ich liebe sie, meine gliederungspunkte.

rain, i love you. thank you for making the words, "thank goodness i haven't washed my car in like 8 months" possible.

i've been feeling a bit serious and pretentious after my last post.

for the record, i originally wrote an "n'shit" in yesterday's post, but then edited it out. granted, i replaced it with the much more lenten "and shit." i'm not sure a) why i wrote "n'shit" in the first place, or b) why i decided i should take it out.

after last night's Frontline: The Invasion of Iraq," i have a new political crush on marc garlasco. he served in the defense intelligence department from 97-03, resigning to work with the human rights watch on the conduct of war and civilian casualty analysis after major combat ended in iraq. he's witty and sort of has an eric-from-that-70s-show air about him.

today, i will shake the skinny little hand of U.S. congressman dennis kucinich. i would love for this man to be our president. also, he's vegan, and we could totally share clothes. if you're in san diego, he's having a rally from 4-6:30 at 5th and L/Harbor downtown this afternoon, and is speaking at USD's Institute for Peace and Justice from 7:30-9.

speaking of kucinich, erik voted absentee yesterday. he's going to be a "troubleshooter" on election day, and thus wouldn't be able to vote in his precinct. because he's not registered democrat, i was saddened to learn he couldn't vote in the democratic presidential primary. therefore, our "family vote" didn't go to kucinich. or any democrat for that matter.

around 6pm last night, i got a voicemail from a fabulous friend saying, "julia!!!! you have to listen to the debate! can i get an AMEN for the reverend?!" sadly, i couldn't watch the debate, but i can't help but wonder what our country would be like under the reverend al sharpton.

yesterday, my coworkers and i had an e-mail rock-paper-scissors tournament to determine our lunch location. joel tried to cheat, and i ended up losing the championship match, his paper brutally wrapping my rock.

this year, i hope to visit the following cities: portland (in the form of moving there), atlanta, washington DC, and one or more of the following international locales: paris, dublin/doblin, the seychelles, tokyo/kyoto (the anagram lovers tokyo), and tuscany/umbria. first, i need to work on the money and vacation time factors.

since the bullets are all about baring the soul, i admit that the phrase "i need to look professional, granola, and fabulous at the same time," went through my head when getting dressed today. you know, for dennis.

Office Creepy Guy, who sends emails in size 18 bright blue comic sans text, is actually making his way back on my good list. i just got a really witty, tongue-in-cheek email from him. yes, in size 18 bright blue comic sans text. i'll take what i can get.

can anyone see the little favicon thingy next to the address bar? blake made it for me. i can't see it, but i'm sure it's pretty.
that is all.

the ash wednesday quandary
as many of you may have noticed, lots of catholics and anglo-catholic types were walking around with ashy smudges on their foreheads yesterday.

i'm a wiper. i wipe it off right away.

lent is about stripping the layers of hypocrisy, and bringing the raw you closer to god. lent is all about not boasting. the gospel reading for ash wednesday is that one whole passage about not disfiguring your face while fasting to let others see your sacrifice, when you give to the needy ("give alms"), don't let even your left hand know what you're doing with your right hand. it's all about the human pride in suffering. boasting.

this sort of humbling, honest theme is all over the place in the ash wednesday liturgy - including the intense "litany of penance," (about halfway down the page, two or so pages long), with which we normally confession-phobic episocopalians start each eucharistic service during lent. i can't leave that ash wednesday service and walk around town showing off my ashy forehead. some people disagree, saying it's an evangelism tool - it's a way of letting people know you're a christian. but i'd be too proud of my mark of penance. i'd be displaying for my left hand and everyone around me that my right hand was doing something good. look at me! i just went to church! and confessed my sins! and kneeled for like 50% of the service! and had some leek-n-tatie (read:potato) soup! i'd be a hypocrite. i'd be separating myself from lent, from god.

similarly, i try not to draw attention to personal sacrifices, things "given up" for lent. i don't even tell people what changes i'm making for lent, unless someone specifically asks. moaning and complaining about the fact that i had to do or not do a specific thing "for lent," is disfiguring my fasting face.

