the weblog revolution
am i the only one who now frustratingly expects ALL articles and other internet content to have keywords and sources fully linked in the text, using the style of many weblogs?

i think this is a worthy demand. what use is a nugget of information in an article if someone can't link me through to the source to back it up? or a picture. oooh, make that a mirror project picture. or a bluishorange-ish javascriptish popup thingy. or an "about" page for the author. okay, okay, i'm getting ahead of myself.

we want linked web-based articles, and we want them now!
hell no, we won't go!

yeah, i probably have forgotten

Have You Forgotten

i can't let you be
cause your beauty won't allow me
wrapped in white sheets
like an angel from a bedtime story
shut out what they say
cause your friends are fucked up anyway
and when they come around
somehow they feel up and you feel down

when we were kids
we hated things our parents did
we listened low
to casey kasem's radio show
that's when friends were nice
to think of them just makes you feel nice
the smell of grass in spring
and october leaves cover everything

have you forgotten how to love yourself?

i can't believe all the good things that you do for me
sat back in a chair
like a princess from a faraway place
nobody's nice
when you're older your heart turns to ice
and shut out what they say
they're too dumb to mean it anyway

when we were kids
we hated things our sisters did
backyard summer pools
and christmases were beautiful
and the sentiment
of coloured mirrored ornaments
and the open drapes
look out on frozen farmhouse landscapes

have you forgotten how to love yourself?

(thus spake the great poet mark kozelek.)

i squander lots of time wondering if i'm being a good friend to everyone around me. new friends. amazing new friends. old friends. medium friends. acquaintences. strangers. i've been inured by the oft failed and fickle friendships the usual human being encounters during the years from adolescence through college, but i still constantly worry about it. i worry about emotional proximity and trust when who knows if the friendship will last...? or at what point will i start being too competitive and ruin the whole thing...? i create the failures and fickleness myself. i shut down, i shun proximity.
so it is in the worrying that the problems thrive. and it is in the worrying about other people, about relationships, that i devalue one of the most pivotal relationships i'll ever have: the one i have with myself. i forget about my own happiness. i forget how to love myself.

but it sure is great when friends are nice, and to think of them just makes you feel nice...

earth day=dirty feet
a simple equation.

although you may think i joined the ranks of the barefoot hippies voluntarily. nope, i was just wearing uncomfortable shoes.

it was actually a lovely earth day fair (at the always lovely balboa park), and i picked up a lot of militant vegan propaganda. good times, good times! i won't be going vegan, but i am cutting most cheese/eggs/dairy out of my diet.
what must stay: lattes and brie.

i also read an interesting article on vegetarian pregnancy. i know, when the time comes (many years from now!), i'll find some resistance from people around me on continuing to be vegetarian while trying to grow a baby. it's always good to get more ammo.

other than the whole "oh crap, we're down to one income" deal, the weekend was very nice.

priorities
well, i just found out that erik got laid off. holy crap.

poor, tired jim
they started making my latte before i ordered today. this means i'm a regular. holy shit! a regular.
however, they used a cup that had writing already on it, as if someone had ordered a drink, and they wrote on the cup before he changed his mind - maybe for a different size. or maybe he decided to buy a commuter mug. he's probably environmentally friendly. i am, too, when i can remember to a) wash out my commuter mug, and b) bring it with me.


today, the black sharpie-d writing on my cup reads, "3X dry. Jim."
who are you, jim? why do you need so much espresso? i'm worried about you, jim, i really am.

let's all hope that jim decided to have a small drink instead of this medium-sized one upon which his order was scrawled. or that he changed his mind and just decided to have some green tea.

and what does dry mean? i'm envisioning a cup full of ground coffee beans. mmmm.

geek humor
from this month's Intercomm magazine:

i give to you, the VCR clock programming instructions in the style of famous novelists, contributed by STC (society for technical communicators) members. tech writers are DAMN funny. i now have proof.

