Stolen from My Dad

"Great occasions do not make heroes or cowards; they simply unveil them to the eyes of men. Silently and imperceptibly, as we wake or sleep, we grow strong or weak; and at last some crisis shows what we have become." - Brooke Foss Westcott

It is Finished

Well done, good and faithful servant....

Just plain happy!

Eating my tomato sandwich and sour cream and onion flavored Chex mix, washed down with iced tea. Listening to Regina Spektor's new album, which is amazing! Watching my Boodog love her life for the time being. Waiting for my boyfriend to come home and snuggle while re-watching Arrested Development.

Contentment.

Buffy

This is a last ditch effort to save my dog's life. Please read.

http://www.fundable.com/groupactions/groupaction.2009-07-02.0059254529

Rob Bell

"Because with every action, comment, conversation, we have the choice to invite Heaven or Hell to Earth."

Becoming 80

It's happening... slowly, surely, and I love it! I am now a member of 3 Book Clubs, a knitting club, and a quilting club. I pepper this with a bit of kickball, occasional climbing (very occasional!), even sparser yoga and a LOT of grilling and pooltime. The result has me looking towards retirement in Boca very shortly!

Will's sister had her wee'un and I covet! I told him before it had even happened that I already had the fever and this was just going to make it worse. One little look at Emma and I was sunk! Fortunately, the only thing I want more than a baby is to have a baby with someone who actually wants to have one with me as well. I've never been the type to go all turkey baster on someone's ass..... But, this does not negate the loud ticking going on inside this 27's year old's body!

The summer is beginning splendidly! I am head over heels for a boy who is just as smitten with me. My dogs are growing up and becoming more mature and trustworthy every day. My job is GRRRREEEEAT! (to be read like Tony the Tiger) and I have never loved what I do more! I am reading up a storm and feeling like my brain might actually be returning to pre-drugged state. I've lost about 5 pounds (coming off birth control helps :)) and actually don't feel large and wolly mammoth like in a bathing suit. Got to go with my musical camrade Mike to see the National and was... like whoa... frikkin AMAZING... good gracious, can those guys rock?!?! Going to see the Decemberists on Thursday and have tix to No Doubt next Monday. Will loves Gwen Stefani's legs... but my personality.... boys....

Currently, I'm blogging before returning to my book by Chuck Klosterman, while being serenaded by Sufjan Stevens. Peace is on me.

Gonna Be a Long Night....

Will got an Xbox 360 and Guitar Hero for his birthday (from his fabo girlfriend). Practice commenced about an hour and a half ago and shows no signs of stopping :)

Craptastic

Spending an hour an a half uploading the wrong photos to my scheduler.... I hate my life at 1:44am on my 22nd day of work with no break....

Busy... Like a Beaver

LOVE MY JOB!!! Did I really just say that? It is freakin fabulous! I get to run around in the beautiful sunshine. I get a different job every day! It's never boring (although being predominately female, it gets a little high schoolish there every now and again)... and I am making great money! I'm finally back, after about a year, to making the kind of salary I was at RTP Insurance. There are ups and down, ebbs and flows, but I really see this being something I would enjoy doing longterm, if it were able to stand up to the economy.

I get lazy mornings with Will, where I make him dress up in fabulous free prizes I've procured from events
HAHAHAHAH!!!

I get time to play with Rita and her foster puppy! Cutie Brutus! Brandtson resumed his Michael Jackson affinity for little boy puppies. He doesn't like the girls, but the smaller and more boyish the males... well, let's just say close hugs and thrusting may occur... Brutus seemed to enjoy it and give back some good natured sexual confusion of his own. If you feel like this puppy should be a part of your family, email me and I will send you Rita's contact info!

Going to see Third Eye Blind this weekend!!! WOOOOOOT! They have been a favorite band of mine for years and I would give my left arm to see them live! They are coming Friday to Wilmington and Will and I are taking a quick overnight trip to immortalize them in my ears and eyes!

Other excitement coming soon! Kickball! Concerts! Festivals! Beach! Sunshine!!

Collective Guilt- Slavery, Apartheid, and the 21st Century

So, I've been on this historical biography/documentary kick here recently and have really been challenged by a lot of what I'm reading. Not only am I being faced with the magnitude of great evil human beings manage to inflict on one another- but I've also been encouraged by our extreme desire and capacity to 'right wrongs', administer justice, and administer mercy to the persecuted.

