(no subject)
I feel like I didn't get as much accomplished this week, but I think I have to realize I'm not going to get everything on my list done in a month and slow down a little. I've been tired this week from lack of sleep and doing too much.
However, I did actually get a lot more done this week than say this time last year, or last month for that matter.
I went home to Fernandina (Yulee now) for my dad's 74th birthday. My mom slaved for hours making tamales and I made a tasty cherry pie.
I watched the inauguration online at work since I realized I probably wouldn't make it home before they started it. I thought it was a fun time. I didn't get to see Cheney, but someone said he looked like Old Man Potter from It's a Wonderful Life. I wasn't very pleased with all the God talk and the Amen-ing, but we are in America and the Christians seem to rule everything so I guess I shouldn't be surprised when there is praying and more praying and blessings all around.
I want to preface this by saying that I by no means believe Barack Obama is made of fairy dust and hope blossoms. I'm not fanatical- actually you could barely call me a real fan. I am certainly cautious about getting behind any person, let alone one who decides to go after such a position of power- I don't like blindly following anyone.
However, I could not stop grinning stupidly when I realized that George W. Bush was no longer president. As much as I want to not make race a factor because the more you pay it lip service to it the more you are contributing to the feeling that there is anything different between two people just because their melanin levels are different, I could not help but be ridiculously happy that a brown person is in the White House; that maybe the rest of the country can stop defining each other by the color of their skin; that after all these years of lynching and blind bigotry the people who fought in the Civil Rights movement for equality got to see that their friends didn't die in vain.
I know this all sounds super cliche, and I know we have a long way to go before this country is anywhere near as progressive as I'd like it to be, but it's a start.
I'm also ecstatic to have someone in charge of this country who can actually speak, who taught constitutional law (so at least he knows the constitution exists and what it mostly says), and who wants to change things. Even if I don't agree with everything he does, I can't possibly see it being as bad as or worse than what that retarded, arrogant asshole did to the country.
Now having briefly jumped onto the honey dripping and hope sprinkled Obama loveboat, I will say I intend to watch this administration like a hawk and hopefully get to protest him when he forgets all the fluffy stuff he promised or starts acting like the Republican I fear he might be(come).
To end on a light note I'll leave you with my Inauguration highlights:
- Obama correcting the dude who was giving him the oath
- Aretha Franklin's huge ass bow and all the "ring"-ing involved in my country tis of thee
- The benediction (ARE YOU KIDDING ME???? Did he really just say "so yellow can be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right"?!)
.
I also have some other things from the week.
A) 7 more pictures + captions
DAY 15
This is where I sit and play.
This was all I got today.
I am trying something new this week. I am not allowed to take pictures with the telephoto lens. None whatsoever.
DAY 16
I visited my parents this weekend to celebrate my dad’s birthday. I was following my mom into the garage and was “greeted” by this in her laundry room. She had a wall full of masks and then two clown faces. I was originally horrified by the whole thing, but then I realized that this little bugger was the actual culprit.
I mean look at it!
It looks like it just got done munching on some children!
And I’m not even afraid of clowns!
DAY 17
This is my father. He turned 74 on January 20th.
DAY 18
oh boy.
it was pretty much this or a lamp+book
who doesn’t want to see this?
DAY 19
I bought a bunch of frames from the goodwill today to decorate my walls with. The ladies there gave me weird looks as I took all the frames out of one bin, put them back in and then did it again on the next bin.
I did make out like a bandit though. All but one of the frames was less than $1.
DAY 20
I bought a twin bed sized head board/hutch at the thrift store last week. It was such a great color. So now I'm using it as my desk hutch.
I came home early today after not enough sleep the night before and a horribly boring day at work. I wanted to go to sleep so I didn't want to leave the house to take a picture- but I refused not to take one. Even if that meant I had to take a boring picture and everyone else must suffer for it.
Also, I know I should have probably done something "patriotic" or Obama related today, but living in one of the most Republican counties in Florida makes it hard to find parties to go to.
DAY 21 (double feature picture show)
I pass this orange hut everyday on my way to work taking 441 around Mount Dora, Florida. I decided to stop on my way home today. It looks like left over kitsch from the 50’s or 60’s. For some unknown reason Florida is a kitsch magnet. This always reminds me of the signs for Orange World or whatever it’s called on US 301.
At some point this building was used as a food hut of some sort- there is a sink, some counters and a window that faces the woods.
This is the cropped version. I’ve included the picture below for full detail of the absurdity.
And that's this week's pictures.
B) Album
I listened to Lykke Li's Youth Novels. I believe it came out last year. I'm not really in a mood to review it but I will just say that it was pretty awesome. It's airy and breathy and dancy and sensual, but not a Cocteau Twins kinda way. She's from Sweden by way of a bunch of other countries. I did like that although I'd never heard it before this listening, I felt like I knew the songs. Some might call that predictable or uninspired or just plain crappy and simple. I like to think it feels like home.
