Happy Halloween!

FUN!

I'm trying my hand at cooking off the cuff (it's been forever since I've tried to cook--let alone with practically no groceries), and I'm listening to Minha Menina by Os Mutantes after Get Happy by Art Tatum. We'll see what Grooveshark chooses next from my recent playlist. I'm cooking penne with a mishmosh of nasty vegetarian sausage, two slightly old tomatoes, and some broccoli that was about to go bad, and spices and oil and onions. We'll see how it turns out. But it should be fine because i have a bottle of pumpkin ale too! Now if I could stop looking at my phone to see if there are any new messages. DORK DORK DORK. Then I need to get back to looking for jobs, once I'm done grooving and being a happy me. Here's the playlist I was listening to:

Please Watch This

I knew the Koch brothers were evil, but I had no idea just HOW evil. This is absolutely infuriating, but very interesting too. The amount of influence they have, and their extremist ideologies are terrifying. My eyes started tearing up a little watching it because I wonder how people could be so mean and horrible. Blagh. I actually want to see a documentary of their side because I just can't imagine what that would be. Koch Brothers Exposed

Poem by Li-Young Lee

Early in the Morning While the long grain is softening in the water, gurgling over a low stove flame, before the salted Winter Vegetable is sliced for breakfast, before the birds, my mother glides an ivory comb through her hair, heavy and black as calligrapher's ink. She sits at the foot of the bed. My father watches, listens for the music of comb against hair. My mother combs, pulls her hair back tight, rolls it around two fingers, pins it in a bun to the back of her head. For half a hundred years she has done this. My father likes to see it like this. He says it is kempt. But I know it is because of the way my mother's hair falls when he pulls the pins out. Easily, like the curtains when they untie them in the evening. -- Li-Young Lee, ©1986.

Try

To wash pan from scrambled eggs, put warm/hot water in pan and heat on low flame. We'll see if that works. Also, salt and lemon for scrubbing, and baking soda (powder?) for burner grate thingies. Just try and see if they work. RealSimple.com

chillin

just watching money shows on tv. what a boring and pathetic post. I should start thinking of interesting things to say. Okay, bye.

Geeky friend alert

"How would YOU escape out of the city in the case of a zombie apocalypse? HMM? intent stare. Apparently, "take the expressway" was not the correct answer. What a nerd.

No Job

As soon as I don't have structure in my days I start obsessing and feeling bad. I take things too personally and worry. Yesterday I wrote messages to three different people and got no responses. Why? At least I called Jenny and she's not too upset anymore. Even though I think my punishment was a 1.5 hour-long conversation...pretty much her talking at me about her day(s). That's fine: People need to do that sometimes.

Jenny's upset with me

She is mad and sad that I have not been calling or getting together, and I forgot to call her Sunday. I have a feeling that my mom is upset too because I have not called her. And if my dad was the type to get upset about that type of thing, he'd be upset too. I haven't been calling anyone. I don't know what my problem is: I love them all so very much, but I just don't call. It's selfish. I need to call to show my love.

I forgot my coat where I was last night, so I should probably go get it tonight if it's still there. I am a little bit in la la land today with my thoughts. That's all for now. I'm watching the debate, but it's a little dry, so I had to take a break. I keep thinking about the way someone smelled last night...kind of intoxicating..I don't know if it's laundry detergent or what, but yum!

Maybe I'm just never satisfied

I'm already bored: it's been 2.5 hours of not having a job. I have contacted the agency about other jobs and continuing there in the future. I will spend time today contacting MANY more agencies; I was dumb not to be applying to all of them (well, I probably couldn't register with ALL because there are so many, but a lot more). At least now I can make an appointment at the dentist to get my teeth cleaned; it's overdue. I'm sure I will be posting many more inane posts with all this free time too. Enjoy the reading!?

finally home

Nothing against anyone, but some people are not worth your time--Not because they're not worthy, but because they have no clue about you. p.s. now that I read this later, it sounds like I was talking about someone in particular and like I was angry. I was not. I was just thinking about how some people are giving, and some people take, and sometimes that kind of saddens me.

Obey the Script!