some excerpts:

j.d. salinger: "But I probably have to give you every goddamn step or you'll nag the hell out of me... Anyway, go to menu item 4 for Chrissake and follow the instructions on the stupid Clock Set screen."

raymond chandler: "She had the prettiest blue eyes I've seen, and when she spoke, tingles ran down my neck. 'To set the VCR clock,' she said softly, 'first press the remote's Menu button.' A red-tipped finger lingered near that lucky button and the sweat on my brow went cold."

and my favorite...

anthony burgess: "If viddying that gloopy twelve twelve twelve twelve disturbs your spatchka, O my brothers, you can put on dark otchkies, or follow this soviet to set the raz: Oatsie-bye the Menu knopka on the remote vesh; poke jittery for Clock Set. The Clock Set screen will privodeet you through the rest. You may be sure, my droogies, that your gentle narrator would govoreet in bugatty detail about the contents of the Clock Set screen, had the grahzney engineers made up their malenky rossoodocks about it in time for publication. As it is, you'll have to smot for yourselves."

not that i'm counting or anything...

3 = number of full working days left to finish this training manual and exercise book. oh, and get 5 copies printed and put in fancy binders with tabs.
10 = number of other manuals currently on my desk, wilting away from lack of attention like every plant or goldfish i've ever owned.
7 = number of on-hold manuals on my desk, fully wilted, needing some serious miracle grow from everyone else in the company. not my fault.
4.5 = number of hours of sleep last night. don't laugh. it's been like 3 years since college and i've fully become accustomed to 8 hours or more.
5 = number of minutes driving time from my house to the coffeeshop.
500 = number of minutes that coffeeshop drive felt like this morning.
3 = number of days my intenstines have been in a constant state of spasm. no, the coffee probably doesn't help, but fuck it.
1 = number of coworkers who just walked in saying "go tech writers! woo hoo! happy day!"
500 = number of evil figurative daggers i've sent her way in the last minute since she said that. cheerful bitch.
7 = number of times i've already said the F word today.

i'm working my ass off. i really am. i'm not even slacking off and playing on the internet (much). so why do i feel like my job is on the line right now?

two buck chuck and jesus
from an email i wrote to a good friend last night:

hi. BFF? WTF? are we high school girls?
just kidding. i wanted an excuse to juxtapose BFF and WTF. it's art, really - the juxtaposition. what is art? i am art. fuck.

no really, i'm a little/lot tipsy on savignon blanc right now. i'm having a hard time controlling my fingers to type. so instead, i've been playing jesus songs on the guitar. OH YEAH. drunken praise music is really something else.

hell yes. i love you to death. i'm going to lie down and sleep like a baby. night.

i figure i should either pretend this didn't happen and live in fear of it showing up on Before They Were Famous or something, or just embrace it. so here i am, embracing it. rendering future blackmail impotent.

body temples: making peace with food part 2
interestingly enough, ever since i wrote this a few months ago, i've had this weird feeling of increased respect for people who eat meat.

allow me to explain myself. i'm not talking about the people who buy hamburgers or chicken nuggets. i'm talking about people who cook their own food, who's hands prepare the meat. people who de-bone their own chickens for soup. people who prep the food from scratch. people who hunt and eat their game.
why those people? because they have an intimate connection with the animals they are preparing as food.

the societal disconnect between food source and food product is tragic. fast food customers, ground beef or frozen skinless/boneless chicken tender shoppers at grocery stores - these people have little-to-no connection to the food that they are putting in their bodies.

this came up twice this weekend.
first, sarah, scott, erik, and i had a discussion about hunting over dinner. i had always thought that hunting was a stupid sport - "let's kill animals for fun!" but i heard myself say, "you know, i really respect hunters that eat the animals they seek out, kill, clean, prepare, cook, cut up, etc. are more aligned with my food philosophies than most other meat eaters." paradigm shift #1.