lent is, surprisingly, one of my favorite parts of the church year. i don't even understand this myself. most of my favorite hymns and churchy songs have the lenten no-no "alleluia" word in them. our church looks ugly and bare with no artsy banners and all that purple everywhere. we have to start each worship service kneeling and talking about sin, using specifics and shit. it's sort of responsible for inflicting oppressive and inhibitive doctrines on historical christians. etc.

but still, i'm so drawn to the idea of stripping the fancy fluff that we tend to lean upon to be with and learn about god. lent is raw, self-examining, and all about forgiveness. i'm a fan of that.

also, i typed this with both hands, so my pesky left hand pretty much already knows what's going on.

pancake tuesday
lent is not lent unless is follows a proper crêpe dinner on pancake tuesday. and by "proper crêpe dinner," i mean, "crêpes + oranges + sugar."

crêpes were a definitive component of my childhood. we just called them pancakes, unless we were in france. pancakes as americans know them were called "drop scones." or something. on vacations in france, my brother, sister, and i would fight my father's feeble attempts at seafood restaurants to make sure that dinner every night was at some "la crêperie" somewhere.

i have three categories of crêpes:

1. savory crepes. i believe this one doesn't get the little tent over the e, but i really only speak food french, and not very well at that. at crêperies, the menus often had one side devoted to stuff with cheeses and meats and crap, and another devoted to sweet fillings (see below). savory crepes, to the young julia, were merely a compromise. merely something that led to a sweet crêpe. for this reason, i never enjoyed them, and to this day, the word "savory," makes me think of my dad, encouraging me to get something remotely resembling a meal rather than my sweet crêpe of choice.
2. sweet crêpes. eight year old julia's holy grail. the reason i'd put up with the day long car ride, fighting for knee-space in the crowded back seat, and the 3 hour ferry crossing to brittany. i loved them topped with berries, as long as they had some sort of sugar and some sort of cream inside and on top.
3. pancake tuesday crêpes. ...what brings us here today. simple crêpes topped with squeezed orange juice and sugar, rolled up and eaten with a knife and fork. i was 18 years old my first shrove tuesday away from home. i called my mum the monday before to ask her how to make the pancake mixture. i was shocked by how simple it was. "eggs, milk, flour, sugar, butter, and salt? mixed all together? that's it?" but then, as the first cup of batter sizzled away in the frying pan, i realized i had spoken too soon. shifting my stance from one leg to the other, holding the pan handle firmly with both hands, about 4 inches away from the burner, i gave it a quick flick forwards and upwards. the half-cooked pancake flew beautifully about a foot in the air. as the flipped pancake landed in the pan in a wrinkled pile, my mind wandered to that one pancake tuesday years ago, when my dad had to bring in a ladder to get one of his crêpe-flipping incidents off the ceiling.

this year, i had about a 20% flip-failure rate. we ate them all, of course. they were still cooked, they still tasted fabulous.

i had an interesting thought at one point, when it seemed like erik was ending up with all the perfectly flipped crêpes, and i got stuck with the ugly ones. i realized, soon i'll be just like my mother -- i'll be the one eating the rejects in the kitchen while the kids guzzle the perfect ones around the cozy pre-lenten dinner table. and all i could think of was that i have an actual tradition to pass down to one more generation. rock on.

living in a cave.
albeit it's a cave with good music.

everyday, i'm faced with a simple challenge. listen to a CD, or listen to NPR. i have to choose to either enrich my commute with fabulous music, or enrich my mind. the last few days, the rainfall in san diego has pushed me to listen to brooding, deep, beautiful music in the car. i've gone through Elbow's "Asleep in the Back," Over the Rhine's "Good Dog Bad Dog," the "Lost in Translation" soundtrack, Air's "The Virgin Suicides: Original Motion Picture Score," and Radiohead's "Hail to the Thief.

every so often, i'll barter with myself. "okay, after this song finishes, i'll switch to All Things Considered and see what's going on in the world." but then something like "Scattered Black and Whites" or "Poughkeepsie" comes on and i'm hooked for at least another four minutes.

