woman would be proud

i gave my first eyewash today! i haven't actually been first-aid trained yet (hm, i meant to ask about that today), but at leap they had this cool thing that fits right over the eye and you stick some water in and the kid tilts their head back and it rinses out the whole area. so when this kindergardener got herself pepper-sprayed (and by pepper-sprayed i mean another kid threw some dirt in her eye) i helped her out while someone else tried to get the other kid to own up.

overall, leap is really fun. pretty laid back as always, and the k-2's are so cute! plus today i got a babysitting gig too (oh yeah, i got lots of networking). woot to under-the-table income.

tomorrow i start the other job, helping to organize an office. not in the cool organized labor way--that'd be difficult as i'll be the office's second employee, including the owner of the company. i'll just be helping to neaten up the cabinets.

then on friday i go to indiana to visit the little bro. at school. woot!

wesleyan, aragorn, oh and pirates of course

last week saw a slew of ex-35 home-birthdays, and one of them i was close enough to go celebrate! i went on down to m-town to have myself a time, and to see as many fellow wesers as possible in under 24 hours. so first we got to surprise elach with a party! which is always fun. there was cake and ice cream and lots of pink. and lots of catching up with some fellow '04-ers.

then it was on to gin and tectonics, which was attended by two other sketchy alumni (one of Team Sketchy Alumni fame), although one or both of them may actually also be grad students. floored ngold; due to the surprise nature of the b-day party i hadn't been able to tell many people i'd be around. but, turns out, it rawks to surprise people with my presence! or they were faking it and only pretended to be happy to see me... i'm hoping the first tho, cuz it rawked to see all of you! woot!

thursday, i went to the campus center lunch (ah, the good old days) and saw lots more peeps. and got a burrito, also like the good old days. course, i'd forgotten that the onions are damn strong, so it was extra spicy. after lunch, got to see the rest of the 19 fountain crew cuz bcod took a sick day. hope y'alls are feeling healthier! and that your simcities are prospering... or burning down in a robot invasion-volcano-earthquake-related disaster, depending on what you intended...

so then on friday, KPd came up! woot! after an insane busride that she'll probably post about herself, she arrived and we watched viva la bam and other crassness, before resting for weekend awesomeness! like...

going to the lord of the rings exhibit at the museum of science and entertainment (formerly, and officially, the museum of science)! there were costumes! and armor! and the one ring (actually kinda unimpressive)! and scale models! and... a place where kp and i got spliced into a shot so that she was hobbit-sized and i was wizard-sized, and vice versa! i'd have pictures, but they cost extra, so we just played for free. and... GANDALF'S SWORD! or, a replica that we got to hold, with gloves on.

sunday we saw the sadownik for lots of leftover kosher food (bagels and hallah and kugel--oh my! and yummy!) and catching up. and stories. kp and ss are the masters, after all.

so today, i started my job! well, kind of. i filled out all the paperwork and tax forms. tomorrow i start for real. oh, by the way, i got jobs! most of y'alls know already, but yeah. i'm working at lincoln extended-day activities program (aka LEAP. formerly lincoln everyday afterschool program, back when i was getting the acronym wrong) on tuesday wednesday friday. i'm helping out at an office in town on monday thursday; i start that one on thursday. woot to jobs! and to getting paid! which won't happen for a couple weeks cuz i just missed the pay cycle, but whatev. soon i'll be rollin' in it. and by rollin' in it, i mean i'm still not making enough to survive on my own. maybe nyc pays better...

yesterday i found out that the movie hero i am is...


!

... turns out having no work to put off doesn't prevent finding fun new online quizzes.

So, it's been a while... I've actually been mildly busy! But haven't thought of much to say about what I've been up to. Oh but I did find this out:

My Boobies' Names Are: Thelma and Louise

Get your own Boobie Names

So that's exciting. My boobs are badass. I just hope they don't drive me off a cliff... but armed robbery might be ok.

Saw the new school again today. It had more stuff going on, and the auditorium is really nice, but parts of it made me sneeze hardcore. Oh and the boys' locker room smells bad already (I figured, probably the only time I'd be allowed in was on the tour), and not in the paint-y way the rest of the school smells a little funny.

Tomorrow I go to get my eyes dilated--the doctor puts drops in so they can look real close at the retinae--so I'll be blind all day, even with my glasses on, but I do get funky dark sunglasses. Maybe when I go to Wes I'll wear them ironically. Feel free to call the home number and chat, as I'll not be able to read or watch tv or anything else visual for a while.

I've gotten mildly obsessed with a lot of new music: Modest Mouse (yeah yeah, I'm too late to be that hip for liking them, but when did I ever have cutting-edge music taste?), The Killerz (like i said... not cutting-edge. but it's damn catchy), The Streets, Green Day. I need money, so I can get cd's. I don't think this can wait till xmas. Oh I also hope to move out of my parents' house. But the apartment will need a soundtrack =D

You heard it here first

Ok, perhaps not, but as I just read a Safire article that reeked of Karl Rove, I decided I had to do something. You should have heard it from, say, the New York Times or CBS first, but as far as I know they're not up on their typewriter technology. If you did, well, sorry, you heard it here also.

