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I sit here at the computer in the office away from the rest of the house. Separated. Krisann is out tonight hula hooping. Peter was running on the treadmill but I’m pretty sure he went to crash in bed or on the couch and watch tv. I am working on homework, way too much homework to finish tonight (especially considering that I took this detour.) Listening to my favorite songs on Grooveshark, I unexpectedly hear S’Wonderful (version by Joao Gilberto) and I can’t stop myself from crying. It takes me right back to St. John, such a lazy song, makes me want to leave everything behind and go somewhere and do nothing in particular. Forget the headache of working in an office brimming with idiots, screw money! I would be happier without a house-load of shit I am now aware I only think I need.
The only purpose most of it serves is to remind me of things I don’t have, or loved ones no longer here, like Grampa or Atticus or Nico.
A few weeks ago I couldn’t take it anymore and finally convinced Peter to join me in purging what turned out to be an entire jeep-load of crap. Clothes, wine glasses, old furniture, mops, blankets, chatchkis. It made me high to drop it off at Goodwill. What triggered it was looking at the baker’s rack outside the kitchen. It is stacked with cookbooks, old mail, liquor, the bottle of Dom Perignon from our honeymoon (cost several hundred dollars and wasn’t even that great.) Looking at it I thought about if I had to leave right that second, I would only take the inexpensive doll I bought in St. John, made by church ladies because I love handmade things and it reminds me of a really happy time. Then I turned and looked into the kitchen. We had cabinets full of dishes and glasses and pots and pans that we didn’t even use! Dangerous pans with scratched up teflon we had been cooking in and eating from for years. I thought about every room and how nice it would be to get rid of all the clutter in my life. That day was a start.
Of course, there is a lot I just can’t get rid of, things I feel like I absolutely need now. Items that maybe serve a timely purpose or help to get me through this period of my life. Maybe someday I will have the courage to ditch these things too but for now I’m too afraid to go without the crutch.
I feel like I want to put all the money we make away and save it for traveling or serious things like medical or other sorts of emergencies. When I buy new clothes now I buy them out of necessity and spend a little on them so they last instead of buying cheap trendy stuff I used to enjoy replacing every couple months. I was wearing partially puppy-shredded shoes (my pants mostly covered it up) for a couple months but when she ate my brown flats I knew I had to get a replacement. The chinos I was wearing had to be replaced because they were about 10 years old. I confess there are still some things I buy but the desire has been cut back a lot. I am trying to be less of a consumer.
Maybe shedding all of this is my way to lighten my load so I can move on more easily, even though I am fully aware that we aren’t going anywhere for another year and a half. I am so desperate to get out of SC that I told Peter I will go anywhere…anywhere at all that they will station him outside of this place. Being home in PA last week felt great until Friday night. I knew I had to leave Saturday morning and as people started to leave after dinner I could feel myself growing upset. The last two, Maria then Debbie left I couldn’t even bring myself to say a word, my mouth was shut tight to keep from losing it. Then I said goodbye to Gram and I could not hold it back. The next morning when I left Dad, same thing and I couldn’t stop in the car. I finally put a book on and tried to absorb into the story.
I LOVE being near Mom but this time we have spent here is spent as if we are in limbo, waiting for something better. I acknowledge that its all in my head and there is no actual reason to hate this state so much, but considering all the steps I have taken to better my life since moving here (quit smoking, rarely drink, running, going back to school, eating healthier) I should like it more. I just don’t.
Despite being on an antidepressant and all the positive changes I continue to be unhappy. So what the hell? Life certainly isn’t going to be like this forever but jesus, how long do I have to wait for something to change? I have been trying to change my thinking including attending buddhist meetings and still nothing. But, maybe that’s the point: keep trying. There isn’t one fix that works for all people so why do I think one change will fix all my problems?
Now I feel a little better and I shall return to my chem homework.
Picture update at 1030pm: Pablo wants me to go to bed.
Thanks National Geographic Channel for giving me something else to be angry about.
There are an estimated 15,000 primates being held as pets in the U.S. It is legal in all but nine states to keep them as pets, and federal law prohibits their importation. There are exotic pet breeders who raise them and sell them for $5000 and up.
In the wild, capuchin monkey babies stay on their mothers back and will nurse up to two years. Their diet thereafter consists of fruits, nuts, bugs, bird’s eggs and small vertebrates. They live together in groups of ten to thirty-five males and females, family based groups. They are social, smart and have large territories.
When someone decides to buy a baby monkey, aka ”monkid” or ‘forever baby’, they can simply go online and search for monkey babies for sale. It costs a small fortune for the babies, which are pulled off their mothers backs as soon as three days. They’re given a stuffed animal to cling on to and handed off to the buyer. The new parent is responsible for the monkey for it’s entire life- about 40 years. The parents are told that the diapers they will have to use to prevent the animal from crapping all over the place will cause unnatural calluses to form on the baby monkey’s behind.
