The tone of this tome was getting a little political, so I asked my friends the New Kids to come over and lighten the mood with their brightly-colored polo shirts and wacky antics involving street signs. Those crazy New Kids!

Click here for a surprise....

Like so many Americans, are you wondering why Paris Hilton only burst onto the socialite scene like a ruptured silicone implant in the late 1990's? Why not before, you may wonder?

Well, this website has the answer you've been looking for! (or completely avoiding)

Enjoy!

!!!!!!!!SECRET WORD!!!!!!!!!

Hey, kids! Today's secret word is...... *facist*

So whenever you hear someone say the secret word, SCREAM!!!

Let's try it: "The South Dakota House of Representatives is filled with facists."


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

YOU SAID THE SECRET WORD!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO

Okay, everyone here knows I'm a big fan of South Dakota, but seriously, when the SoDak House legislature starts passing bills like this:
http://forum.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=messageboard.PostThread&groupID=100000182&adTopicID=25&Mytoken=F39B7E49-1527-D162-F63012912871468333041595
it gets hard to maintain respect for the powers that be in that state.

Under this bill, if a woman is raped she will be forced to have the baby, and the rapist will have just as many rights to the child as she herself does.

Think about that.

If you live in South Dakota, please contact your local legislator and tell them you think this bill is wrong. Point out the flaws and ask that the bill at least be re-written to a more suitable level of reality.

You can find out who your legislator is by visiting http://legis.state.sd.us/index.aspx
Please help in maintaining the legal right to choose.

We Gotta Get Out of This Place, If It's The Last Thing We Ever Do.

Has anyone else noticed that my last two posts were
on the brink of the violent side?

I think it's the cubicle.

I think I am the Michael Bolton of my office. Not Michael Bolton the Grammy-Winning Ass Clown. I mean Michael Bolton the Gangsta-Rap Appreciating, Printer-Pounding Computer Nerd From "Office Space".

So rather than write a program meant to bring down my company one-tenth of a penny at a time, I will just sit here and write and daydream about the deaths of the Religious Right until the first week of April.

Damn, it feels good to be a gansta.

Whaaaaa??, Take Two

Okay, so, uh..... yeah....

I feel the need to come straight here because not even 2 minutes ago I was performing my usual work routine of twiddling around on myspace -- not out of the ordinary, but as I was looking for an old friend from Cali, I clicked on a cute picture of a dog.

Apparently, this was a mistake, because the dog's owner turns out to be my ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend! Talk about small worlds!

So this leaves me looking over her profile. Not a big deal, really. That's not stalking, it's just checking out, for the record. Now, I have never met or talked to this girl and it's been months and months since I've spoken to my ex. Our breakup was probably among the worst in recorded history and most of it fell on me. I'll be the first to admit, I was no perfect girlfriend. So it didn't surprise me that this new chick had "ex-girlfriends" listed among her dislikes. Touche. I'll give you that one.

But then, the more I read, the more stuff I noticed that made alarm bells go off in my head -- also on the dislikes list: Pro-Choice Beliefs.

Let me type that one again, so it can sink in for you: Pro-Choice Beliefs. On the "Dislikes" list.

Being a religious woman and also a smart person, I can't really say here what I wish for women like this. Let's just say I think they would change their minds pretty quickly if faced with a strange man with a gun in a dark alley who decided "She was asking for it" and forgot to bring a condom. Where will all that pro-life rhetoric be when you're suddenly knocked up by a rapist?

Not a sermon, just a thought.

Whaaaaa???

File this under "Things That Don't Make Sense."







This is a picture of Pat Robertson visiting Jerusalem. Which leads me to ask, "Where are all those suicide bombers when we need them?" Had one paid a visit to Mr. Robertson during this "friendly visit" (New Testament-thumping mission), I would have immediately used the 700 Club as a soapbox to release this controversial statement: "It was God's will that Pat Robertson be killed to illustrate the hubris of mortal men claiming to know God's will!"

Hey, a girl can dream....

The grass is always greener.

I had to switch departments again at work. Now I'm on the phone so much I think I'm getting cauliflower ear and I'm compelled to dial 9 if I call someone from my house.

As much as I bitched, I miss the days where I could work for hours with Ryan Adams singing to me in my headphones...

The Valentine Hokey Pokey.

Valentine’s Day for children is a day of free candy framed in pink hearts. All those cardboard punch-outs with cartoon characters on them are just vehicles for lollipops or Lifesavers, and forgotten about days later. There may be a lesson about diversity or sharing thrown in, and then it’s back to long division.

