HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!

I LOVE Halloween. The poor citizens of South Africa do not have Halloween. I weep for them. Not really, though, because that would make my Disney mascara run. I am being a brunette version of Alice in Wonderland. I don't do blonde.

I'm so excited that I shaved my legs for the occasion. I haven't really shaved since I have been in Baltimore. There are two reasons for this. 1) I am very cold generally so my legs are rarely bare, and 2) There is nobody to impress here (and nobody who I am concerned about judging me) and so no need for silky smooth legs. It has become very clear to my parents that the only reason I shave my legs is for other people, and they are very upset. I spent all of middle school lobbying to be allowed to shave. They had outlawed it because their feminist consciences didn't want me to bowing to the social norms of society. I insisted that I wanted to shave for myself, not just to fit in. I was lying. But with good reason. Middle school is hard to begin with, and not shaving if you're a girl makes it literally ten times harder. They let me eventually. Now they are disappointed in my weakness. Thats actually fine. I don't really care. I may not be as evolved as them when it comes to embracing feminism but at least I am ahead of them when it comes to equal acceptance of homosexuals. Not that they are not accepting. They are democrats all the way and support equal rights under the law, but they don't know how they feel about the church sanctioning homosexuality. Hmph.

Yay Halloween!

Mediocrity

October LSAT scores were released. Its incredible how one morning spent on one test can affect the rest of your life so much.

Things My Mother Yells At The TV

"Why does that guy look like a beaver?!"
to CNN

"I hope that [Virginia Republican Party Chairwoman Kate Obenshain Griffin] can't sleep at night and wets the bed."
to MSNBC

"That woman is a hot piece of flank steak next to her daughter."
MTV

"Sarah Palin wants to kill all of God's creatures."
to MSNBC

"This channel has THE WORST commercials."
to Hallmark

"Doesn't Chris Matthews have someone who can cut his hair?"
to MSNBC

"How do you like Olbermann's tie, honey?"
to MSNBC

Bored?

Google "Sealand".

Squeaky clean

Went to the dentist today and the disaster that I was anticipating was miraculously averted. There was no cavity catastrophe, and upon informing the dental hygienist that I was certain my gum recession was way out of control, she assured me that my gums are not receding hardly at all. Take that! The stratagem for avoiding flossing lectures that I learned from my mother was also a raging success. She and I always start a flossing regimen roughly two weeks before any dentist appointment so that by the time we go in, our gums appear strong and well taken care-of. It's a nearly fool proof plan for avoiding unnecessary annoyance at the dentist...because I really don't need any more reasons to not come back.

Also interesting: apparently Crest is abrasive on your tooth enamel and can lead to teeth sensitivity.



"You don't smoke mushrooms, you eat them."
-my mother, instructing my sister on the "correct" way of using shrooms

TV Dinners

Tonight has been painful. I cooked for my family. Chicken chili. Josh would laugh at me, because he says the only food I make is Mexican food. And I can't seem to help but prove him right every time I cook. Its just that the extreme yuminess of Mexican food is only equaled by the ease of cooking it.

In any case. The cooking surprisingly started out relatively chaos free with the cornbread. As chaos free as me cooking ever is...I am good at making things taste good, I just don't have as much prowess with not making a huge mess. It went downhill as soon as the onions came out though. Halfway through dicing them I realized that I had forgotten my signature onion-cutting swimming goggles, and I paid for the oversight by nearly going blind from the burning. I could hardly see through my tears and when I attempted to refocus myself with a sip of coffee. Unfortunately I grabbed the can of beans instead, and in the process of nearly slicing my lip on the can edge I knocked over my actual cup of coffee. I most sad about the flavored creamer stuff that was in the coffee that got wasted. I use over three times the recommended serving of it, so I blow through those delicious little bottles of coffee creamer. Anyway, the chili was good, but my eyes still feel sore, and my fingers have cuts on them that are still stinging from lime juice.

Oh, and the Hills. That show seriously drives me crazy. It has enough drama in one episode to fill an entire Shakespeare festival. The only thing is that the episodes are really only 20 minutes which is way too short to have to wait a week to watch it. And seriously it actually makes me angry to watch it. I see the worst traits of myself in all the girl characters. Audrina going back to Justin because she is addicted to him even though he treats her horribly. I'm not doing that at this point in my life or anything, but I definitely have that tendency in my personality. And then there's Lauren who accidentally creates drama very easily. Heidi who really just changed horribly in terms of looks and personality. Brody, who is totally a guy that I would fall for if I were Lauren. And the rest of the guys all suck. I don't know if that is a reflection on LA guys, rich guys, or guys in general. But this show really makes guys look bad. They are all manipulative assholes, and the majority of them have made girls cry on purpose and laughed at them afterwards. Why are some guys such assholes. Girls can be awful too, I know. But I feel like there are actually a lot of guys in the world who are emotionally mute enough to actually enjoy hurting girls' feelings when they are mad...or who are immature and vengeful enough to act like they enjoy it when they have broken someone down. Why is that?

Anyway, it is painfully obvious that I put waaaay too much thought into reality tv. Right now is really just a "living vicariously" point in my life, because nothing much is going on.


"You are a mystical blaze of craziness." ....if only that were true
-my sister

On the upside

If Obama is elected, which he will be, I can go to the inauguration. One of the few and far between benefits to living in Charm City.

Couldawouldashoulda

Damn it, this clingy-ness has to stop. If only I didn't like EVERYTHING that I read on the internet. It describes exactly how I feel.

Interesting fact: elephants can't jump.
Big myth: elephants are the only animals that can't jump. WRONG! The sloth cannot jump either. Not enough speed. Neither can the guinea pig...too much like a turd (yes, that was a throwback to Olive).