After a few years, when the animal reaches sexual maturity, it becomes aggresive and will bite anyone or anything. It must be continuously attended to because without direct attention it gets upset (due to their social nature and the fact that they’re mentally stunted from being raised as human babies) and lashes out. The show featured a woman some call the Monkey Whisperer who highly recommends removing the teeth of this wild animal to prevent biting. The parents are encouraged to ‘alter’ the wild animal by neutering it.
Just like American kids these days, the Monkids living with humans tend to eat a lot of food they are not designed to eat. This leads to serious problems like diabetes which does not occur -at all- in the wild.
I think these monkey parents are insane. Primates are wild animals which simply should not be kept as pets, for no other reason than they are wild animals and nothing a person can create will ever compare to the life they would have in the wild. Domesticated animals are one thing but wild animals will never be trained, tamed, they will never be little people who love you…They are wild animals who need to stay in the wild in order to live a good life. Living in a cage inside a home, being on a leash, wearing diapers, sitting on your shoulder, none of these things are good for a monkey and none of them will ever make it happy. These people buy them to satisfy themselves, to have something they equate to a human baby to spoil but this only leads to problems in the animal like the constant rocking they can spend hours doing.
I hate thinking about keeping wild animals as pets, when I rehabilitated squirrels, possums and bunnies it was understood that they were to be released back into the wild, not kept even a day longer than was absolutely necessary. I wouldn’t want to stunt or hurt an animal in that way and I wish I couls make others understand that line of thinking.
The likelihood that these people will ever change and realize their selfishness in keeping wild animals as pets is almost nonexistent. If these monkey parents could only understand what it is to truly do something good for these animals they would certainly surrender them to a sanctuary where they could live out their lives. Sadly, once a monkey has been kept as a pet it is not able to get into a zoo program or even be rehabilitated back into the wild because it has none of the traits a wild monkey has. What is even more upsetting is that many of the sanctuaries are already full of animals people surrender ( usually due to the animal biting or acting out) so they get sold over and over again- never finding a forever home which truly suits their natural behavior.
and goes on and on and on and on…
I am not having any luck with finding a job. I applied for my dream job at a local, fun women’s magazine just a few short weeks after we moved down here. I thought that it was going to be easy…me finding the want ad in their mag, writing a witty cover letter (which I will sample below for your enjoyment)
As I am reading the June issue of *bleep*I pause at “Overheard” to check the website shitmykidsruined.com and get distracted by my latest email edition of The Writer’s Almanac where I read that today is the birthday of “Dr. Ruth” Westheimer, as well as the anniversary of the day Congress passed the 19th amendment giving women the right to vote. I forget about the website I had intended to check and return to skirt! where a couple pages later I read that you’re looking for a part-time, permanent Office Assistant. Seems it’s a meaningful day for women. Specifically, this woman.
Coincidence? no. Kismet…! … This opportunity is a dream for me, and I am certain you would feel the same if you hire me as your office assistant.
Of course, they want an interview. I felt it went well, but they ended up hiring someone with Accounts Payable & Receivable experience. Fine. I was temporarily crushed but appreciated that they at least explained why I wasn’t hired and it’s legitimate. I have since registered with a couple temp agencies. I have been on four interviews and temped at a local car dealership and at a Teen Miss pageant. (I don’t want to even mention the online job applications or resume submissions I have done- So many I can’t count that high. Nobody responds online though, unless you know someone there or have some sort of connection they don’t even respond. Actually, about 25% will send a form letter back that says somehting like, ”we’ll review your submission and get back to you”) The dealership was supposed to be a temp to hire position but the first day I was there, temping, I collected 15 resumes from women coming in off the street for my position.
Sidetrack…I dress very professionally and excluding the unusually silly cover letter above, I am the picture of professionalism in my cover letters, resume and presentation. The women who came by to fill out an application at that dealership were dressed in the crappiest clothing I have ever seen in that situation. I wouldn’t even wear some of their outfits to work in the yard. Others had managed to dress semi-appropriately but failed in the makeup or hair department. There was one who I imagined wuld fit right in at the beach with her sundress and swimsuit strings hanging out. Most of them wore clothing so tight, if I had to wear it I would not have left the house.
So I figure, but the end of my first half day, after collecting a pile of resumes and applications, they were never planning on making this a temp to permenant position. The second morning I’m there, some girl in a sundress shows up and asks for the general manager. He meets with her for 20 minutes and I can hear them chatting about nothing in particular. About 30 minutes after she leaves, he comes down to inform me not to accept any other applications. The position has been filled. No big surprise there to me. The temp agency contact calls me to inform me it was filled (I already knew) and she assures me she will find something else.