second, a chef-in-training friend of mine came up and told me that she made a huge batch chicken soup for the first time, from scratch. she had to put a whole chicken in boiling water. she had to skin it. she had to take the bones out herself. she said to me on sunday that she thought of me as she put the chicken in the pot. she heard my voice and she said she felt a little guilty - she had never really had a whole chicken in her hands. i don't want her to feel guilty!!!! paradigm shift #2. i told her that her experience was awesome. i told her that she, in taking this animal and fully preparing it from start to finish into food, she was connected to it. she was connected to nature. chicken soup in a can doesn't quite do that. she fully agreed with me, and said that's why she cooks. sweet.

i still probably won't eat meat again. and chances are, i'm not about to go hunting.
this body is my own temple, and i will treat it as i see fit.
in that same respect, other people's bodies are their own temples. they need to nourish and treat their temples in a way that's alligned with their own needs. i just hope that these needs find a way to intrinsically connect with the earth and the life-cycles of other living things.
have you skinned a chicken recently?

a must read
i just stumbled upon this link, and i just had to post it here for posterity.
funniest bridal scenario. ever. - izzlepfaff.com

darkness enshrouded the earth
so a couple or more or so of centuries ago today, thereabouts, jesus died.

last night, i heard some stuff and felt some stuff i'd never heard nor felt before.
my good friend greg, the youth leader at our church, was leading the junior high kids through this whole "let's see what it was really like to be jesus" thing.

i thought, sure, whatever, that'll be pretty cool, feet will be washed, blah blah blah. yeah, i'll help out. good times. go jesus.

after the maundy thursday service, we young adult helpers and the junior high schoolers gathered in the very dimly-lit, very stripped-down church. a black veil had just been draped over the large, architecturally beautiful cross at the back of the church, usually a source of amazing warmth, modernity, and focus in our building, if that makes sense. the altar had been stripped. fully stripped.

we sat down. greg began talking about crucifixion, and then we read the "last rites" service aloud to the kids, annointing them with oil as they lay there on the cool sanctuary floor, holding steel nails in their tiny adolescent hands.
but the description of jesus' death really gripped me. of course we knew it wasn't a walk in the park, but we're conditioned by the pictoral and poetic images of jesus hanging limply but gracefully from the cross, as dashingly handsome as ever. chances are, he wouldn't even look recognizable.

beating.
i had envisioned a few whip marks here and there, maybe some bruises and a little blood on his brow where the thorns scratched him a little.

first beating: ping-pong-sized balls of lead, attached to whippy things. 39 strokes. this pummelled the body, the muscles, the bones. jesus would be bruised, tender, numb.
second beating: pea-sized balls of lead, attached to whippy things. 39 strokes. these broke the skin, rendering his body a bloody mess.
third beaing: shards of glass and animal bones, attached to whippy things. 39 strokes. these cut deep into the skin, piercing his body, tearing his flesh.

cross.
chances are, they didn't have fine grade sandpaper. he had to pick up this rough, axe-carved 100 lb+ piece of wood, carry it on his torn, mangled, bleeding shoulders, and walk the length of about 6 or 7 football fields. he stumbled. several times.

crown.
we all had the image of a cute little woven renaissance-esque headpiece made from cute little twigs with a few thorns.
it was probably more like a helmet-shaped thing, placed on his head, pushed downwards, and twisted a little to the side so it would stay on. this pierced the scalp completely.

crucify.
scholars have countless theories about where the nails actually pierced jesus as he hung on the cross. the nails were probably a half inch in diameter, and nine or so inches long.

a half inch thick.

they possibly pierced his wrists - between the two forearm bones - rather than the palms of his hands. the delicate bones in the hands wouldn't have supported the weight of his body for hours on end. they pierced his feet with one nail.

death.
hold your arms out. stand up. breathe. your shoulders lift up, and you push down through your feet. if you can't move your shoulders because nails rip into your flesh too much, or you can't push down with your feet because they are hanging, nailed to a plank of wood, the only breathing you can do is small gasps of inhalation. you probably can't exhale very well.
your lungs fill with fluid. you suffocate.

jesus hung there, dying, for probably about 5 hours. any longer, and they would have clubbed his shins, breaking them, and he would be completely incapable of pushing with his legs to breathe at all - quickening the death.

darkness covered the sky. earthquakes shattered the soil. a tapestry ripped like paper.

this man died a cruel death. torture.
for me.

because everybody else is doing it...
i heart tim robbins.