As teenagers, especially as young women, we are groomed to regard Valentine’s Day as the day our boyfriend will forego the usual ratted sweatshirt, possibly wash his hair, clean out his car, and regale us with romantic splendor fit for a Hollywood movie ending. It seems a bit unfair that drugstores don’t carry cards for us to exchange with each other following the imminent disappointment.

As bitter women in our mid-twenties, we finally know what it’s all about. Valentine’s Day is nothing more than a manufactured holiday conjured solely to sell roses in their most lack-luster season and simultaneously force well-rounded, confident single women to glance over their shoulder for any stares of pity. We gather, we spit cynicism, we wear black and use the 14th as an excuse to gorge ourselves on chocolate martinis we purchase with our own debit cards, thank you.

And then we come home late from the bar, reeking of smoke and breath mints because we probably still live with our parents, and there on our pillow is a foreign object. For me, it was a heart-shaped cookie in a Ziploc bag. It had red spinkles. A tiny card made out of red construction paper and hand-cut with pinking shears had a small pink heart glued to the front. The inside read, "Love, Mom".

As bitter women in our twenties, we finally know what it’s all about.

Another thing I forgot I wrote.

Another well-mellowed bottle of wine.

I'm sad that I didn't catch this before I posted the piece about the family and the death at the movie theater yesterday, but at least I caught it now. It's only two sentences, just some notes I took when I was living in Ohio. But I think they say more:



Earl on losing a child:
"Every experience in life has a purpose. I just haven't found that one yet."

Sometimes I forget I write stuff.

I was going through my saved documents tonight, to pick apart what can be submitted to magazines and what can't. Every so often I'll stumble on something I've written months earlier and forgotten about, usually because it's too personal or piercing to publish when it's fresh.

This is a little open-letter diddy I wrote months and months ago about a guy I was dating. Please bear in mind: THIS IS NOT ABOUT GREG! (well, not yet.) I just read it again and liked it and figured it has reached the level of muted vintage where it can now be trotted out for public viewing, like a peppery, tannic wine kept in a cellar until its fire has become mere tones of flavor. Enjoy.






Your picture’s in my notebook. I don’t look at it very much. I keep it behind the business cards and an old photo of my brothers as babies. When the notion does strike, I pull it out gingerly, like I’m scared of what I’ll see even though I know it by heart. There’s you on the beach. Your hair is wet. Your bathing suit is baggy, showing the pale stripe of skin just below your waistline as you turn towards the camera. You’re squinting into the sun, but I know despite the shadows that your eyes are vibrant green.

All my friends that have seen it say you’re so gorgeous. They’re right. But they don’t know how looking at it makes me nauseous, like I’m looking at a beautiful picture of pain. Like looking at something once ripe and luscious that has rotted, choked by its own deliciousness. Our love was like a firecracker - bright, hot, fast and powerful. But it burnt out too quickly, a victim of the reality of plain old oxygen.

Now I’m caught in a ridiculous place - feeling compelled to call you, as though it would make me feel closer just to hear your machine, and knowing that talking only to your machine will push me further away than ever. And I know that you know that I know that you won’t be calling tonight, you haven’t been for days. You’ve come to realize what I realized before - the heart of a woman can never be found in the arms of a man.

I am a wordy girl.

I wrote a short fiction story, but it's not short enough to post here. I'm guessing people would start reading it and then tire of it halfway through. Rather than post it here, I put it on my myspace blog.

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=36822746&blogID=87156885&MyToken=317c8eb7-9c31-4771-be7d-d2f455d6b317


Feel free to read it in stages and leave comments either here or there. Thanks.

I Know This Much Is True.

1. That I will only crave a Three Brothers calzone with extra marinara on days when I'm wearing white.

2. That family emergencies will only happen on days when I'm scheduled to work 17 hours and am the only person to cover the shift.

3. That my W-2 from Sandusky, Ohio is lost somewhere in the mail between Chattanooga, Cleveland and Baltimore. If that makes any sense.

4. That you don't really have to meet someone face to face to know they're a friend.

5. That I "live unfiltered". For better or worse.

6. That I hate Valentine's Day. Let's all wear black, shall we?

"you live unfiltered."