last night, erik and i sat down with dinner and the News Hour With Jim Lehrer, and what's this? strife in haiti? going on for three days now?! i had no idea!

i had Jeff Buckley's "Grace" in my car from the ride home on september 10th, 2001 until the ride home on the 11th. i walked into the office in a state of complete ignorance of what had happened that morning, with "it goes like this, the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, the major lift" running through my head.

still, i listened to more radiohead in the car today. i didn't feel like hearing any news about people proposing amendments that promote inequality, almost rendering insignificant the last century spent fighting just that and rewriting antiquated laws. i just didn't feel like hearing any bad news.

thom yorke's lyrics, of course, are all sunshine and daisies.

invention
i invented an indian food recipe last night. i'm going to post it here, not necessarily so you all can try it (but please do! and please call it "julia's indian curried noodles"!), but so you can get a glimpse into how haphazardly my mind works in the kitchen, and how none of my recipes will ever even be recreated by myself, much less passed down through generations of julia descendants... (See also: putting important papers in "safe places.")

note that i cheated and used curry powder. i have the best of intentions to go the little indian market and buy real lovely spices, and grind them myself. i really do. but until then, trader joe's curry powder will have to do (a blend of four or so different curry-type dried and ground spices).

Julia's Indian Curried Noodles
ingredients:

soba noodles (very absorbent) (or use rice)

light coconut milk (i used about 1/3 cup, roughly equivalent to several shakes of the can)

curry powder (about a teaspoon and a half. a real teaspoon, not the measuring spoon measurement teaspoon. the kind you stir your tea with.)

a pinch of ground ginger

a few dashes of cumin

a little olive oil to get the tofu started

a few dashes of soy sauce

tofu, cubed into inch sized squares (or chicken, or lamb, or nothing)

frozen or fresh peas

chopped carrots (or full baby carrots), cauliflower, broccoli (or other vegetables, even chopped cooked potatoes)

a pinch of salt

a few tablespoons of water.

boil a pot of water for the soba noodles (which take ~4 minutes to cook).

cook the tofu in oil and soy sauce, then add a bit of curry powder, a few dashes of coconut milk, and sauté, covered, on fairly high heat.

once the tofu is browned on one side, flip it all, let it cook for just a minute, and then add some water, more coconut milk, the vegetables, and the other spices. if you're like me, you should have flipped each piece of tofu individually. add more soy sauce, curry powder, and cumin to taste, and add coconut milk to thicken and make it as creamy as you want. let it simmer on low heat for a little while.

add the cooked and drained noodles, stir everything up until the noodles look good and curryish, and serve. if using rice, just serve the curry on top of the rice - don't mix. mmm, delicious.

the whole thing, despite how wordy and prolific the instructions and ingredients list are, takes about 10 minutes. oh, and wash your spatula before you sit down to eat, lest you end up with a greenish-orangish tint to it.

also, i know soba noodles are, like, japanese. but they served their purpose very well.

highest praise
julia: so, i figure for the conference, i'll do all the work, and you can be the front man on the weekend.
greg: okay, like i'm the public face.
julia: yes.
greg: i'm the one who gets all the attention and praise.
julia: yes.
greg: but you do all the work.
julia: yes.
greg: you're the Edge to my Bono.
julia: excellent! the edge totally doesn't get the credit he deserves. he carries that band. you know, the "where the streets have no name" and the "BAD" guitar riffs? yup.
greg: you're the Jenny to my Gethin. [okay, that's an episcopal diocese of san diego inside joke. jenny is in charge of all the ministries. gethin is the bishop.]
julia: (laughter)
greg: you're the Cheney to my Bush.
julia: no ways, that guy does nothing either.
greg: you're the Shawna to my Greg.
julia: uh, Shawna's the Shawna to your Greg, Greg.
greg: yup. good point.

god moving over the face of the waters
it took me exactly 14 minutes and 40 seconds to drive home from the coffee shop last night.

we had been talking about genesis. the first chapter. i liken it to a snapshot of how time begun, a point in which everything is shrouded in innocence and ignorance in the best way. the moment that snapshot was taken makes the story understandably different than if that snapshot had been taken minutes before, minutes later, centuries before, or centuries later. today, if someone were to sit down and write the genesis of life, we would have hundreds of years of scientific discoveries to factor in to the plot.