312ce
i brush my hands over your matte, dry skin, i cradle you in my arms, i run my fingers over every curve, in every ridge of your body.
i love your cut-away.
i love the place where your neck meets your body.

you are smooth but not slick, not slippery.
you are strong but graceful, manageable.

you make me a better person.
i sound better.
i look better, i feel better, i touch better, i sense better.

your flesh is wood. your blood is steel. i am inspired.

a dark day at julia's office
today, they upgraded my computer to windows 2000. by doing so, they rendered me unable to install any kind of messenger by myself without asking. and by asking, i'd have to explain it.

an example of the potential conversation:

julia: "hi, i need to get yahoo messenger installed on my PC."
IT guy: "why?"
julia: "because i need something to distract me from my work."
IT guy: "um, no. in fact, hell no."

work officially blows now.

joys & concerns
each month, at vestry meetings, we start by going around the room and sharing our personal "joys and concerns." however, a stuffy meeting room with tired older people isn't really my favorite outlet for poeticism and depth. and huge long lists.

this is a right-now list. a this-minute list. feel the urgency.

concerns
1. consumerism
2. productivity (yes, lack thereof)
3. career
4. caloric content of vanilla latte
5. hives
6. carpooling (yes, lack thereof)
7. ants (yes, plenty thereof)
8. split ends
9. dreaming that everyone around me dies
10. taxes

joys
1. spring rain
2. DADGAD tuning, and learning it at 3am from the coolest person east of the mississippi
3. jasonkill.com. oh the irony. he's so #3 on my list.
4. the cubicle dweller is back, sort of.
5. snoozing. more than once.
6. jesus died for my sins
7. erik and i are getting married! with peonies!
8. trader joe's meatless meatballs. (or "meatlessballs," if you want to get creative)
9. sex
10. tess vigeland

IRS, i heart you

what i'm okay with: having to mail in my IRS form 8453-OL, indicating that yes, i e-filed. and yes, i owe $$$. and yes, i'm paying it.

what i'm not okay with: only having "love" stamps to use to mail my IRS form 8453-OL, indicating that i e-filed and owe $$$.

the best $56 i've ever spent
this weekend, we spent just over an hour in second spin records in pacific beach. i bought a bunch of stuff that i had been meaning to listen to for years, stuff that i knew i should own, that other people expected me to own and love, but i'd just never gotten around to it.

and man, i'm in love. 3 new-to-me bands:
pedro the lion
the sea and cake
and south.

i also bought a somewhat embarassing CD because it was $0.49, an early sixpence cd, the new turin brakes (expectedly fantastic), and some live béla fleck. (which is excellent driving music. if you ever don't want to go to work in the morning, buy "live at the quick," listen to it on your commute, and your steering wheel will not allow you to pull into the parking lot. it's quite magical, actually. a shout-out to austin for the recommendation.)

a blissful weekend, if i do say so myself.

maker's mark

architect stone, presidio site, san diego.

friday five
a new feature here at jde blog.
1. What was the first band you saw in concert?
this is funny. we were just talking about this last night. mine was blacksmith union. go ahead, try to look them up. they are no more.

2. Who is your favorite artist/band now?
also funny. i do not play favorites. i like too many different things, on too many different days.

3. What's your favorite song?
see above. i have different favorites at different times. they rotate. new ones come and go. right now, it's a tie between over the rhine's "latter days" (see below), and jars of clay (don't knock it till you've tried it!) "world apart."

