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The
Soap Box Monday, August 29, 2005 Why Are You Not Outraged? I paid $15 last week to fill the gas tank on my little Mazda Protege halfway up. Why is that? Is it because of the Iraq war? Is it because we should be drilling in the Alaska wilderness? Is it because the Saudis aren't pumping out enough oil? I honestly can't tell you why gas prices are so high but I can tell you that Exxon's profits jumped 32 percent to a record $7.6 billion in its most recent quarter. $7.6 BILLION in a single quarter! $7.6 BILLION in 3 months! And that's from your pocket and mine. This fact is not a secret. You can find references to it all over the 'net. My question is, why is the American public letting this happen? Don't we have the power to say, "you guys are smoking something if you think we're gonna pay $3/gallon so you guys can make $30 billion in profits in one year!"? And why aren't we doing just that? We're just taking it lying down, letting them shove whatever they want up our tailpipes. It makes me sick. It REALLY makes me want to get a hybrid...anyone want to get me one? Sunday, August 28, 2005 VS Can Bite My Ass I've been buying my bras exclusively at Victoria's Secret for around 15 years. I haven't always been the same size in those 15 years but I've always found bras that fit at VS. But guess what? They no longer sell my bra size in their stores. Well, they had exactly 2 bras in my size and they were like old lady bras! They were the exact opposite of sexy. I called them granny bras. They were white and huge and looked like some sort of architectural marvel/fashion mistake AND they were padded! OK, so if you know anything about bras and women's bodies, you've figured out by now that it's not because I'm smaller than an A cup that my bra size is no longer sold at VS. I'm more on the well-endowed size so why the fuck would I want a PADDED bra? Damn titless wonder women designers are jealous, that's what it is. They will create water bras, air bras, inserts, you name it but if you've got it naturally, they're jealous and have to make you look and feel like a freak! Thanks, VS. Go suck it. Friday, August 26, 2005 Sorry! Been too busy to blog lately even though I have plenty to blog about. Typical, huh? Anyway, I promise at least one new entry by Monday morning. In the meantime, have a great weekend! Tuesday, August 23, 2005 True Confessions If it weren't for my husband, I'd have at least a dozen cats and well on my way to being the crazy cat lady of Albuquerque. Sunday, August 21, 2005 You Don't Say
If you are a regular reader (Hi mike!) you know I don't promote many things. I don't mention movies I think you should see very often. The same is true for music or other web site. However, today I am going to plug postsecret.blogspot.com. In case you haven't run across it yet, it's an amazing web site where anyone can create a postcard containing a secret and send it in. These confessions can only be snail-mailed in and are updated every Sunday. Some are quite shocking ("Everyone I knew before 9/11 thinks I'm dead") while others are humorous. One word of caution: Once you start reading them, you won't be able to stop until you get to the end. O. M. G. I went to this site and found out there is a sex offender living on my street! On my sweet, little, middle-class, all-American street! Wow! It blows my mind! Yet another reason not to have kids! Thursday, August 18, 2005 Bittersweet Tomorrow I have to go to school. It's the end to a strange, draining summer. I haven't worked either job this week and I absolutely LOVED it. I wish the whole summer had been this way. It's funny. So many grad students were desperate for work this summer, especially in their field. I had a job as a research assistant and would have preferred to have not worked at all. Typical, huh? Wanting what you haven't got? Besides finishing a quilt for charity, I really didn't do anything else I had planned. I didn't go to Tahiti, I didn't catch up on my reading, I didn't go to the gym (except for exactly one time), I didn't even go to the movies as much as I wanted to. What are you supposed to do when life gets in the way of living? Regardless of who you are, you can never control every aspect of the world around you. (Look at poor Madonna and her birthday horse ride.) So what can one person do? It's so cliché but about the best anyone can do is make the most of each day...try to live in the moment. Those ideas were illustrated clearly for me this summer. I also learned to trust my heart more. I tend to catastrophize in my head. I've always done it. I'm quite good at it by now. But if I'm willing to take a chance and step out of my comfort zone, good things do tend to happen. That's something I need to remember. My husband truly made the best out of this bizarre, fragmented summer. I felt like such an incredible loser for ruining his dream vacation. He also took the brunt of my pity parties about how the programming job was just killing me this summer. At one point, I actually thought, "You know, if I don't wake up in the morning, I won't have to finish this fucking project." Pretty bad, huh? And this week, even though he's been exhausted, he's been a really great sport about going out with me this week so I can have some fun before school starts. I dragged him to a hot, smoky bar last night so I could sing karaoke and drink $6 concoctions known as Scooby Snacks. Tonight he agreed to eat at the Olive Garden with me and a mutual friend. (He HATES the Olive Garden!) Then on perhaps 4 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours, he played mini-golf with me and said friend which was truly a lot of silly fun. Thanks darling for helping salvage the end of my summer. Anyway, while I don't look forward to the daily grind of grad school, I'm also excited to get started. The beginning of each semester is always fun. Assuming the idea I have for my Master's thesis is accepted, I'm very excited to get working on that. If my idea is not accepted, then I dread finding a new one. I want to see my classmates again and just hang out with them between classes. I want to go to the bookstore and buy my books. I've always loved college bookstores and even though ours is puny, it will still be fun to see what's in store for me in the coming months. Only 16 weeks until Christmas break! Woohoo! Tuesday, August 16, 2005 Questions Why does my cat get super affectionate at 5:30am? And speaking of cats, why she always walk on the tender spots? This morning she walked in my eye, my nipple and my full bladder. And speaking of bladders, why does my bladder shrink to one quarter its normal size at night? Why do bread and related products (like bagels and challah rolls and hamburger buns) taste better toasted? And why do I always get sick when I have time off? Is it possible for me to have time off AND be healthy? Is that really too much to ask for? Monday, August 15, 2005 Did You Know... ...that the Olympics start in just 178 days? Woohoo!! And in other news, the answer to the movie quiz below is "The Sure Thing." I see I'm going to have to make the quizzes easier. Now, can anyone tell me the connection between that movie and the first movie from which I stole a quote? Saturday, August 13, 2005 Another Movie Quiz What do lazy blogger do to create a quick entry on the weekend? A movie quiz, of course! Can you name the movie from which I pulled the quote below? Man 1: Forget her, I hear she only likes intellectuals. Thursday, August 11, 2005 What I Did On My Summer Vacation I'm sure you probably think I slept all last weekend with my friend, Mr. Ambien, but I actually did get out of bed on Sunday. Nick and I drove up to Santa Fe to visit with these monks from Japan. They were in Santa Fe to visit a Children's World Peace Statue that is covered with folded paper cranes annually on Peace Day.