genesis 1 is intoxicatingly spiritual and earthy. every word, every detail is raw. everything is good. there are no rules, no commandments, no punishments (yet). the world god has created, by hand, makes god proud, happy, tired. this is the kind of faith i want - the kind of faith where you look at where the water meets the land and fall in love with it and it's creator. the kind of faith where you look at concrete as a sum of its parts and marvel at how dirt and water evolve so seamlessly into things you're not really supposed to look at and think of god.

i had just been given a CD, burned with a single track: Moby's "God Moving Over the Face of the Waters." it's 7 minutes and 20 seconds long. i slid the CD in as i pulled out of the parking lot. no words. the same four chords, cycling in the same meter, in the same order for 7 minutes and 20 seconds. but every time they cycle, they change. they grow and swell and dance with other melodies. as my car crested the I8 east - I805 north interchange i really did look at the concrete beneath me and around me, and i thought of how amazing it is that concrete exists. i felt the relationship between concrete and god. note that i hate concrete.

the song played twice on the ride home, exactly. i pulled my keys out of the ingition right as the final chord tapered into silence and the CD player made that "starting over" buzzing noise.

moby's song is taken from a phrase in the second line in the bible. "now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the spirit of god was hovering over the waters." i don't think that sentence means anything remarkably different to me than it did to someone thousands of years ago, before evolution was understood, before we stopped believing that women have more ribs than men.

i went back to the beginning, to that photograph of mankind's understanding of god and creation, to the gorgeous 7 minutes and 20 seconds of those same four chords, and to the beauty and majesty and mystery of my earth and my god. and i saw that it was good.

i was an aveda store celebrity.
this last weekend, i pretty much lived the southern california consumption dream of driving hundreds of miles while staying within one metropolitan area, and visiting four different shopping malls, including going to one of them twice. i went to two different Banana Republics, two different Williams-Sonomas, a Pottery Barn, a Crate and Barrel, and three Ann Taylors. I went to Pier1 Imports twice, and Cost Plus once.

i was looking, to no avail, for the perfect utensil caddy. i guess they don't sell those at Banana Republic.

the highlight of the ridiculously unfruitful weekend-long shopping mall safari, however, wasn't the teflon-coated pastry cutter, it was the Aveda store visit.

erik was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and happened to come with me. usually, he loves shopping. loves it! but when we stepped in the store, the primary purpose for our walk though The Valley of the Shadow of Fashion, erik turned to me and said, "please don't take forever." he then slouched on the bamboo makeover chair, sipped some complimentary "calming tea" (mmm), and just sort of audibly rolled his eyes if i happened to ask him for suggestions or advice.

at one point, i happened to mention to the worker (you know, the Male Cosmetics Employee type) that i had filled up my punch card, which grants me $40 of free shit. (this also means that i, over the past few years, have spent far too much at aveda.) all of a sudden, it was as if i'd unwrapped the golden ticket. he told another worker. who told other workers. workers told customers. customers told their husbands. "she filled her punch card! her! over there! see, look!" new customers scrutinized me, wondering if the condition of my skin/hair/makeup/whatever was worth it, after i'd obviously used a lot of aveda stuff.

outside of lifting me up on one of those bamboo makeover chairs, the aveda employees had successfully made me feel special and important. they also gave me an extra punch on a new card.

here's to another $400, aveda.

day on.
today, i get to spend my day off dealing with the fact that my car is not really leaking oil, it's hemorrhaging it. again.

in other news, i managed to almost completely fend of a vicious sore throat over the last few days by taking no other preventative measures outside of drinking delicious honey and lemon, made from steaming hot water, central coast lavender honey, and santa cruz lemon juice. it's definitely the sign i've been looking for to prove that southern california=being sick=bad, anywhere north of southern california=being well=good. i promise you, we will move away from here, sooner rather than later. definitely before there are any little julias running around.

alright. off to give my little car a tranfusion.