4. If you could play any instrument, what would it be?
a little known fact about your blogger here: i play lots. oboe, guitar, english horn, mostly. although i haven't played english horn in years. i can also play drums, and any other woodwind i get my hands on. however, i have always lusted after the cello.

5. If you could meet any musical icon (past or present), who would it be and why?
wow, the knee-jerk reaction would be john lennon. but i can't say i'd get all that much out of the conversation. i'd just try too hard to sound deep, worth his while. so i amend it to say ella fitzgerald. we'd just drink some expensive red wine, eat chocolate, and talk. or maybe we'd forget about talking and i'd just have her sing to me.

did not give up cussing for lent
i couldn't do anything else all morning but listen to this song ("latter days," lyrics here). nothing else would work. i couldn't bring myself to take the cd out, move on to the next song, get out of the car.

fuck traffic. fuck NPR. fuck the war. fuck vanilla lattes. fuck mira mesa blvd construction. fuck everything. as long as i have a repeat button on my CD player, it's alright.

and if the music starts before i get there
dance without me
you dance so gracefully

footsteps
3pm. saturday afternoon. dad is home. 7 years old.

i'm upstairs playing with gillian and thomas or something. maybe we're building a giant elaborate functioning town for our lego families. maybe we're playing our favorite sorcerer game on the ice-age computer.

footsteps.

panic rushes over me. i can never tell if gillian or thomas were affected this way. with each footstep up the stairs - increasingly loud, increasingly near - a new fear knocks at my gut.

step. i've done something wrong. i've left something lying around downstairs.
step. i've done something wrong. the upstairs isn't clean. my room isn't clean.
step. i've done something wrong. i left the computer on.
step. i've done something wrong. i was rude to mum.
step. i've done something wrong. a teacher called them to discuss my work (this one was bull, i was a perfect student).
step. i've done something wrong. i stayed at a friend's house too late.
step. i've done something wrong. i didn't read their minds and know to wash the dishes or help pick strawberries.

i've done something wrong. i've done something wrong. i've done something wrong.
if i get a hiding, i'll fully deserve it. i shouldn't come between my parents like this. i shouldn't be the one they fight about. i shouldn't do anything wrong. it is all my fault.

i didn't do anything wrong. not this time. but it didn't matter.
it's too late.

self-portrait
on the way to work. wildflower-induced pitstop. rearview mirror tilt for night driving - new purpose.

why i can't read whitman in public...

this is the female form,
a divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot,
it attracts with fierce undeniable attraction,
i am drawn by its breath as if i were no more than a helpless vapor,
all falls aside but myself and it,
books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, and what
was expected of heaven or fear'd of hell, are now consumed,
mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it, the response
likewise ungovernable,
hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands all
diffused, mine too diffused,
ebb stung by the flow and flow stung by the ebb, love-flesh swelling
and deliciously aching,
limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of
love, white-blow and delirious nice,
bridegroom night of love working surely and softly into the
prostrate dawn,
undulating into the willing and yielding day,
lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh'd day.
--walt whitman, from "i sing the body electric"

jesus christ, brought to you by cingular wireless, revisited
we had our monthly vestry meeting last night, and discussed the cell phone antenae proposal for our church rooftop.

i am still concerned about this. even moreso now, i think, because it seems that we've made a decision, and we're just trying to get all our ducks in a row to provide all the facts and the image of a prayerful consideration to the rest of the congregation.

so i've decided to focus less on all the research i've been doing, and just let everyone know that it bothers me on a deep, spiritual level. that's all i know, and that's all i claim to know. i think this is wrong, and that it will disconnect the sanctity of our worship space. that's all.