One can easily find, with a Google search of "proportional spacing typewriter" that--lo and behold!--the first match is the IBM Archive from 1941, listing as one of the major events in the company's history of that year was the invention of the Proportionally Spaced Typewriter. So instead of all the fonts looking like Courier, whose l's and i's take up just as much space as its W's and M's, and which therefore is the preferred method of making one's high school papers look longer. I wonder if back in the 60's, by which time proportional spacing was rather common on typewriters, at least the richer kids could make their papers look all fancy by using the typeface that looked more like most printed books rather than those monospaced typewriters. I really wonder if profs who have been working that long adjusted their page-number requirements with the new technology, or if us poor computer users really have to do more writing than our forefathers.

Also, on the superscript/subscript claim (that superscript and subscript were also impossible), that's also complete bullshit. Everyone who actually used typewriters at school and at their jobs knew that in order to make superscript and subscript, all they had to do was turn that wheel thingy on the side a little up or down, and turn it back when they were done writing the "th" after the "4" or whatever.

Anarchy in the UK!

New photos at Europe's Blog! This time, of London. And a little Dublin.

Tom's Petition

Sign the petition to renew the assault weapons ban! Not only is it a good thing to do, but you also get to see yourself added to the animation, six-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon style.

IKEA-tastic

Not a day went by this weekend--and by weekend I mean Friday and Saturday--in which I didn't drive/ride at least 3 hours round trip for some adventure or another.
Friday: Going South
So I needed some shelves on which to put the stuff that's currently covering my bedroom floor (ooh, check out that grammar... I didn't go to college for nothing!). My mom needed the same, only for the mudroom instead of the bedroom. So the two of us trekked down to sunny New Haven on Friday. We started out with lunch (yeah yeah, eating is supposed to come last... but it was lunch time by the time we arrived! We're such rebels...). Their Swedish meatballs really are pretty amazing. The lingonberry juice, not so much--a little too sweet. Anyhoo, then we went on our merry way, this time following the nice arrows on the floor. First we found Becca! who was there with her housemates getting some stuff for their senior house. Then we found some great shelves called IVAR and had figured out all the pieces to get and were ordering them from downstairs, when the guy who was helping us discovered they were out of the shelf part. So we had to find other, less perfect stuff. But it was also even less money, so... woot! Then we continued down to the catacombs of the accessories area, where one inevitably finds tons of stuff that one absolutely needs, even if one did not need that set of placemats before entering the store. We also got some coffee and chocolate to take home... or to eat on the way.
As we were in CT already, we stopped in M-town to see whomever I knew was there. So we had ice cream with Elach, saw RC and BSom's house and then also Becca's house. And SWeigle's, but she wasn't home so I couldn't say hi. Then, after way too much time there (at least if you ask my mom... I would have been fine staying for the semester myself) we headed home for the best part of an IKEA trip... PUTTING TOGETHER THE FURNITURE! ... well, I don't have room on my floor for a bookshelf (bit of a catch-22 there... oops), but we assembled the mudroom shelves. And we saw the Daily Show, which finally covered the protests... twice! Way to go, Lewis Black. And... whoever else.
Saturday: Going North
On Saturday, I got up wicked early (as we say in the MA... and in the NH, where the day's trip would take me) to join my dad and a couple other grown-ups to hike up Mt. Monadnock. But that's not all. At the top, there was a dance performance! Right there on the rocks! It looked like this:

Pretty amazing. They did Native American Sign Language within the dances too, of poems and stuff. The hike was long and tiring, but the dance was wicked cool. Then everyone else went swimming, and I went wading, in the frigid water across the street from the trail head. Then we got massive ice cream cones at Kimball Farm, and came back for take-out Chinese food. A tiring day, but pretty adventure-tastic.

mood | enraged

this post feels more like livejournal-type fare, instead of the usual sarcasm and quips and randomness...

I should be in bed, but I don't think I can sleep before getting this out of my system.
Compared to friends of mine, I had a rather uneventful trip to the RNC. There was a little intenseness, but mostly it was fun. I even got a peaceful political activist button! (or 8-ish...) I got home all pleased, if tired. Once again we'd fought the good fight--except for the fighting part. Then I started hearing about my friends stuck behind bars for as long as 36 or so hours, and in the chemical-burning pens no less. Then I read about the cops' new pre-emptive (in the Bush-ish, really-meaning-preventive sense of the word) arrest tactics, and how they ignored 3 court orders to let over 400 people go, as per habeas corpus. Then I watched the actual RNC speeches (and the Daily Show coverage of course; awesometastic as always). Then I saw the latest polls. And read more news. And saw more pictures. And heard more speeches.