There are times that I am guilty of wanting people to just blindly abide by social scripts. i.e. I want them to say what I think they should say. Case in point: I just said (in a moment of insecurity), "sorry, I'm talking at you." Now, the reason I said that is because I sensed disinterest, and I have a bad habit of addressing things like that in passive-aggressive ways, I guess. But the person to whom I was speaking said nothing in return. I thought to myself, 'you were supposed to say something like, 'no, that's fine' or 'no, you're not.' So, the fact that she didn't reassure me that I was not talking at her when she was uninterested was a verification to me that she was, in fact, not interested. So, I will try to not speak until spoken to because that's what good little girls do, right? On another note, I feel stupid for getting a haircut that no one seems to like. I'm not sure how much I like it either. No matter what, it needed to get cut, so it's not a waste or anything, but maybe I should have gone for what I usually get. Oh well, it's nice to have a change; I really just wanted it cut enough that I can start wearing my hats again--they don't work over ponytails.

Morning Math Failed Me

Woops. I realized as I was walking down Monroe at a semi-leisurely pace that I was almost on time...for 9 a.m. I start now at 8:30 a.m. In my morning haze of hitting the snooze and trying to figure out how much time I have, I was estimating for 9:00 arrival. How do you prevent something like your brain just not working? Then, I got caught too. I thought he was going to be on vacation this week, but it's next week. I explained what happened, and I think it's okay. Dummie. Dumb me. I'm starving. If anyone reads this, have a nice day.

Rationalization

Cute baby animal pictures Study

Work turns me boring

So desperate I am to do something other than work that I am sunk to the level of talking about my lunch and the weather. I know I could opt to be better than this, but that would take a little effort, and nah. So, Cosi might not be the best ever, but on a cozy, rainy day, it works pretty well. Toasty, melty, and soup work well for me on this kind of day. I walked around for 50 minutes before I decided though.

Fire drill

I haven't participated in one of those in a long time. We only walked down one flight of stairs. The guy in charge was exactly the type you'd expect...."guys. this is serious business. I know I've told you before: NO drinks in the stairwell. This has been a problem before. It may sound funny now, but what if someone slipped? These are lives we're talking about." and so on...anytime someone says, "this isn't funny" it gets just a little bit funnier. So, now I'm back to thinking about making some phone calls. Just thinkin'.

ew, ick.

Not only is the woman sitting right across from me in this claustrophobic room sniffling and coughing and sighing heavily in my general direction without covering her mouth, but I can hear both of the people in here swallowing...their drinks...their food...it's disgusting. I'm grossed out. it's going to be a day of deep-breathing for me!

IT IS raining!

People are like Gremlins when it rains.

a window

Hey, look! It's all dark and rainy outside now! yay! I wonder how long it's been like that. I assume it's raining; just in time for me to walk to the train! Can I use more exclamation points?! Sure I can!!!

oh yeah.

I forgot that I kind of like Jamba Juice sometimes. I have no idea what I got, but Tamika Nicole said it's her favorite. something something antioxidant. It's made of berries, and it's just fruit juices...blueberry and raspberry maybe? and then soup from Pret a Manger. I should see if my brother wants to go out for lunch one of these days while I'm still working. It's the kind of windy outside that makes me laugh while I'm walking. dork.

Sequestration

from http://www.auburn.edu/~johnspm/gloss/sequestration "Sequestration Originally a legal term referring generally to the act of valuable property being taken into custody by an agent of the court and locked away for safekeeping, usually to prevent the property from being disposed of or abused before a dispute over its ownership can be resolved. But the term has been adapted by Congress in more recent years to describe a new fiscal policy procedure originally provided for in the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Deficit Reduction Act of 1985 -- an effort to reform Congressional voting procedures so as to make the size of the Federal government's budget deficit a matter of conscious choice rather than simply the arithmetical outcome of a decentralized appropriations process in which no one ever looked at the cumulative results until it was too late to change them. If the dozen or so appropriation bills passed separately by Congress provide for total government spending in excess of the limits Congress earlier laid down for itself in the annual Budget Resolution, and if Congress cannot agree on ways to cut back the total (or does not pass a new, higher Budget Resolution), then an "automatic" form of spending cutback takes place. This automatic spending cut is what is called "sequestration." Under sequestration, an amount of money equal to the difference between the cap set in the Budget Resolution and the amount actually appropriated is "sequestered" by the Treasury and not handed over to the agencies to which it was originally appropriated by Congress. In theory, every agency has the same percentage of its appropriation withheld in order to take back the excessive spending on an "across the board" basis. However, Congress has chosen to exempt certain very large programs from the sequestration process (for example, Social Security and certain parts of the Defense budget), and the number of exempted programs has tended to increase over time -- which means that sequestration would have to take back gigantic shares of the budgets of the remaining programs in order to achieve the total cutbacks required, virtually crippling the activities of the unexempted programs. The prospect of sequestration has thus come to seem so catastrophic that Congress so far has been unwilling actually to let it happen. Instead, Congress has repeatedly chosen simply to raise the Budget Resolution spending caps upward toward the end of the legislative session in order to match the actual totals already appropriated, thus largely wiping out the incentives that the reformed budget procedures were expected to provide for Congress to get better control of the budget deficit."