I just finished reading 'From Midnight to Dawn: Last Stops on the Underground Railroad,' which was an eye-opening account of the migration of slaves, freeman, and many abolitionists to Canada pre-Civil War. It's always hard for me to read these stories, because there is a part of me that feels that I have 'no place' identifying with the Black Community. After all, I'm just a white girl in the new millennium. I'm not sure where that feeling comes from, since there should be no excluding factors on sympathy. So, perhaps the issue is that I feel like an impostor EMpathizer, as I have personally never experienced this degree of degradation, humiliation, and injustice at the hands of another racial group.

This seems to be a common feeling in the white kids of my generation. What do we do with our compassion and sympathy? Often, I believe, it is transferred into a sense of false guilt. I've sat in Race Relation seminars where my peers were apologizing to African American counterparts for the actions of their ancestors. This practice has also made a splash in the Evangelical population, where pastors from different denominations, races, and socioeconomic statuses gather to seek true worship and harmony under the guidance of God's grace and forgiveness. I've been particularly moved by these displays, because I desire love, forgiveness, and compassion to be the flavor of the world I live in. But, I have to be honest when I confess....although the gesture is pure, is there any underlying power in the choice for a non-involved party to offer a collective repentance for the sins of their fathers?

This question has lingered with me for a while and definitely been debated amongst my friends. It was only today that I read the answer that resonates the most with me. I am reading 'Country of My Skull,' which is a journalistic retelling of the stories shared during the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, after apartheid ended. As she sets the stage for the establishment of the committee, she questions the very and usefulness of such an entity. Interviewing a Chilean activist (who participated in a similar commission after the brutal reign of Pinochet), she is convinced by his passionate reasoning. He uses the philosophy of Jurgen Habermas (an early 20th century German philosopher) to support his views. This is what I found particularly interesting--

"Collective guilt does not exist. Whoever is guilty will have to answer individually. At the same time, there is such a thing as collective responsibility for a mental and cultural context that makes possible crimes against humanity. One should be aware of the fact that traditions are ambivalent and one should stay critical about traditions and be very clear about what should be continued... South Africa will always need to question its mentality, while communities with a stronger democratic culture will need not do it so often. "

I found this particularly telling in light of just reading about America's own 'crimes against humanity' and the resulting inner dialogue detailed above. This resonates with me. It answers the questions of my Caucasian, American peers. Does it accomplish anything to apologize to our Black friends, neighbors, coworkers apologies for the evils of our fathers? I don't think so. We can cast away guilt for sins we did not commit. Our ancestors answer to a Higher Power for their own transgressions. However, our traditions and culture are, to some extent, suspect because of their impure beginnings. (White) America, like South Africa, will always have to check its mentality towards our brothers and sisters of darker skin.

While we have no power to heal the wounds of the past, we carry the full weight of forging a Christ-like tomorrow.

It's a marvelous night for a snowdance...

So, apparently NC is going to get snow AGAIN before this winter is over!! I've never heard of such madness! 2-6 inches- which will effectively shut the state down tomorrow. While I love snow, I am a little worried that my promo job is going to be canceled or delayed tomorrow... which would have a very unfortunate side effect on my wallet.

I have quit my Marriott job. I am simply not cut out for cubicle work... I need interaction with people and actual work to do. I do not respond well to catering to the rich and elite. I like average people with real needs to be met. This ultimately will transfer into a career in Social Work... but that dream becomes more and more elusive. They never tell you as a child- as they chant the mantra "shoot for the moon, land on the stars"- that moon expeditions are very pricey! After grabbing a look at my finances and realizing that my idealism most likely will not come to fruition at any point in the near future, due to finances AND getting a call from mi padre announcing his impending retirement within the year, I have made the decision to once again store my dreams of the future and buy his business. This is at least a 5 year commitment- meaning unless I can get into and actually have the time to attempt the MSW/MPH program at Carolina simultaneously, I may have a shot at being an ancient grad scholar and interviewed on some heart-wrenching NPR piece over the next decade.

Until this business transaction gets under way, I am Brand Ambassador-ing, Promo Model-ing, Secret Shopping, and Commission selling, aka 'scrapping to get by.' I did the math and can definitely equal what I was making at Marriott with less hours (more dog time :)) and more job satisfaction, until I make the jump to small business owner.