eroded
a good and new friend sent me this, which showed up in an article he "would never have read if it wasn't for" me --

the center of all this is humankind. if we are not in a good relationship with the environment, the environment will be destroyed, and we will lose our ground. but if you halt the erosion of humankind, humankind will halt the erosion of the soil. - mahatma gandhi

there are ways to interpret this that shun technology and progress, but we really can't be that ignorant anymore. sure, i may want to run off to walden and live simply, but an entire global society is not capable of such reclusiveness. in this millenium, the way to halt the erosion of humankind is to promote smart technology, smart growth, smart progress, smart development. these are buzz words and mean little. in a raw sense, we should only be able to morally, intrinsically accept advances that make no environmental impact, or, better yet, advances that improve our current ruthless eroding and pillaging. i'm thinking wind power. i'm thinking hydrogen fuel cells. i'm thinking renewable natural resources like hemp and bamboo and tree-free paper goods.

we can do this. and that's not a chant of empowerment. we already have this power at our fingertips. our scientists have figured this crap out already. the global market needs reframing, so that this sort of advance is the way to go. the only way. fossil fuel developments and ways to increase deforestation efficiency shouldn't even be on the radar screen. the impact of our actions upon the soil should be more than a PR move. it should mean more than profit. but i'm getting a little ahead of myself there.

wretch like me
i have a fabulous philosopher in my life, heidi, who i have quoted on here before. this weekend, she was talking about reconciling, primarily with three entities: 1) other people, 2) god, and 3) herself.

the easiest one, is other people. second easiest is god. however, the word "easy" is not allowed anywhere near a sentence with the words "reconciling with oneself." unless you're writing a sentence like i just did.

one thing she said that still haunts me went something like this, "self-loathing is when you only hear the words 'wretch like me' in the song 'amazing grace'."

we know that the song continues. grace IS amazing. but her sentiment is sorrowful and glorious at once. pained and promising. depressing and exhilarating. wretched and graceful. to struggle with reconciliation and grace is understandable and beautiful. it braids the gift of grace with so much more energy and power in our humanness, in our wretchedness.

how sweet the sound...

looking the part
will you take me seriously now, if i look the part?

i feel like my appearance revolves around trying to fight the instinct of personality and comfort. the very essence of what makes me want to be myself is also screaming to snap into the puzzle and be what everyone else wants me to be.

if i wear my sweater tied loosely around my shoulders instead of my waist like a school girl, i'll look older, more refined.
if i resist the urge to pull my fifty pounds of hair back into a ponytail, i'll look older, more refined.
if i paint my face, i'll look older, more refined.
if i wear at least 1 and a half inch heels instead of the very flat shoes that seem to plague my closet, i'll look taller, longer, leaner. older, more refined.
if i don't open my mouth as much when i laugh, i'll look more sensible. older, more refined.

so why do i gravitate towards laughing my ass off, wearing those flat mary janes everyday, the ponytail, no face paint (okay, just a little), and wearing the sweater however i damn well please?

chances are, i'll never make it big in the business world. screw your shoulder-slung sweaters.
chances are, i'll never be seen as a tall, long, lean sillhouette. screw your high heels.
chances are, my hair will always be this unruly, and the blow-dryer will always stay tucked away in the bottom drawer. screw your femininity.
chances are, i'll probably wear lipstick everyonce in a while, but still feel slightly clownish and un-julia every time. screw your un-julia-ness.

i am not comfortable being that which they want me to be. take me as i am. i'm comfortable this way. i'm better this way.

some kind of splash

"I'm not afraid to compete. It's just the opposite. Don't you see that? I'm afraid I will compete- that's what scares me. That's why I quit the Theater Department. Just because I'm so horribly conditioned to accept everybody else's values, and just because I like applause and people to rave about me, doesn't make it right. I'm ashamed of it. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody. I'm sick of myself and everybody else that wants to make some kind of a splash."
--Franny Glass

(from salinger's "franny and zooey")


i have a little bit of an obsession with salinger. maybe it's the way he, salinger, spoke to me, as if saying my name aloud for the first time. maybe it's the way holden caulfield reponded to the god-awful world we were all held captive in as teenagers. maybe it's the way seymour couldn't handle it all. maybe it's the way buddy glass had such a witty way of classifying people by capitalizing their descriptions. maybe it's just franny.