And then he said, "The answer might not have been what you were hoping for, but at least you did it. Be proud of that. Don’t let the answer take away from the fact that you were brave enough to ask. That’s what people love about you – you have the courage to say what’s in your heart. You say what you feel. You live unfiltered."

And that’s why he’s such a good friend.

sometimes things aren't fair.

There’s a news story that sticks in my head like old gum under a desk. It happened about two years ago not far from where my parents live. An inner-city family of four had gone to the movies to celebrate the father getting a job, his first in months. Things were finally looking up for them – now they wouldn’t have to struggle just to afford food and shoes for the children, ages six and three. The parents could finally feel proud to provide, and the kids could rest easily knowing Mommy and Daddy were happy. And going to the movie theater as a family, buying tickets and popcorn, was a big deal for them; yet another something that many people take for granted too often.

They all took their seats, the lights dimmed and the movie played. And somewhere towards the middle of the film, the three-year-old boy choked to death on a popcorn kernel. So much for a family celebration.

It’s stories like this one that make finding a silver lining impossible. Some may say it is God’s will, some question the will of any God who could allow it. It’s stories like these that leave no other explanation for me than perhaps God isn’t vengeful, but lonely. Maybe he wanted some company.

My day job coerces me into missing the road even more. It teases me with phone calls needing to be made all over the U.S..... and I recognize all of the area codes. I won't even have to look at the screen to know I'm dialing Chicago, I just know it because the number starts 7-0-8. And 4-1-9.... Toledo And 6-1-7.... Boston. And 2-1-6.... Cleveland. And 7-1-6.... Buffalo. Then I just start thinking about all the friends I made in that area code, and wondering what they're doing, and remembering our crazy times, and by the time the person I'm actually calling picks up I forgot what I was calling about.

art is why I get up in the morning but my definition ends there; y'know, it doesn't seem fair that I'm living for something I can't even define and there you are, right there, in the meantime.

a.d.

jessica, get your gun.

Last night a guy chatted me up at the bar and the conversation turned to love gone awry, as most conversations - and loves - usually do. He summed the pain up beautifully when he said, "I'd shoot myself in the foot if I thought it would make the pain in my heart go away. But then I'd just have a bloody foot and a broken heart."

my horoscope today:

New beginnings mean you'll be experiencing some endings. Get your goodbyes ready.

Hmmmmm.....

i'm so bored.

4 jobs in your life (best to worst)
Bartender
Research Analyst
Nanny
Sex website intern *shudder*

4 movies you could watch over and over
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Napoleon Dynamite
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
Amelie

4 TV shows you love to watch
Arrested Development
Best Week Ever
CSI
Comedy Central Presents

4 places you have lived
New York City
Los Angeles
Laurel, MD
Sandusky, OH

4 places you have been on vacation
Wiscasset, Maine
Chicago
Asheville, NC
Keystone, South Dakota

4 websites you visit daily
hotmail
myspace
washingtonpost.com
exploding dog

4 of your favorite foods
sushi
fruit
tandoori
a good steak

4 places you'd rather be right now
anywhere but here
on the road
montana
chicago

4 bloggers you are tagging
jadedlens
ilikemyoatmeallumpy
lilmsstickshift
runningmadly

marvelous night for a moondance.

This Christmas, my aunt Tracy got a Dance-Dance-Revolution game. Well, sort of. It’s more of a mat that lays on the floor and you step on the lights. It plays a raucous symphony of sounds, a cross between techno and a band of insane people armed with Casio keyboards. When the wrapping paper was pulled away, our whole family breathed out a "Whooooooa."

It was the hit of the holidays. My little cousins tried it, Tracy tried it, my aunt Julie gave it a whirl, and finally, my grandmother. And watching her, bad hip and all, bounce around on a plastic mat blaring a crackpot medley of beeps and laughing hysterically, became one of my most treasured moments. As she danced, I realized something that has taken me twenty-five years to grasp – your family may be the only ones you can ever really count on to laugh with you, rather than at you. They are the ones you can trust to love you even if you are weird, if you miss a step, if you laugh so hard you can’t dance anymore. And they’ll try it along with you.

I Rock and Here's Why:

I just had to call a publication from Michigan called Das Nordamerikanische Wochen-Post and, never having taken German, I pronounced it correctly and without slowing down my speech. Hells yeah!

Proof That God Is Dead:

- President Bush. Note that I had to say "President" before his name.