Try it for yourselves:
or you can just go here:
http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/playlist/Lykke_li_youth_novels/877196
I'm currently trying to finish Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance since "finishing all the books I started and never finished" is #34 on my list and this one is just begging to be finished. I was already halfway through when I put it down last year but Jesus, I can only take so much of a man talking about the mundane details of his bike ride with his son and then flipping over into metaphysical bullshit. Not that I think the whole book is bullshit- it's actually pretty interesting and not, as you might think given the title, so much about Zen (as of right now). He is mainly concerned with the question "what is quality?" which on the surface you might not think is a problem, but as you follow this guy down this crazy path (and over the plains and through the mountains) you realize it is- or it can be if you really want to think about it that hard. It bothered me that at one point he just made the crazy statement without logically backing it up that "quality is the buddha". Maybe I didn't follow him, maybe he is just making up philosophies to sell books- all this is yet to be determined. I'll keep you guys posted.
When I go home to see my parents, I very seldom leave their house. I don't (usually) have any friends up there and after living in Fernandina for 14 years and extensively exploring it my last two years of high school with Chris, I don't see the point in going into town. This past weekend I may have found a good reason not to go into town ever again. I ran into a couple of people I was friends with when I was there. They still haven't left the island. I don't know why this bothered me so much but it did. I felt sad for them and guilty that I had managed to get out, go to college and live on my own but they hadn't. It might just be that I spent so much time while I was there imagining I was somewhere else by reading books and pouring over atlases that I cannot understand why someone would never leave. I claimed at one point in my adolescence that Fernandina was a black hole, sucking people in and never letting them go. I suppose that's why even when I went to Gainesville and then moved to Mount Dora, that I never quite felt far away enough from it to feel like I'd ever really left. I've also struggled with the idea that although I went to college and I have a degree rolled up in the container it was shipped in lying around here somewhere and I have a job in my field, that I have somehow been a failure. I had nightmares, and still do occasionally, that I never graduated and I still have one more class looming over me. I didn't graduate with honors, or even with a good GPA. I constantly felt like I would never be smart enough, work hard enough, or just have "what it took" to make anything of myself- even if at the time that just meant graduating to me.
But seeing these people who were bright and had such promise still living there makes me feel grateful to have escaped with a C+ average and a diploma, even if it was to just a hundred or so miles away.
And on that note, I will leave you all until next week, or until the fancy strikes me to share something else.
Happy Last Week of January and Happy Chinese New Year!
However, I did actually get a lot more done this week than say this time last year, or last month for that matter.
I went home to Fernandina (Yulee now) for my dad's 74th birthday. My mom slaved for hours making tamales and I made a tasty cherry pie.
I watched the inauguration online at work since I realized I probably wouldn't make it home before they started it. I thought it was a fun time. I didn't get to see Cheney, but someone said he looked like Old Man Potter from It's a Wonderful Life. I wasn't very pleased with all the God talk and the Amen-ing, but we are in America and the Christians seem to rule everything so I guess I shouldn't be surprised when there is praying and more praying and blessings all around.
I want to preface this by saying that I by no means believe Barack Obama is made of fairy dust and hope blossoms. I'm not fanatical- actually you could barely call me a real fan. I am certainly cautious about getting behind any person, let alone one who decides to go after such a position of power- I don't like blindly following anyone.
However, I could not stop grinning stupidly when I realized that George W. Bush was no longer president. As much as I want to not make race a factor because the more you pay it lip service to it the more you are contributing to the feeling that there is anything different between two people just because their melanin levels are different, I could not help but be ridiculously happy that a brown person is in the White House; that maybe the rest of the country can stop defining each other by the color of their skin; that after all these years of lynching and blind bigotry the people who fought in the Civil Rights movement for equality got to see that their friends didn't die in vain.
I know this all sounds super cliche, and I know we have a long way to go before this country is anywhere near as progressive as I'd like it to be, but it's a start.
I'm also ecstatic to have someone in charge of this country who can actually speak, who taught constitutional law (so at least he knows the constitution exists and what it mostly says), and who wants to change things. Even if I don't agree with everything he does, I can't possibly see it being as bad as or worse than what that retarded, arrogant asshole did to the country.
Now having briefly jumped onto the honey dripping and hope sprinkled Obama loveboat, I will say I intend to watch this administration like a hawk and hopefully get to protest him when he forgets all the fluffy stuff he promised or starts acting like the Republican I fear he might be(come).
To end on a light note I'll leave you with my Inauguration highlights:
- Obama correcting the dude who was giving him the oath
- Aretha Franklin's huge ass bow and all the "ring"-ing involved in my country tis of thee
- The benediction (ARE YOU KIDDING ME???? Did he really just say "so yellow can be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right"?!)
.
I also have some other things from the week.