Wednesday

Today I will work hard because I was bad and didn't come to work yesterday due to a headache. I've already been fairly productive. Last night's debate: in my opinion, Obama won easily. I don't know what the "experts" say; I don't really care. Romney came off as an ass, which is more honest than anything else he's done recently. It was really uncomfortable when they both were trying so hard to have the upper hand and ended up just talking over each other. I enjoy paying attention to non-verbal communication at debates, but it makes something that's infuriating at times even more infuriating. They looked like idiots standing up and slowly walking forward toward the other every time they disagreed with something or thought they weren't getting to talk enough. I yelled at the tv a couple of times telling Romney to sit the hell down! Monday is the next debate. I really want Obama to get a much bigger lead, so I don't have to be worried. He will win; I just don't want any doubt.

Happy Weekend!

Have an enjoyable and relaxing weekend. I am drinking a pumpkin latte. Tomorrow I go play pool; I shall leave early so as to not waste too much time.

Mr. Autumn Man

Onion

That debate was great!

I had fun watching the vp debate. Biden won it a by a landslide in my opinion. I wanted to wipe the grin right off of stupid Paul Ryan's stupid face. It was funny how Biden was just laughing at so much of what Ryan said. That was smart whether or not it was done strategically. At several points, I had to close my eyes to focus on what they were saying because watching them was too distracting with all the smiling and laughing and sipping water. (isn't dehydration a sign of lying?)

Observations: Linguistic, and otherwise

This is the last of my complaints for the day, since I'm home now. But on the train I was reminded of how people's speech has changed. I don't know for how long now, and I don't know if it's a "hipster" thing, or just a young thing, or what, but people elongate their vowels. "It waas niiiiiice. I don't knooooow, I took a naaaaap. yeaaaaah. whateveeerrrr." It's like a horrible blend of sarcasm and apathy. 'Oo, we can't get excited about anything; that would be laaaaame.' The other observation: If working is the responsible thing to do in life, then why are people who do it such morons? If it's responsible and successful, shouldn't its participants be intelligent, likable, successful? Also, it's amazing how negative work makes me!! (although, in my defense, this is a horribly boring job.)

Introversion

Not ready to work

Maybe I have a bad attitude. I hate this job. There, I said it. I'm happy to making something rather than nothing, but it sucks. I was okay just doing research, but when I have to be on the phone, I turn into Wendy Whiner. I ate Jimmy John's for lunch, and I don't even LIKE Jimmy John's; it's so bland and chewy. It's stupid and everything's stupid. I'm irritable. So what's up with that Groupon that was available? I wonder if anyone bought it for us to use for practicing pool. I guess I have nothing to say. bah hum bug. Oh, and I smiled at a girl in the hall, and she didn't change her facial expression. Who DOES that?? People suck. My mom says I didn't use to hate people. ha. I think I started on the wrong foot this morning by turning on CNN, and they were talking around a table about drinking games for tonight's debate. Okay, that's mildly amusing for perusing the internet or chatting with friends, but not for the news. COME ON!! That started it. And I'm out of conditioner so brushing my hair after shower was a pain. I'm just bitching. I am actually trying to think of things to be negative about. I'm in okay spirits; I'm just crabby. Does that make sense? Like, if the world would just cooperate, I'd be in a good mood.

tournament

so, the tournament is in a month and fills up quickly, supposedly. I think it would be about $100 each including everything except food. That's cool. So, I guess it's just whether or not everyone knows about it and whether or not everyone's interested in it, and then actually signing up for it. I wonder if there is a deadline. Anyway, I am back on the phone at work, or supposed to be, BLAGH!!!!! I hate it. I am also totally hungry already.