- The Pittsburgh Steelers won the Superbowl. I can't believe that so many people have been duped into believing that they deserved to win. Jerome Bettis is a douchebag, Joey Porter is a thug, and every Steeler fan was probably brainwashed into rooting for that team because they were hit with Bill Cowher's airborne saliva.

- We're at war with everyone.

- The Republicans are more worried about some frozen stem cells than they are about genocide in Darfur.

- Some dude that comes into The Firerock can sit at my bar for hours at a time, drink like a fish, and tell me all about how he hasn't worked since 1984, his Section 8 housing, his energy assistance, how he pays nothing for gas, electric or water, his $3 phone bill, his $480 per month for food stamps, his $650 a month Social Security, and the three Jim Beam and cokes he had for breakfast. Meanwhile, friends of mine with slight criminal records can't get jobs.


WHAT THE FUCK?!?!

Isn't It Funny...

... that this morning I had to work on a PR file for Urology Magazine -- managing editor: Dick Hertz. (I am not kiddding.)


... that until now I've never had a guy want to commit, but I've gotten three marriage proposals in the last month from men who aren't my boyfriend (ranging in tone from bitter to pleading....weird.)


... that I was able to save $500 on mechanic work on my car by buying the parts myself.

Random Hilarity Ganked from April D...

1. Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.

2. A man once asked Chuck Norris if his real name is "Charles".Chuck Norris did not respond, he simply stared at him until heexploded.

3. Rather than being birthed like a normal child, Chuck Norris instead decided to punch his way out of his mother's womb. Shortly thereafter he grew a beard.

4. Chuck Norris built a time machine and went back in time to stop the JFK assassination. As Oswald shot, Chuck met all three bullets with his beard, deflecting them. JFK's head exploded out of sheer amazement.

5. The original theme song to the Transformers was actually "Chuck Norris--more than meets the eye, Chuck Norris--robot in disguise," and starred Chuck Norris as a Texas Ranger who defended the earth from drug-dealing Decepticons and could turn into a pick-up. This was far too much awesome for a single show, however, so it was divided.

6. Chuck Norris was the fourth Wiseman. He brought baby Jesus the gift of "beard". Jesus wore it proudly to his dying day. The other Wisemen, jealous of Jesus' obvious gift favoritism, used their combined influence to have Chuck omitted from the Bible. Shortly after all three died of roundhouse kick related deaths.

7. Chuck Norris once shot a German plane down with his finger, by yelling, "Bang!"

8. When Chuck Norris plays Oregon Trail his family does not die fromcholera or dysentery, but rather roundhouse kicks to the face. He also requires no wagon, since he carries the oxen, axels, and buffalo meat on his back. He always makes it to Oregon before you.

9. Chuck Norris can make a woman climax by simply pointing at her and saying "booya".

10. Before each filming of Walker: Texas Ranger, Chuck Norris isinjected with five times the lethal dose of elephant tranquilzer.This is, of course, to limit his strength and mobility, in an attemptto lower the fatality rate of the actors he fights.

11. Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.

12. When Chuck Norris's wife burned the turkey one Thanksgiving, Chuck said, "Don't worry about it honey," and went into his backyard. He came back five minutes later with a live turkey, ate it whole, and when he threw it up a few seconds later it was fully cooked and came with cranberry sauce. When his wife asked him how he had done it, he gave her a roundhouse kick to the face and said, "Never question Chuck Norris."

13. Chuck Norris took my virginity, and he will sure as hell takeyours. If you're thinking to yourself, "That's impossible, I already lost my virginity.", then you are dead wrong.

14. Chuck Norris is currently suing NBC, claiming Law and Order are trademarked names for his left and right legs.

15. Chuck Norris once tried to sue Burger King after they refused to put razor wire in his Whopper Jr., insisting that that actually is "his" way.

16. Chuck Norris recently had the idea to sell his urine as a canned beverage. We know this beverage as Red Bull.

17. Chuck Norris once roundhouse kicked someone so hard that his foot broke the speed of light, went back in time, and killed Amelia Earhart while she was flying over the Pacific Ocean.

18. To prove it isn't that big of a deal to beat cancer. Chuck Norrissmoked 15 cartons of cigarettes a day for 2 years and acquired 7 different kinds of cancer only to rid them from his body by flexing for 30 minutes. Beat that, Lance Armstrong.

19. Chuck Norris once went to a frat party, and proceeded to roundhouse every popped collar in sight. He then drank three kegs and shit on their floor, just because he's Chuck Norris.

20. The chief export of Chuck Norris is pain!