tharrrr be good
perhaps one of the greatest pleasures of this lifetime is that Pirate's Booty is "ALL NATURAL!" and "Good for you!"

i ate half the bag on the way home from Whole Foods last night. arrrrrrr.

can't take my mind off you...
part refusal and part inability, i haven't stopped listening (figuratively, of course) to Damien Rice's "O," since i bought it. it's been months.

i've never let an album overtake everything like this. listening to anything else just feels like killing time until i get to listen to O again.

i think it's cycled at least 5 times today at work. listening to music at work serves two purposes for me. first, with earphones in, i'm less likely to rely on my keen sense of hearing as someone approaches or walks by. this keeps me off the internet. genius, i tell you! secondly, i get happy, motivated, and hypnotic. there's nothing more satisfying than being able to concentrate on something so technical, like encoders and cables and which goddamned size screw you'll need (etc), while a raw irish voice sings to amie in my left ear and a cello soars peacefully in the other.

and there's the times when i'm not really concentrating on the encoders, cables, and screws. then, the pretty music guides my wandering thoughts through such tech writerly creative catastrophies as why you can use the verb "unplug" without a preposition, but "plug" needs "in." in fact, "unplug" can't be used with a preposition. right? i'd say the "un-" does the trick.

step one: unplug the cable. bam.
step two: plug the cable. in. plug in the cable.

unless, as one dear friend retorted, you're talking about statements of support, etc. plug can stand alone.

julia: "true. we're not activists for our cables here at [monkey job], though."
elizabeth: "well maybe you should be. UP WITH CABLE RIGHTS!"
julia: "UNPLUG THE APATHY TOWARDS CABLES!"

and so it is, indeed. damien rice and cable rights. 'twas quite the frabjous day.

and while we're here, may i have his backup singer, lisa hannigan's job? when she's done with it, of course.

oh, make that non-fat, and i'll take the sterling serving tray.
i may have found heaven.

i work in the city of Poway, CA. it's within San Diego county, north east of anything of metropolitan importance. this makes for a beautiful morning commute, heading towards the rising sun as it crests the countless foggy tiers of mountains... but other than that, i've never really been a big fan. i actually went to high school about 10 minutes from my office building, and spent a great deal of time in Poway, including my driving test. i still hesitate on that merge where the test lady marked the test form with "don't hestitate." uh, it's a MERGE. i think i ought to hesitate. i should track her down and give her a few choice words.

Poway residents, for the most part, are quite proud of their "City in the Country." (oy). it is, after all, home of Tony Gwynn.

when i was in high school, we frequented a little coffee shop called "Mikey's." it has since closed/been put out of business. there were no coffee shops in Poway other than a few dozen starbucks, which is really the foundation of my disdain for Poway.

imagine my surprise/delight/relief yesterday as i explored just a little bit off the beaten strip malled path to find a tiny "Espresso Bar" sign hanging on a dishevled old school general store-looking building. i'd found "Old Poway," a small stretch of shops and other buildings that didn't get knocked down for homogenous spanish tile roofed (rooved?) strip malls.

i parked in front of a hollistic looking veterinary office, and walked towards my mecca. i may have even said, "dude!" out loud when i realized the espresso bar is actually inside an antique store. dude. DUDE. this is better than the flowers and tea shop. the workers were fabulous granola antique savvy coffee lovers and starbucks haters. i'm in love.

lattes! antiques!

Poway just earned itself some Julia Points.

a call to unity
on saturday, i was a "delegate" for the Episcopal Diocese of San Diego's 30th annual diocesan convention.

this entire previous year has been more riddled with the usual sexuality controversy than ever. what with the gene robinson (a.k.a. The Gay Bishop) media circus and all. the human sexuality debate has plagued and blessed the episcopal church for as long as i've been around. probably even long, as we stretch back to the landmark decision to ordain women in 1976.

at home, in the diocese of san diego, we have the notable wishes of a handful of clergy and some laity (non-ordained members of the church, the body of christ, etc) to disconnect themselves from the Episcopal Church of the United States of America (ECUSA). they say that because of the decision made at the 2003 General Convention (see above, The Gay Bishop), we are alienating 50 million anglicans worldwide that do not support such a decision. also, most of those dissenters locally would probably tell you that they think homosexuals are sinners. and then they might add something about "don't get me wrong, i love gay people. in fact, my best friend's sister's uncle is gay..."