In the meantime, I register with another temp agency so I can stay as busy as possible. They send me on an interview at an attorney’s office and I am their first pick for the position but they still ahven’t offered the job yet. Then I get a call last week about temping for one night at a pageant! I couldn’t have been more excited. Turns out it was just an introduction to the pageant but I still got to meet a lot of the pageant girls who ranged in age from 7 to 19. They were such nice little girls. That assignment only lasted four hours that night, but I figured it was worth it.
I’m tired of not having any money and being bored all day. I feel like I could get a retail job pretty easily but I feel like that is taking a step backwards and won’t look good on my resume.
Happy belated Fourth of July! Krisann and Peter and I attended a party at a neighbor of mom’s. The food was amazing- everyone brought food then the host made something called Lowcountry Boil. This included shrimp, crawfish, corn, sausage, and I forget the rest, which was all boiled together and seasoned. Mmmm! Mom made her famous potato salad and orange cookies while Krisann made three bean & avocado dip. Everything was delicious. After the food, everyone broke out fireworks, which to a Pennsylvanian, doesn’t mean certain death. No certain death, only a small percentage of death.
Here in South Carolina, any person can buy any kind of firework, including the big professional ones. Here is a table of legal and permit-only fireworks; I found the info from various websites
| Type of Firework | South Carolina | Pennsylvania |
| Bottle Rockets: | Legally Allowed | With permit only |
| Sky Rockets: | Legally Allowed | With permit only |
| Roman Candles: | Legally Allowed | With permit only |
| Firecrackers: | Legally Allowed | With permit only |
| Sparklers: | Legally Allowed | Legally Allowed |
| Smoke and Punk: | Legally Allowed | Legally Allowed |
| Fountains: | Legally Allowed | Legally Allowed |
| Missiles: | Legally Allowed | With permit only |
| Novelties: | Legally Allowed | Legally Allowed |
| Crackle and Strobe: | Legally Allowed | Legally Allowed |
| Parachutes: | Legally Allowed | With permit only |
| Wheels and Spinners: | Legally Allowed | Legally Allowed |
| Sky Flyers: | Legally Allowed | With permit only |
| Display Shells: | Legally Allowed | With permit only |
| Aerial Items (Cakes): | Legally Allowed | With permit only |
Impressive, huh? Sounds like it would be a ton of fun? Wuh-RONG! With this amazing freedom comes a lot of responsibility and South Carolinians have none! Every cul-de-sac is packed with people setting them off all night. At our party, everyone there took part in setting off the fireworks including all the adults who had been drinking, their children, despite being 5 or 6 years old in some cases, teens who wandered over from a few houses over. It was a fire-starting free-for-all! The three of us sat, stunned, with Mom & Frank until a teenage girl set off a small mortar that fell over, and shot towards the crowd. One flew into Peter’s face, hitting him in the corner of his eye. Luckily, no damage was done! The bottles used for bottlerockets weren’t cutting it so pipes were cut and inserted into the ground to send them straight up.
The larger mortars were set off from the ground until a plastic folding table was brought out to set them on. Because what’s more stable and stationary than the paved road? A lightweight plastic folding table! The mortars were set on top and firework after firework was inserted and set off, and after each one went off the shock blew the table off the ground and it folded in half, landing half standing/half folded. The fireworks were the huge, loud ones that explode into a giant circle- just like the professionals set off in PA. Some barely made it out of the mortars before exploding and others exploded inside the mortars. People set them off right next to each other, while teens lit the mortars, children blew up strings of them on the pavement behind them. There was no specified ‘area’ for setting them off- wherever anyone felt was fine, whenever they wanted.
After a couple hours of this mayhem, a 7-8 year old boy was bored and found a lighter and crawled around on the ground, looking for pieces of unexploded fireworks to relight. After finding and lighting one that went back out, he leaned in real close to blow on it and fan the flames and it worked after a few minutes. Somehow his face wasn’t blown off. They set them off with their heads over top of the mortars to see better since it was so dark outside. Several people got burned while rockets flew into people’s houses, cars, chairs and fence. We grew tired of the close calls and left early.