I had a very interesting conversation with one of the monks with help of a translator. He saw my mala wrapped around my hand and asked me what it was. He didn't understand the word "mala" but pointed to his strand of prayer beads and told me they were his juzu. I pointed at mine and told him it was a Tibetan juzu. He took mine off my hand and started praying over it. Now my mala has been twice blessed, by a Tibetan and Japanese monk. How lucky is that? (You can see the juzu of two of the monks in the first picture of this entry.) One family from Phoenix brought the 1000 cranes that they folded themselves and gave them to the monks as a present.
These cranes were brought to the Trinity Site and burned using a flame that was kindled from the Hiroshima bomb on Tuesday. The ashes from the cranes will be sent to the leaders of the eight nations that have nuclear arms capability. If you go here, you can find pictures of the cranes being burned at the Trinity site.
Apparently, they are making a "docudrama" about the walk the monks undertook in the the name of peace. It was a little annoying as there were always at least two video cameras catching all the action every second we were there. Even though Nick and I signed waivers to appear in the movie, I did what I could to be out of camera shot. This event certainly wasn't about me and I really nave no desire to be "famous" for being the idiot waving at the camera looking for my 15 seconds. All in all, it was a wonderful day. I feel very fortunate to have been able to spend time with these men who have worked tirelessly for peace. Tuesday, August 9, 2005 Things I've Been Wanting to Say To No One In Particular* You do not pay me enough to wear nylons in the summer in Albuquerque, NM. Thank you for getting in touch with me this summer. Please forgive me for being a shitty friend/relative for not getting back to you. I really do appreciate you thinking of me. You're not going to move forward until you accept who/where you are. I don't care. Stop talking. I stopped listening 10 minutes ago. Don't blame me for something you didn't do. Take a little responsibility for a change. It would me nice if you showed interest in how I'm doing once in a while. I'm really not as together as you think. I'm doing the job of about 3 people and you're mad at me because someone else didn't do their job? That ain't flying. (* Idea feefed from Erica.) Saturday, August 6, 2005 To Sleep, Perchance to Dream... Dear Sleep: Welcome back into my life. I've missed you terribly. I think now I shant go insane. Sincerely, Me. Wednesday, August 3, 2005 Question for You How unethical is it for me to ask a doctor I work with for a prescription for something to help me sleep as opposed to going through the proper channels? Tuesday, August 2, 2005 Fun With In-Laws My husband grew up in a rather large Mormon family in SLC, Utah. The family was on the strict side, with rock albums being routinely thrown out by his mother once she heard what was on them. Regardless, the whole family has great musical talent. One of my brothers-in-law had a band (actually they probably all had a band at one point or another) and he wanted to sing a Billy Squier song called The Stroke. Now, knowing how conservative the family is, I was quite surprised when I heard that Nick's brother wanted to sing a song whose chorus is "Stroke me, stroke me...stroke!" All I could think of is that bro-in-law didn't know what the song meant (and yes, some of them were that naive). Well, it turns out that his brother thought the chorus was "stunt man, stunt man"! When he found out what was really being said, he decided not to sing it after all! ROFL! Monday, August 1, 2005 Burnt Working 2 jobs is way too much for me. I'm doing both pretty half-assed. I can't remember what patients I've seen or who I've scheduled. I don't like that. I pride myself on remembering the patients, their quirks, etc. but now nothing is sticking in the old brain. I was driving home today and turned on Central Ave instead of taking the highway like I usually do, except I can't remember turning on Central at all or remember driving the rest of the way home. Little scary huh? Now a friend of mine has asked me STRONGLY to help her with a project. It's very hard to say "no" to her. I'll think about it tomorrow. I think I am just going to zone out tonight...zzz...
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Blog Name: The Soap Box
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