but i digress. my point is the convention went well. save for a few conservatives, everyone really seemed to want to focus on keeping the church together, with healthy discourse and disagreement, and openness of heart.

someone said, "we are called to unity, not to unanimity." i love that.

the convention opened (convened, heh) with a gigantic eucharist. around 8:40 am on saturday, i chugged my latte before shuffling into the "no food or drinks" cathedral of st. paul. this church is just breathtaking. living in a relatively new city, we get used to the churches of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. ugly modern buildings. ugly modern carpets. ugly post-modern attempts at de-sixties-izing. the wooden walls, cathedral ceilings, massive organ pipes, creaky pews, stained glass, and all around historical splendor are special to me.

out of tune baritone notes hung over the air and the otherwise gorgeous brass quintet. someone important announced the opening hymn. the standing-room-only congregation shuffled papers and rose. two young men carried 20-30' poles with long flowing ribbons attached, swaying and circling the poles to swish the ribbons above our heads. forty (40!) priests or canons, etc. processed next, then some important looking priests, then some people carrying candles and crosses and scripture, then several entire boys and girls choirs, then an adult choir, then more priests and canons, then the chalice bearers, then the readers, then a woman waving a burning incense ball, and then THREE bishops. our current, soon-to-retire bishop, Gethin Hughes; the first bishop of san diego, Robert Wolterstorff; and the retired bishop of Jerusalem, Samir Kafity. i'm not sure if more priests and canons followed them. i stopped counting.

i was in awe. it was a lot of pomp for me, going to my beautiful low-church church. but i loved it. the service didn't really bring me closer to God per se, but it brought me closer to the Church.

eight hours of voting, business, and politics later, i left the conference feeling encouraged, feeling a renewed sense of satisfaction with my faith, with my church and my fellow episcopalians, and feeling like i totally have to get some of those ribbon streamer things for myself.

we can always just talk about shoes again.
i realize that today's post is a bit of a downer.

i guess my week has just been very subtly lousy - the kind of lousiness that you don't notice until you go back and read all your blog posts (not counting the shoe post, of course).

i'll end with a happy note, then: i love the sound a manual transmission car makes while driving in reverse almost as much as i love the fret noise on a steel string.

get by with a little help...
i've recently had to come to terms with one of the most difficult things for someone as insecure as me: my closest friends, all really close to each other, would do just fine without me.

don't get me wrong, these friends are AMAZING, more than i could ever have hoped for in my wildest friend-y dreams, and love me as much as i love them. that's not in question here.

for a year or two in high school, i had a fabulous friendship with two girls, amy and kathleen. we were tight. i attributed my bitterness and unhappiness to me just being a lousy person by nature, which of course didn't improve the bitterness and unhappiness at all. looking back, i realize i was plagued by insecurity. my earliest memories involve insecurity, carrying a heavy fear of disappointing people, of them not thinking of me as perfect. with amy and kathleen, maybe i was hoping for a subtle signal - one of them would do something to suggest that they couldn't survive without my friendship - that i was completely indisposable to them. instead, i realized that they'd be okay without me. in fact, they were much better friends with each other than with me.

i'm an adult now. and i haven't changed a bit.

it's a shoe-in.
last year's Fabulous Shoe purchase was a pair of green point-ished-toed slingback heels. they even trumped the wedding shoe purchase, just by being green (and slightly more versatile).