Overall, no major person or property damage happened. I don’t know what kind of injuries and damages were caused in this state overall but I’m guessing it’s a large amount. My mind isn’t made up whether it is a bad thing or not that citizens here have this much of a choice. Certainly a more mature approach to using them would include a decision to set a few rules before beginning the night to protect people’s children at the very least. Most of the fireworks that night went off properly and were absolutely amazing, just like they should be and I am thankful for that although next year, we may be attending a local park to watch the professionals do it instead.
then you’ve got a stomach of steel.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/11/business/economy/11goldman.html?scp=2&sq=goldman%20sachs&st=cse
Goldman Sachs is preparing to announce record profits for last year. The execs are considering requiring their top performers to give a larger amount of their year-end performance-based bonuses to charity. They haven’t decided yet because they’re currently “…trying to understand whether such gestures would damp public anger over pay…”
Just a small percentage from their top performers could result in hundreds of millions donated. From bonuses only- they still have regular (outrageous) salaries.
Hello Haiti? Homeless problem, lack of clean water, parents who can’t afford to take care of their children, hunger just to name a few things you could throw your damn money at.
Arent they nice to consider giving money to charity IN ORDER TO HELP US ALL BE LESS DISGUSTED BY THEM?
Local news coverage of his deployment
via WAVY!! New Year deployment.
WTKR’s coverage http://www.wtkr.com/news/dp-local_ike_0103jan03,0,3270817.story
the Pilot Online http://hamptonroads.com/2010/01/carrier-eisenhower-leaves-sixmonth-deployment
They’re working hard already…http://hamptonroads.com/2010/01/carrier-eisenhower-detours-assist-coast-guard-rescue
I love late night with Jimmy Fallon so much. It is the absolute best show on at night. He is hilarious, creative, and oh so original. Who else could pull off having a sketch titled Lick It? I have read some reviews that call him akward but I feel that they’re missing it! His style is so different from other late night hosts, they all host so similarly. They’re typical, and their style is stale. They all have akward moments but when he does it its on purpose and its funny.
I love when he does his Regis impression. And tonight he did a combination Matthew Broderick and Regis that had me cracking up.
I also truly appreciate that he jokes with the guests and the audience and the Roots unscripted. When he talks to his guests its not so obvious that he is working down a list of topics they want to discuss. The whole thing is more casual than the traditionally formal late night show where it follows a strict format and everyone has their roles defined. He is true to his own style and his show reflects that versus the host working within the confines of what the show has been for years.
It just seems like he treats them like friends, that a lot of his guests respond in a different way than they do on regular late night shows because the way he approaches the interview.
Anyway, NBC don’t ever get rid of Jimmy Fallon! He is the best!!!
Peter made me chicken noodle soup last night, for my sickness. I wasn’t hungry but managed to eat most of a bowl. He then attempted to feed me by taking the spoon and trying to ‘airplane’ it into my mouth.
Uh, I’m 30 now. Should’a tried that last week while I was still in my 20′s.
He said it was going to make me better- just forget that I don’t have insurance and half the population of this city has Ham Flu…I am going to be healed miraculously by my future husband’s homemade chicken noodle soup. I don’t need a doctor or actual prescription drugs and medical attention- I have Peter’s homemade chicken noodle soup.
I brought some leftovers to work for lunch and ate a small bowl. I kept thinking as I threw the remainder out that he would totally try to get me to eat it because he sincerely believes his homemade chicken soup is healing me. I mean it- he totally believes that soup is the only thing that will save me from this illness.
Uh, can I also add that not having insurance sucks. Screw all you a-holes who are against this universal healthcare thing. I am here, at work, sick and spreading it all over to these poor healthy people because I have no sick time- thats right. I refuse to take off for this sickness. I dont care if Obama says to stay home if you’re sick…I am going to work because I need the money.
*I proofread this post several times but if it doesn’t make sense it’s because I’m still high on old cold meds!
I have returned from my vacation/birthday extravaganza week. I have a decent, though slightly uneven, tan and some kind of nasal infection.
I bought some over the counter meds yesterday but they don’t do much for me so I raided the medicine cabinet at home and found some old Theraflu from before the FDA made it harder to buy.
I guess since it’s been so long since I had some of these kinds of drugs I am more susceptible to their side effects but jesus! I am totally high from it. I was trying to relate it to Krisann and this was her description:
its like your on cloud 9, but you are still at work and cant enjoy it. I always pictured my thoughts and speech floating out from my head in little bubbles. the speech would pop so other people could hear it but my thoughts would just float away.
Thats what I feel like. It’s just like Cloud 9.
Will write more on my awesome vacation later, when I am not high as a kite.
http://www.mooncupsandkeepers.com/
I have seen several of these things. None look quite so much like a cornucopia as this one does. I find it looks so much like one I want to take it to Thanksgiving dinner and fill it with vegetables and other fruits of my labors.
There’s no way I’m sticking that thing into my vagina. I wish that I could do it because I recognize just how much waste I create using tampons and that this would be a healthy, natural alternative but NO! No cornucopias in there for me!!!
You should definately try it though because it’s cool.
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