome as I think he is. Because we are both awesome, especially together.
Oh, his name is Nick. You can find him on my facebook profile (where we're all officially in a relationship and such!), if you so desire. :)
In other news, M.E. and I have pretty much ended our friendship for the time being and for the foreseeable future, at least on my end. We haven't really spoken in several weeks, specifically at my request, after I had finally reached a breaking point in our relationship. On Friday night, we met up at her house to discuss it (also specifically at my request), and it didn't go very well. We both said some things that upset the other, and just agreed to leave it for the time being. (Which is pretty much as diplomatically as I can put it.)
I've been thinking a lot about one thing she said, and it's actually made me come to a conclusion which has totally changed the way I've been thinking about my life and my condition. I know that lately, there has been a sense of unease in my posts here, a slight discontentedness with my current situation, if you will. At one point on Friday, M.E. revealed to me that she is disappointed in the path my life is currently on, with me working for dad and at the Gap and not really striving to be anything more than that at the moment, not looking for a better job in my field or working very hard to get out of Louisiana again.
And she is completely right about that. Right now, I am working full-time for my dad, which is not a job I hard to earn, but one that I was given. I work part-time at the Gap, which is not very intellectually demanding or stimulating, but which helps pay my bills and gives me an awesome discount on cute clothes.
But you know what? I'm twenty-two years old, and I have already made a pretty huge accomplishment in my life, earning my Bachelor's degree in a foreign country and having a great journey while doing it. I fully intend (and have already started the process of applying) to start my Master's degree in the fall of 2010. But for right now, I'm ok with taking a break and working for my dad, if he's willing to pay me. I'm working for the Gap, and they've already started talking to me about management, on the verge of offering me a position (since one of our managers left last week), which is awesome. Nothing I'm doing is terribly intellectually demanding, nothing I'm doing is contributing to the community or the world in any real way, this is all true. But I'm happy. For the first time ever, I'm actually taking time to get to know me and to actually enjoy who I am and my life. In the past nine months that I've been here, I've come to define my values as I see them and focus on the parts of me that I like and project those out to the world. It's landed me a potential management position in a company that I thoroughly enjoy working for (and even though it's not a life-long commitment, it's a job that will get me through graduate school with enough money to survive), and the best boyfriend I've ever had. I live in a nice apartment, drive a nice car, and have a really good group of friends going here.
I haven't been this content or this excited about the future in a very, very long time. I may not be ultimately contributing to society or the greater good, but I'm young. And for right now, I'm just happy and enjoying every day as it comes.
So I'm almost appreciative that M.E. pointed that out to me (even if she meant it to be harsh when it was said), because now I have a really good frame of reference and a renewed positive attitude toward everything in my life. (Although, being with Nick helps with that - he's like the happiest and most positive (yet down-to-earth and realistic) person I've ever had the pleasure of being close to, which is awesome.)
In other news, I am very sleepy. Tonight, I fully intend to take some time to myself and do a little reading and go to bed old-people early to refresh myself. It's going to be awesome. :)
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Last night, I had an incredibly intense sex dream about one of my best friends, and scenes from it have been flashing through my head all day. No good!
*washes mind out with soap*
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Oh dear God.
I PROMISE you'll want to make it to the end of the video. I PROMISE.
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I had completely forgotten all about HomestarRunner and Strong Bad, but some lovely person on Reddit has reminded me, and now I am happy.
And hopefully, so will you be. :)
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So, this morning, I achieved something I'm really really proud of myself for. I am super pleased with myself today.
I ran a whole mile straight for the first time in my life.
I wasn't running very fast, and I won't set any records, but it doesn't matter. When I was a kid, I couldn't run at all, and was constantly ridiculed in gym class for my lack of fitness. When I was in high school, I got up to running a quarter mile at a time, but never more than that. I soon gave up on running as my knees gave up on me.
However, several months back, I decided to change that. I wrapped my knees in ace bandages and started jogging, one or two minutes at a time, alternated with walking. Pretty soon, I could run for 5 minutes in a stretch, and then I was able to leave the bandages at home as my knees regained strength.