Wish me luck!

I'm not saying this bc I hate blind people....

Finally caught up on some American Idol. Hollywood week- blind kid suuuuuucks with his piano. I'm all about kids with disabilities being given the same opportunities as kids without... but not through some misguided Affirmative Action.... kick the blind kid off!

Contentment

Heya folks!

Valentine's Day got a WHOLE weekend this year!!! Considering a) I haven't had a 'real' Valentine in like 5 years and b) Will and I haven't had two whole days where we both were off work and had nothing to do since we started dating- this rocked my world!!

With a series of small, cheap dates and spending time with friends and family... it was the most relaxing time I've had in quite some time! Will got me lilies- my favorite flowers :) This makes me SUPER happy!

We also got to watch 30 min of what may be the greatest prize possession I now own. Apparently, about 20 years ago (oh.my.god.... saying that out loud makes me feel VERY old), my second cousin filmed a family gathering after a funeral. My uncle, who owns a videography company, remastered it for everyone for Christmas. Me, being the lazy ass I am, just got it from my mom. It was a precious (and solitary) piece of footage of my precious sister at 5- and a snapshot of my adoration for my grandfather. I sat and watched 30 minutes and sobbed. Good tears.

First real Valentine's Day in 6 year. Love the one you are with.

SNOW!!!

More to come....

They are here now....My chilluns enjoying snow! Love their faces.

mmmmkay

This is a pretty dense post... fyi... but REALLY well written. A friend of mine (Grad student at UNC) wrote it. I happen to agree with much of what he is saying. You may not- but it is certainly thought provoking.....


One of the most amusing trends in the last few weeks is the tacky hipster cottage industry that has grown up around Barack Obama's coming inauguration. Music videos, movies, children's books and even Spider Man comics are being devoted to a middle aged guy who likes aregula, or however you spell it. This is the sort of faddish, teenage behavior usually reserved for American Idol stars or the protagonists in vampire films, not a guy whose main job will include speeches at General Mills about how the nation needs more fiber in its diet, and receiving briefings on monetary policy. If these are considered "cool" nowadays, then cool has really changed since I graduated high school, when just the RUMOR that you could read the Periodic Table was a guaranteed pounding – I bet Obama could get all the way to Nitrogen. But sure enough, artists, college kids and rappers – the very bedrock of society – swear by Obama's anti-authority, nonconformity, and novelty. Which shows how easy it will always be to fool people so young that to them, 10th helpings looks like fresh produce.


First lets tackle anti-authority. I often get lectures from Chapel Hill's finest minds about the dreadful effect of Christianity/talk radio/Fox News on the free-thinking of its adherents, listeners and viewers. The idea behind these articulations often seems to boil down to the notion that people who like government growth are go against the flow, nuanced, and original, but that people who disdain government growth are sheepish, chaw-spitting followers who probably haven't even seen Supersize Me. Basically, anyone standing in the way of Obama's desire to ratify more spending on one of several programs that already get 500 billion dollars must be a boring corporate fascist. This is really funny stuff, because there are few things more authoritarian than the ideas which construct the worldview of supporters of government growth.


First, the idea that vocally supporting the growth of the largest, most well-armed, surveillance-capable, bureaucratic entity in literally the history of time is somehow fighting the man is so wrong that new words would be needed to properly explain how wrong it is. It's zagongic, or even crumptilian. People who think they're being edgy or somehow fighting corporations by enabling (one might say embiggening) the growth and empowering of an entity that's much larger than any industry (let alone corporation) in the nation isn't radical – it's radically ignorant. Fueled by visions of mom and dad making them dress up to go to the Olive Garden, people my age have this bizarre idea that corporations and economists and the free market hold them in a stall, and that only the blessed and noble touch of government, a.k.a. coercion and force, can fight back against their wicked overlords. Wrong wrong wrong. The biggest corporation in America can't lift a finger against me if I refuse to buy its goods, or even if I start a campaign calling them fascists, murderers, or worse. How far do you think a citizen would get if they said those things about a high-ranking government official (particularly if they lived in Chicago)? Government can use force, government can take your wealth away, government is the man – not Walmart (unless the government bails it out), which sells you delicious pez by the bucketload. See that thing called a standing army? See that IRS? See those smoking and fireworks bans? If supporting the growth of these things makes you a revolutionary, then the 1960's are officially dead, and I will personally give a wedgie to the next teenager who campaigns in my doorway. He'll probably cry all over his Che shirt. Growing the government is authoritarian, growing the responsibility of citizens is anti-authority. Obama is not anti-authority.