Guess not

I thought about going out tonight, but since I don't have to, I guess I won't. I have no idea what to eat for dinner. Carrots? blagh not as a meal!

Totally spacing out

Wow. I am realizing how much time today, so far, I have spent doing nothing. I have timed myself twice to see how long I could go without blinking (I made it to a little over a minute! What the hell?! I felt like Jim Lehrer), and I was picturing what people I know are doing right now--maybe they're drinking coffee...maybe they're out smoking...maybe they're in a meeting. I'm also picturing what people in Southern Africa might be doing. Are they farming? Shopping at an outdoor market? I like to do that sometimes...think about some celebrity maybe...are they acting? Are they shopping? Are they watching tv? or someone in an environment so different from this one...someone in a remote village in India, for example. I just wonder...are they carrying water back to their homes? Who knows? But work. WORK!!

Still the worst

I feel happy; I'm so grateful I've been feeling so much better lately. I also have been feeling really good after Monday nights lately; it's really nice and fun. I am thinking about going to hang out more today or tomorrow, but I probably won't. I don't know schedule. I need to find a copy of Haiku Tunnel to watch to make me feel better about my boring temp job.

Ooooh, I Knooooow

Sometimes I hate listening to people talk because they sound so fakey nice. I can't stand that. No personality whatsoever--just scripts. On a related note, I have to work to not take on a Southern accent with the woman I work with; it's hard not to start talking like she talks because she has such a distinct way of talking. I wish I could pull off saying, "GIIIIIIIIRRRRRLLL....you know what I'm saying?" in a Southern accent.

9-5

Back to normal shift starting tomorrow. Sucks in the morning but will be nice at 5:00. I'm going to try to apply to some jobs now, since I've been slacking on that front. The fear is in me because a student loan payment got automatically taken out of my account despite my thinking that I was in deferment still. I should really read those email alerts.

Autumnal Lunch

Tomato soup and apple chicken salad from Cosi...which tastes like a taffy apple and lettuce! I finally remembered to bring my iPod to work, so I can listen to music without going to YouTube for individual videos of songs. They don't allow us to view any music sites, although I was able to listen to Reddit's radio thingie, but no others. I need new songs though; it's sad when you have over 1000 songs and are sick of all of them. Oh well, it'll feel like I'm driving, which will be nice.

Romney Myths

"27 Myths in 38 Minutes"

A little late on my commentary

I watched the debate last night, and I didn't think Mittens did as well as everyone acted like. I think Obama did well, and I Don't think he seemed defensive like I had read. However, I am fairly biased. I know that Romney is just full of lies--he says whatever is necessary--true or not, and so, if you believe him, sure, it seems like he did a good job. But I don't believe him. I think people who think he did well are people who are easily brain-washed. Is that too obnoxious to say?

I had the name all wrong, but it's ALL too relatable

I referred to a movie the other day and called it the wrong thing. It's a movie about a temp, and I thought it was called "The Temp". No, that was a movie, but something very, very different. The movie I was thinking of--that I want to watch again--is "Haiku Tunnel".

Finally, some nice weather!

I love walking in the rain. I couldn't make myself go quickly though, so I got to work ten minutes late by the time I got upstairs. oops. I have to remember to tivo the presidential debate tonight, since I most likely will not be home. It's going to be stupid and super-scripted though. I don't feel like working much today. I brought headphones but forgot ipod. Can you tell I'm just wasting time here? It feels stupid to be writing all this jibber-jabber. Over the weekend I watched a few old presidential debates; they sure are boring. It was kind of interesting though; it's amazing how they are still talking about the same stuff in almost the exact same way. nnnnnnyway. Enjoy your cozy rainy day: look out windows a lot, walk around in it, and drink coffee! For lunch I may have to have grilled cheese and tomato soup.