Just in this last week, I decided to go for it. So I did. I ran an 11-minute mile, which is not by any means fast at all, but that's ok. I was running it. I wasn't dying at the end of it. I felt great at the end of it, if a little winded.
I'm so happy with myself right now. Really, really happy. If I can keep this up, I'll meet that weight goal and get that second tattoo in no time at all. It's all very exciting. :)
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The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me.
This offer does have some restrictions and limitations so please read carefully:
- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make.
- What I create will be just for you.
- It'll be done this year (2009).
- You have no clue what it's going to be. It will be something made in the real world and not something over the internet. It may be a mixed CD. It may be a short story. I may weave, knit or sew something. I might bake you something and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure!
- I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.
There was originally a stipulation that you make five things for five others, but I'm ok with making people things who don't pass it on!
Be prepared to email me your current address (even if it's overseas!): soopajane@gmail.com
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Tonight, I stopped by my parents' house to pick up a few things I had left in my old Volvo when I sold it to my brother. (The library gets a little mad when you don't return a book from before Thanksgiving, so I figured it was about time I retrieve it off the floor board of my old car and return it, even though I finished reading it months ago.)
When I leaned into the car, the smell of it hit me hard. I'm such an intensely smell-oriented creature. I have so many good, good memories attached to that car, and smelling it for the first time in a month put me right back in those places, flashing through each of them in my mind.
The first time I drove it to school in the second week of my senior year.
Driving around with LeighAnne, listening to Something Corporate, dancing and laughing.
Hanging out with Matt in the senior parking lot at BRH, when he pushed me in the trunk to see if I would fit.
Driving Priyan back to where he was staying at 3 o'clock in the morning the night I graduated from high school.
The day I was driving around looking for jobs, and the car broke down in a parking lot on O'Neal. I couldn't get a hold of anyone in my family, so I left a message on Josh's answering machine because he lived a few blocks away. After sitting in the sun and getting increasingly frustrated with the inability of anyone in my family to answer the phone, Josh's mother comes cruising into the parking lot. She had gotten my message and jumped in her van to save me. She fed me and kept me company until the tow truck got there, which took a total of about three hours. The car never broke down on me that bad again, thank God. But that day made me love Ms. Dottie for the rest of my life. :)
Just getting in the car and leaving the day my mother and I had our definitive fight a few weeks after graduation.
Sitting in the car and kissing Yilmaz in the rain in the parking lot of Mellow Mushroom.
Driving ten hours each way to Gainesville to visit Josh after my first summer in London.
All of those days I cruised around with the windows down, on warm (but not hot) sunny days, listening to 90s rock tunes and smiling for no other reason than the perfection of that moment.
These are the moments that have stuck with me, the experiences, the freedoms I had in that car. It was five years of my life. It was, for the most part, a good five years. Even through the bad times in my life, that car got me through a lot, helped me escape when I needed to. It gave me the only place I ever had to be truly alone, truly me. (That is, before I had my own apartment.) I love my new car, don't get me wrong. It means a lot to me, because it's the first thing, the first real possession, I've ever owned, which is exciting.
But nothing will ever replace the memories I made while I was driving that car, the feelings and emotions I went through. It's nice to be able to have all of those feelings and memories logged, to revisit them whenever I need to. It's times like this, when I get nostalgic for past times, that I get most excited about the future, and what permanent memories it will bring me.
And to think, all this came from just a smell. I told you I was a very smell-oriented person. :)
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"AK-47. The very best there is. When you absolutely, positively got to kill every motherfucker in the room."
I love the shit out of Jackie Brown. I need to own this movie on DVD.
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| 2009-02-19 09:47 |
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| Regina Spektor - On the Radio |
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This is how it works,
You're young until you're not
You love until you don't
You try until you can't
You laugh until you cry
You cry until you laugh
And everyone must breathe
until their dying breath
No, this is how it works
You peer inside yourself
You take the things you like
And try to love the things you took
And then you take that love you made
And stick into some
Someone else's heart
Pumping someone else's blood
And walking arm in arm
You hope it don't get hard
But even if it does
You'll just do it all again
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