Some of my favorite morons were the people telling me in 2004 how Bush and Cheney would take over and never give up power, aided by their evil…guns and tax cuts. That's brilliant; Bush and Cheney are fascists who are going to take over with…their shrunken government and armed populace? If you want to run an authoritarian state, you need huge bureaucracies, high taxes, and a monopoly on guns – the very opposite of what Bush promised (ironically, many people still think Bush, who grew government faster than anyone except LBJ, is a shining model of a conservative/libertarian – these are people who DO know how to spell aregula, but tend not to know what the Z in the Nazi acronym stands for). Obama appears to be one of these people.


A second amusing tidbit is the idea that Obama is promoting nonconformity. Let's say that you asked a bunch of Tobacco scientists whether smoking was deadly and they denied it. Would you take them at face value? No, because their pay depends on them agreeing with Philip Morris and toeing the line. Now, say you take a bunch of free citizens who supposedly value freedom and independent-mindedness, and make them dependent on the government for public education, social…er, universal health care, social security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, housing subsidies, bailouts, license plates, zoning documents, and restaurant sanitation scores. These are our paragons of freedom and rebelliousness? You take 300 million individuals with their own dreams and goals and hopes and you give them all the same state-run monopolies to solve problems, and that's diverse and nonconformist? Intriguing. Far from promoting individuality, the government tends to promote dependence on a uniform, one-size-fits-all mentality. Taken too far, the government is a pusher and people who want it to grow are its loyal junkies, who need its product daily to function. "Steal this Book" should be reprinted in a new edition as "Filing Form 1240A while Saving a Bundle." Anti-corporation types love to accuse the rich of being under the sway of private sector money, but seem oblivious to the fact that once the government controls your medicine, your guns, and your income, you're a bought and paid for man or woman – you'll follow orders, or you'll pay. Just ask the Cubans.


Once you depend on the government (i.e. your neighbors) for your most important provisions, you have practically zero scope to talk about being hip and deviant – essentially, you're in an early nursing home, but with fewer transfats to choose from. This is what makes our university's abundance of "free-thinking" big-government supporting youngsters so gleefully amusing – by demanding that everyone in the U.S. get the same medicine, more similar salaries, the same education, they're supporting the ultimate conformity. C'mon guys, let's listen to our college professors and all deviate – the same exact way. At least our parents wrote some good music when they went through their "phase". Could this be the first time in history that parents (who nowadays actually are worried about getting enough fiber in their diets) are cooler than their kids? Obama seems to be counting on it. Sounding hip on The Daily Show doesn't make you a rebel, letting people choose their lives like adults and tolerating them when they choose poorly makes you a rebel, at least in this day and age.


The most incredible positive trait linked to Obama is that he is a novel agent in politics, a notion based, as best I can tell, on the fact that he is young and has a change-themed campaign slogan which he purloined from someone else (I'll be generous here and assume that no one voted for him because of his new skin color, which would be properly described as "racism"). I assume the above, because his policy proposals, which in their simplest form become, "the man in charge takes your things by force and uses them to maintain political power" are as old as the first tribal chieftain. Autocrats, both kind and wicked, petty and powerful, have been using taxes and the power over people they can buy to hold power since there were people, sometimes by trading in soldiers and sometimes by trading in universal health care. But the result is the same – you can get enough of the people to support you by fear or by reliance to keep yourself and your buddies in charge. In its most grisly incarnations, we call this tyranny. But even in its kinder form, which we call democracy, it is leadership based on force and taking. A man who grabs in 4 year intervals grabs just as surely as one who does it for life. Obama is just one in a great lineage of grabbers; there is nothing new here.


The real tragedy of democracy as practiced by men like Obama is that because the threats and the force come from 51% of the people, they are obscured as such. Even if Obama and his pals (who probably by and large drink their own soup, and mean well) benefit greatly from reallocations, this will be obscured in the good that comes of the trillions of dollars that will be taken from some and given to others. But the fact that it DID get taken from some, the fact that each dollar taken destroyed more than a dollar somewhere else (because it had to go through the government bureaucracies), means that in the aggregate, damage and not good was done. Some poor were helped, more were hurt. And the help was paid for with blood money of sorts, taken involuntarily from funds that might have gone to retirement, or college tuitions for kids…no amount of description can adequately deride the shell and ball game that is government redistribution, which can be new only in form, not content.