my upbringing was starkly different from the glass family. i wasn't raised a genius. i was, however, plagued with the same kind of expectations. this isn't about the expectations other people held of franny, because she really didn't give a rat's ass about that. it was what she expected of herself. circumstances aside, we're all going to be our biggest critics. i'm the only person in my life that's difficult to please.

franny was amidst a major meltdown, emotionally and physically. unlike her older (and dead) brother seymour, she didn't see the worldly intellectual corruption as too simple and too everywhere - too much to handle. she just thought she could analyze it and out-intellect it. she thought she could free herself from depression and expectation by dedicating herself to incessant prayer... "lord jesus christ, have mercy. lord jesus christ, have mercy. lord jesus christ, have mercy." that didn't quite work. but by solidifying that her big flaw was her expectations and need to be somebody, she figures it out. she realizes that the best way to live is to slip into the water gracefully, selfishly and selflessly at the same time, without making a splash. it feels good. damn good. of course, franny is still depressed, but that's the inherent nature of the glass family for ya.

i have a little bit of franny in me. well, a lot. i'm emotionally and intellectually fragile and dynamic. i understand that spiel about desiring to be a nobody. in fact, i think it's an ineffably noble goal. but i just don't do that. i'm not there yet. i'm still flapping my arms around, splashing water everywhere i can.

those damn freedom fries!
so on my office cafeteria's menu today, the phrase (in quotes) "freedom fries" glared at me like nothing else.
so of course, i had to say something about it.

there weren't that many people in the cafeteria, so i told the chef that i didn't appreciate the political nature of that statement. i think it's one thing to be patriotic, but changing the name of "french fries" to "freedom fries" is an ignorant and controversial response to a very complex political and global situation. something that the workplace shouldn't touch with a ten foot pole, unless your job is like, the president of the country or something.

we talked about this for a little bit, with the chef in quite obvious disagreement with me, and disregard of my concerns. he told me that he loves france! he is ancestrally french! he thinks the french government is selfish, whereas the united states is not selfish. yes, he said that. i do not think that france made the right decision to threaten to veto any US led security council resolution. in fact, i think the whole existence of veto power on the UNSC is just silly and hindering. look at the cold war, for example. while i do agree with the french government's opinions about the war and about the united states government, i do wish they hadn't pulled the veto card. i digress.

my basic argument wasn't that this response was ignorant (which i do believe), but that this highly charged political issue should not enter the workplace. his response: "do you really think this is about politics? no. people love this stuff."

and voila, my fears are founded. we are sheep. we don't think politically. we don't think globally.

although an interesting side effect of this whole "freedom" and "liberty" fiasco is that we're equating the word "french" with "freedom."

i will not be afraid of women
there's something about the relationships that women have with each other. i'm not talking about lesbian, romantic relationships, here - i'm talking about friendships. acquaintenceships. families. there's a level of competition, rivalry, and one-up-manship that puts men's sports to shame.

countless rifts and seemingly invisible rivalries have made deep scars in relationships i've had with other women. i have to fight the instinct of having to be better. prettier. skinnier. smarter. sexier. funnier. of having to be the center of attention. of having to be the best woman ever.
that's a huge burden to shoulder. it's bigger than feminism; it's outside of women's liberation. we've liberated ourselves so much now that we don't even need men to compete against. we're doing just fine with that on our own.

moreso than the strain on relationships and the weight of the burden of competition lies the instrinsic fear of emotional proximity. the fear of becoming close to other women. the fear of opening up and allowing myself to have amazingly close, sisterly girlfriends. because of fear, i block out the possibility, the chance of that bond. i've prevented and shunned more relationships than i've ruined.

so from now on, i (like dar) vow to not be afraid of women. as cool as i am, i thought you'd know that already.