2004's Fabulous Shoe purchase has already been made, barely 1/12th of the way into the year. brown, faux-ther four inch heels. they hurt a bit, but i really can't explain how groovy i feel when i wear them. FOUR INCHES!

i spent my entire junior high and high school experience in converse all-stars (with no socks). senior year, i bought a pair of one-stars to spice things up. in college, i started buying the white and navy jack purcell's, and tossed in a few mary janes and sandals. i was a non-conformist from head to toe. it wasn't until the day of my third date with erik that i bought a pair of boots with heels. tall boots - the kind with the zipper that goes all the way up your calf. all of a sudden, i felt wild. i was so sick of the non-conformism. i ended up buying another pair - this pair slightly closer to the hooker end of the Tall Boot Spectrum than the prior pair - stretchy faux-ther (thus, form-fitting) and black. they're almost shiny from the faux-ness and the stretchiness. hence, hooker.

those two pairs of boots remained my only high-heeled shoes for a good few years. until i swore off leather and needed a new pair of shoes. i discovered the amazing genre of Cheap Shoes. they're fake (rather, "all man made materials"), cheap, and glorious. the best part is i can say i'm not buying these shoes because i'm cheap, i'm buying them because i don't wear leather.

anyway. the 4" heels own. i'm still too wussy to wear them with a skirt to work, though. you know, what with that pesky hooker end of the spectrum to worry about and all.

my yesterday
first thing, i went straight to the DMV. i finally changed my name, and decided to downgrade my license to a class C. it was quite the bittersweet moment. did you know that you have to PAY to downgrade your license? oh, and i waited in line for an hour first, which helped the "bitter" part of the bittersweetness.

as soon as i got to work, it was one of those mornings that just slaps you in the face before you even sit down and play on the internet. i've been having trouble with our printing vendor, so [middle management] i decided to make a spreadsheet [/middle management] detailing all orders, new and in-progress, including several that i had needed yesterday to ship to israel. to a P.O. box in israel. anyway, i was feeling pretty good about my organizational prowess and initiative.

until the filing cabinet fell on me. i "caught" it with my left knee. mad skills. i was all about the Good Of The Company yesterday. i don't remember this thought process, so it must have taken place primarily in my delicate knee skin: "shit, if these files all scatter on the floor, julia will have to reprint every 500+ page high res graphic manual on our piece of a printer." so, i sacrificed my formerly intact, formerly flawless knee skin for the files. thanks, knee skin. you lived a good life and served your country well. R.I.P.

oh, and then, my work friends all happened to be downstairs at the cafeteria at the same time, so they all ate there together. and they had the Most Fun Ever. i ate at my desk with my knee wound, otherwise all alone.

around 4pm yesterday, i wrote my first technical writerly sentence of the day.

it was indeed a fucker of a day.

volcanic farts.
sunday afternoon, erik and i curled up on the couch with some far-too-hippified veggie burgers (no, really - even i made a comment about the excessive organic grain presence) and a PBS documentary entitled "Volcanic Killers." dude, good times. although i'm slightly embarassed to say that my first thought was "volcanoes bore me."

the most striking segment of the documentary was on Lake Nyos. in 1986, an unfathomable and inexplicable disaster struck the unassuming villages surrounding Lake Nyos, a crater lake in Cameroon, Africa. dangerous gases had been building up in the lake, unbeknownst to the geologists and "volcanologists" (bwah) who had surveyed the waters about a year beforehand. something happened - i can't quite remember - maybe a small earthquake, but the gases were disturbed. basically, the lake let out a giant fart cloud of extremely dense carbon dioxide, killing close to 2,000 people and countless animals in the four surrounding villages.

perhaps the eeriest thing about the documentary, and the disaster in general, were the accounts of the survivors. the eye-witnesses. i'm fairly sure the survival percentage was in the single digits, but i have no idea. these people watched practically everything die around them... their entire families, their children, their entire communities, and even their cattle. i can't even fathom how the Six Feet Under characters, and Amber Atkins for that matter, deal with so many dead people - much less how someone can move on after watching everyone they knew literally drop dead. how can you ever be whole again?

the Lake Nyos disaster triggered extensive and paranoid testing of every single crater lake in the world. if there's one thing that freaks us humans out more than anything, it's something we can't explain. crews rushed out to Cameroon as soon as possible to start trying to figure out what happened, and why we didn't know it was going to happen before thousands died.

and now, we say "The science behind the disaster is fairly simple."

oh, just another internet stranger's well wishings...
i think people are getting unnaturally excited about dooce going to the hospital to give birth.

and i'm one of them. go dooce family! hell yes!