Kristin Gore is a rockstar.

Seriously. Someone give her a Newbery. She'll make you giggle incessantly, I promise.

Rants and Raves

Raves:

I love working on crosswords with people. It's constructive and it doesn't involve restaurant gossip and bitching which inevitably makes you feel dirty afterwards (even if you are drawn to it initially, because you like observing drama).

I love familiarity. Old family friends and people like that. People who call your parents by their first names. Those are the kinds of people who don't forget who you are, because they always expect you to pop back into their lives eventually.

I love respecting people enough to actually take it when they tell me things that I am doing wrong and what I should be doing better. Lol, there aren't actually a super lot of people who I would take constructive criticism from without throwing a tantrum in my head...the funny thing is that more than half the people that I would listen to probably don't realize how much influence they have over me.

Canvassers that I can bond with because they magically know a lot about Ed Murray (ugh) and Dave Upthegrove (Yay!).


Feeling not alone. I have always felt carsick after eating apples. I thought I was alone in the world with regard to my apple-induced nausea. Turns out not. According to google, a huge number of people out there have similar apple allergies. I love it.

Buttermilk pancakes. Interesting trick: putting bacon inside your pancakes...no, not like pigs in a blanket...actually cooking the pancake with bacon in the batter. Yum. Almost as good as pancakes with strawberries and chocolate chips. I've been eating pancakes all weekend. Serving brunch makes me crave them, so I nip that craving in the bud by loading up on pancakes before I go to work on weekend mornings.


Rants:

People who are mean and then expect you to continue to be nice to them. Argh. Grow up and learn that karma is a bitch. Stupid bartenders.

Being forgotten. I thought South Africa was lonely at times (Josh, don't freak out, this is not a reflection on you, its a reflection on me being a foreigner there and not knowing anyone except family)...but Baltimore is worse.

Allergies. How can I be allergy free in Seattle and chock full of nature-induced stuffiness and sneezing in Baltimore? The west coast is so clearly superior it just kills me.

Mornings. I don't see anything nice about mornings. Maybe I would appreciate them more if I wasn't so sleepy then. Before noon just sucks overall in my opinion.

Working 11 hours in a row without food. Cereal doesn't count.





"We should all just quit together."
-Paul

Boo!

I am going to be Alice in Wonderland for Halloween. Sweeeeet.

People Who Annoy Me

1. These days when I hear "Nelly Furtado" I think "mid-life crisis". Its one thing for Madonna who has built her career on provocativeness and cone-bras since the beginnning to continue to be skanky and pop-ish. Ditto for Maria Carey. But it is quite different for the Indie-hip "I'm like a bird" singer to recreate herself with a hip hop album called Loose as soon as she nears 30. She's not that old, but she still seems to be pulling a Demi.

2. People like Christopher Hitchens are just fucking annoying. And no, its not because his atheist evangelizing intimidates me. Its because its hypocritical. He also thrives on the "I'm a bigger ass than you are" stratagem for popularity. Its like he gets a high off the idea of people reading his rants and being like "OMG moment, Hitchens did not just say that" just so he can snap his fingers at them yo mama style and say "in your face".

Apart from my annoyance with his attitude in general and his obsession with being uber provocative for shits and giggles, I think that it is ironic that Hitchens spends more time spreading his anti-Christianity gospel than most Christian missionaries spend spreading their Christian beliefs. Its one thing to define yourself by your belief in something. No matter what religion you are, there is something sort of honorable in committing yourself and your time and your life to your beliefs. But its just not so honorable to commit yourself to the destruction of someone else's beliefs. And lets be clear. That is what Hitchens' aim is. It would be one thing if he was trying to spread his positive belief in atheism, that there is no God. But Hitchens actually wants the destruction of Christianity, not the promotion of something that he believes in. He's like the political candidate who defines herself in opposition to the incumbent. That might be a strategy for getting some votes, but thats not a viable reason or an honorable motivation for running for office.

I thought that Lisa Miller's article in this week's Newsweek had a nice light and concise discussion of the issue. Particularly this bit:

"It struck me the other day, while watching Hitchens attempt to eviscerate another believer at a Templeton Foundation luncheon, that the battle between faith and reason can make enemies out of friends.

Submitting faith to proof is absurd. Reason defines one kind of reality (what we know): faith defines another (what we don't know). Reasonable believers can live with both at once."


Hitchens is like a Dan Brown reader who forgot to read the end of The Da Vinci Code. The part where they decide to not reveal that parts of the institution of Christianity have been a sham because of the hope that it provides to so many people. And because parts of it have been a sham doesn't mean that the core values and beliefs of Christianity are necessarily false. Yes, many bad things have been done in the name of Christianity. Maybe more so than any other religion. But bad things have been done in the name of the United States government too. It doesn't mean that the US should be "taken down" by terrorists. (Yes, I just compared Hitchens to a would-be terrorist...tee hee hee.) Governments can have bad representatives who damage their country's reputation, but it doesn't meant that the country itself is evil.

Essentially, with rhetoric like that contained in his book God Is Not Great, Hitchens has targeted Christianity for extinction and ended up merely grasping at the straws of the scarecrow that he attacked instead. Congrats, buddy. And to top it all off, he just can't resist patting himself on the back for all of his "successful" work vilifying "God".


3. Sarah Palin. This needs no explanation. As my mom says, "it will be a good idea to watch tomorrow's debate with a bin full of socks so that you can throw them at the tv screen whenever Palin says something stupid." And as my dad says, "then when you've used up all your socks, you can just throw up in it."