It's too much. The neo-cons want to fuck over every one of us just to make a couple extra billion, only to keep it locked in some non-taxable offshore bank account. They want to legislate our bodies and our marriages and our "morals." Then they go and brag about protecting American freedoms, and about empowering doctors and patients to make their own medical decisions. I mean, you probably know the million other shitty ideas to come out of Bush's mouth (by way of Cheney's brain of course).

And now we can't even scream about it, let alone actually being heard and/or televised. We all at least heard about those orange censors the NYPD unfurled around anyone preparing to express opposing views to those vocalized in the MSG (and I don't mean the people who got carried out on national television). Our president is scary when entrusted with as much power as he has. Hell, the cops are scary and the worst they have is a chemical weapon or two. What is terrifying is that so many people have been duped by him and the Republicans. I keep wondering, what country should I move to if Dubya wins again?, and I'm kidding a little less each time.

Some hopefulness I guess comes from The Boston Globe and Paul Krugman. But they're mostly preaching to the choir. Oh also, I heard a guy on NPR today (a caller) who said he was from New Hampshire, and that the purple heart band-aids and Zell's speech made him decide to vote for Kerry. So, at least maybe the Republicans could have shot themselves in the foot.

But, I mean, fuck. What are we supposed to do? I'm sick of waiting for November and hoping for the best. I'm too afraid and angry and frustrated to do that.

As for now, I'm too tired to write more. If there was anything else I meant to say, I forgot it. So I'll leave you with...


Bush, in the faces of soldiers who have died in the Iraq war.

just couldn't stay away...

so, just in case anyone but rc is gonna be around and not packing/unpacking/whatever, i'll briefly be at wes tomorrow on my mom's and my way to/from the NEW HAVEN IKEA! (very exciting)... if ya want to hang out or grab lunch or something, drop an email or call the cell.

And by weekend, I mean six days...

So I made it home safe and all from that crazy RNC, glad to say I lived to tell about it. And that I didn't get arrested. I'd like to thank my overpreparedness for that. So here goes...

Thursday
I headed down on Thursday, not to go to any actions but to go to this Wes networking event. Well, it turned out to be an "ivy league social," which is a fancy way of saying an elitist party at a bar. It was lots of people from other schools with jobs chatting and knowing each other, and a bunch of unemployed Wes04 people who got the CRC email, who had gone hoping to find jobs. Oops.

Friday
Hung out in the NJ with KP and RC. It was pretty initials-tastic. Went to the Home Depot and got drumsticks. Had amazing bbq and homemade pasta sauce dinner. The carbo-loading started early.

Saturday
Saw Andrea! It had been 3 years... so that was exciting. We went to Central Park, which was surprising like the HIll in May. Then headed over to student rally dealie and sat around in hot sticky for a bit. Went back to bsom's and made another carbo-tastic dinner in preparation for the next day's musical blow-striking.

Sunday Sunday Sunday
UFPJ march! Started at Wes meet-up, which consisted of those coming from bsom's apt, TMQ and VJR, and two Sabahots alums. Went over to the youth/student staging area, or whatever, and began drumming and such. Some other youths had a bullhorn and some pretty cool chants and stuff. So then we did the usual SAMBAHOTS deal, only with far fewer drummers than usual. But we did have a real agogo thanks to Snorr. Then we picnic-ed in the park, activist style. Meaning... not much, except we had the drums with us still, and there were tons of other activists there too. Then we had bsom's famous tofu--woot!--and then some blue and some beer. Well, technically it was all beer, but the blue was flavored like blue hawaiian. Oh and this cool kid came who i'd only known by reputation as he's from santa cruz.

Monday
March for Our Lives. Unpermitted, but fairly free of incident. Then this kid got dragged to an arrest wagon right in front of us. I mean, he walked, but also was forcibly removed from the march by cops. It wasn't so much a march, actually, as a walk down the middle of the street next to some friendly New York's Finest. Ok that's a lie. It was a march, but it was flanked by a solid single-file line of the po-po. We even saw a police critical mass, but it was far less massive, and they didn't all get arrested. On three separate occasions throughout the weekend. At the end it got dicey when we found ourselves in a pen full of people somewhat angry that the march had been broken in half by moped cops. So we played some frisbee, and then left just as some riot-geared police entered the pen. I don't think many people were arrested, but we were glad to be gone by then. Dinner, chillness, bed.

Tuesday Tuesday Tuesday
aka a31.
Not wanting to join the other 1100 arrested, we opted to go to the Code Pink Fox News Shut Up-athon. Peaceful Protestor buttons in hand (or, in bag), we went over to Fox News HQ and yelled at them to "Shut the Fox Up." Pretty cool. I didn't realize at the time, but apparently Medea Benjamin got arrested. The important thing is, KP BSom and I didn't get arrested. And we got to tell Fox to shut up, which was fun.
Then I went home, and today I've been checking the stories and hearing about my friends getting arrested. I'd love updates, if people know anything... email or call.

Here's to some wonderful blow-striking, even if it didn't reach the point of state-smashing, as the pink anarchists from north carolina might have liked. and plenty of other people =)