So Obama isn't all he's cracked up to be, despite Marvel Comics' attempt to cash in on his inauguration. Should we cry about it? No, because it's actually great news. The minute one realizes that the government can't really help you (or if it does only in an erratic, corrupt, and dependency-inducing fashion), then you revert to being a private citizen instead of a zombie. All the things the government claims it can do for you or for the poor people you care about, you can do better.


Because you live in a (mostly) free market, you are free to do the one thing that has ever helped the poor without making people poor somewhere else: create jobs. Not by government fiat, but via some new idea – a novel semiconductor, a new food, a new book, a new social networking site. By figuring out a way to do more with less, you increase what is called productivity – you make the pie itself larger, rather than simply changing the relative size of the slices. These things, not Obama's policies, are what is fresh and new in America, except these things are always fresh and new. We don't need an election for the free market to function – it's simply a codephrase for free people, and they're always making life better for us behind the scenes, regardless of what your professor told you.


You can do charity better than the government too, because you can decide who gets it and who doesn't, who needs it truly and who is simply gaming the system. You will do microfinance, you will do faith-based recovery programs, you will do secular dressed-for-success programs, you will give no charity because you're too busy working 80 hour weeks as an inventor and advancing technology, which has done more to help the material state of the needy than all the good intentions and charitable organizations the stout-hearted ever dreamed up – and that's no insult, because functionally you want both to exist. By solving problems that government zombies said couldn't be done without force and threats from above, you will be showing yourself to be a greater nonconformer than Obama and his gaggle of dunderheads ever will, and you didn't even have to spend half your life getting elected to do it.


The greatest finger into the eye of authority in our time is found almost entirely outside of politics – it is the life of the citizen who is content to enjoy the blessings of freedom while being unenvious of the rich, unsupportive of entitlement yet gracious in private givings, steadfast in private principles and religion yet tolerant of deviation, and free to enjoy God, family, and countless constructive pursuits. Reliance on government is the great corrosive to this way of thriving, and pity, not anger, is due to those not yet amongst its detractors

-Nick Baldasaro

Simple Economics

Love the dollar fifty movie theater. Will and I went on a $3 date yesterday! Amazing! Saw Eagle Eye- definitely worth seeing. Although, it is very difficult for me to see Shia as anything but the nerd from Even Stevens....

Side note... I am angry at the word 'definitely." It mocks me with its spelling, as I firmly believe that it should be spelled "definately," definitely.

And the Verdict is....

Guilty secret- I watch American Idol... I hate myself a little more every morning, but it's true.

That said, who the fuck is Kara Dioguardia? So flippin annoying and stuck-up.... I hope she falls and breaks her face....

Blind guys should not be given high fives. If you make the mistake of attempting to give a blind man a high five, you should not then reach down and touch his pocketed hand, saying 'I'm giving you a high five.' A) Clearly that has become a low 5 at this point and B) you look like a douche...

If you frequently audition for jobs- wear a bikini. I am not ashamed to say- that girl's ass was out of this world! If only... le sigh....

H to the izzo-O!

Heya folks!



Christmas and New Years came and went with little activity. It was super relaxed and I got to spend great time with friends and family! I have pictures of these said festivities, but I'm damn lazy about getting them off my camera... patience, grasshoppers...

Started my new job at Marriott and finally am getting into the swing of things a bit. It's definately a new experience, in addition to being a startup initiative... so the job description itself is a little hazy right now. Hopefully, that will begin to clear up and allow me to have clear goals and expectations for my day-to-day routine! Top perk definately has to be the free lunch.. woot woot! I may gain poundage... or maybe I will try out the free gym membership.... we'll see!

Getting psyched about kickball this spring! Gonna rock D-town and the Capital in ways never even heard of before :P I've also joined a Meetup group to train for a 1/2 marathon. We'll see how long I stay motivated ;)

I am definately beginning to worry that my entire state of mind is dependent on the anticipation of my next meal... watch out for me on 'The Biggest Loser!'