A) 7 more pictures + captions
DAY 15
This is where I sit and play.
This was all I got today.
I am trying something new this week. I am not allowed to take pictures with the telephoto lens. None whatsoever.
DAY 16
I visited my parents this weekend to celebrate my dad’s birthday. I was following my mom into the garage and was “greeted” by this in her laundry room. She had a wall full of masks and then two clown faces. I was originally horrified by the whole thing, but then I realized that this little bugger was the actual culprit.
I mean look at it!
It looks like it just got done munching on some children!
And I’m not even afraid of clowns!
DAY 17
This is my father. He turned 74 on January 20th.
DAY 18
oh boy.
it was pretty much this or a lamp+book
who doesn’t want to see this?
DAY 19
I bought a bunch of frames from the goodwill today to decorate my walls with. The ladies there gave me weird looks as I took all the frames out of one bin, put them back in and then did it again on the next bin.
I did make out like a bandit though. All but one of the frames was less than $1.
DAY 20
I bought a twin bed sized head board/hutch at the thrift store last week. It was such a great color. So now I'm using it as my desk hutch.
I came home early today after not enough sleep the night before and a horribly boring day at work. I wanted to go to sleep so I didn't want to leave the house to take a picture- but I refused not to take one. Even if that meant I had to take a boring picture and everyone else must suffer for it.
Also, I know I should have probably done something "patriotic" or Obama related today, but living in one of the most Republican counties in Florida makes it hard to find parties to go to.
DAY 21 (double feature picture show)
I pass this orange hut everyday on my way to work taking 441 around Mount Dora, Florida. I decided to stop on my way home today. It looks like left over kitsch from the 50’s or 60’s. For some unknown reason Florida is a kitsch magnet. This always reminds me of the signs for Orange World or whatever it’s called on US 301.
At some point this building was used as a food hut of some sort- there is a sink, some counters and a window that faces the woods.
This is the cropped version. I’ve included the picture below for full detail of the absurdity.
And that's this week's pictures.
B) Album
I listened to Lykke Li's Youth Novels. I believe it came out last year. I'm not really in a mood to review it but I will just say that it was pretty awesome. It's airy and breathy and dancy and sensual, but not a Cocteau Twins kinda way. She's from Sweden by way of a bunch of other countries. I did like that although I'd never heard it before this listening, I felt like I knew the songs. Some might call that predictable or uninspired or just plain crappy and simple. I like to think it feels like home.
Try it for yourselves:
or you can just go here:
http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/playlist/Lykke_li_youth_novels/877196
I'm currently trying to finish Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance since "finishing all the books I started and never finished" is #34 on my list and this one is just begging to be finished. I was already halfway through when I put it down last year but Jesus, I can only take so much of a man talking about the mundane details of his bike ride with his son and then flipping over into metaphysical bullshit. Not that I think the whole book is bullshit- it's actually pretty interesting and not, as you might think given the title, so much about Zen (as of right now). He is mainly concerned with the question "what is quality?" which on the surface you might not think is a problem, but as you follow this guy down this crazy path (and over the plains and through the mountains) you realize it is- or it can be if you really want to think about it that hard. It bothered me that at one point he just made the crazy statement without logically backing it up that "quality is the buddha". Maybe I didn't follow him, maybe he is just making up philosophies to sell books- all this is yet to be determined. I'll keep you guys posted.
When I go home to see my parents, I very seldom leave their house. I don't (usually) have any friends up there and after living in Fernandina for 14 years and extensively exploring it my last two years of high school with Chris, I don't see the point in going into town. This past weekend I may have found a good reason not to go into town ever again. I ran into a couple of people I was friends with when I was there. They still haven't left the island. I don't know why this bothered me so much but it did. I felt sad for them and guilty that I had managed to get out, go to college and live on my own but they hadn't. It might just be that I spent so much time while I was there imagining I was somewhere else by reading books and pouring over atlases that I cannot understand why someone would never leave. I claimed at one point in my adolescence that Fernandina was a black hole, sucking people in and never letting them go. I suppose that's why even when I went to Gainesville and then moved to Mount Dora, that I never quite felt far away enough from it to feel like I'd ever really left. I've also struggled with the idea that although I went to college and I have a degree rolled up in the container it was shipped in lying around here somewhere and I have a job in my field, that I have somehow been a failure. I had nightmares, and still do occasionally, that I never graduated and I still have one more class looming over me. I didn't graduate with honors, or even with a good GPA. I constantly felt like I would never be smart enough, work hard enough, or just have "what it took" to make anything of myself- even if at the time that just meant graduating to me.
But seeing these people who were bright and had such promise still living there makes me feel grateful to have escaped with a C+ average and a diploma, even if it was to just a hundred or so miles away.
And on that note, I will leave you all until next week, or until the fancy strikes me to share something else.
Happy Last Week of January and Happy Chinese New Year!