It's oh so quiet

Well it has been on this blog for the last two months anyway. Not so much in my life.
I can say that adventure has been absent in my life, but stress has been plentiful. I won't bore you with the details. I will simply mention that I ended the quarter with a perfect 4.0 GPA, ended my University of Washington career with a cum GPA of 3.91. (not perfect, but not bad). As well, I took the LSAT test.

WEEE! I find out my score in a couple of weeks. I am predicting a score of 155. Not low enough to suck, but not high enough to ensure law school victory. Just enough to be perfectly mediocre.
My plans for the summer include:
taking beginning Danish. I know how to say "thanks for the meal," but I feel i should know more before i spend 3.5 months in Denmark.








finishing up wedding gift knitting









taking banjo lessons


and depending on lessons, buying a banjo.












I'll keep you posted on my progress. Also, let me know if you know someone who would like to be my tour guide while in Copenhagen.
Farvel!

Flickr Game

I kifed this from my friend, OwlandAcorn.

the concept:
a. type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. using only the first page, pick an image.
c. copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

The Questions:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name.

Check out my Flickr page to see the links!

a gift for we!

earlier this today, i signed up for owl and acorn's pay it forward exchange. the idea is that she sends me, and two others, something in the next year, and in return, i pay it forward by doing the same. so here's the game:



“The idea of the exchange is I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on this blog post requesting to join this PIF exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet, and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.”

so...anyone up for it? due to recent stress on my pocketbook, i'm going to limit this to u.s. people only. first three who speak up will get something fun from me!

Coffee Talk

Let's take a break from political pandering. I can't assume all eyes are on the United states Democratic race, but it is neck and neck and talk of sharing the ticket has begun. So, really the decision seems to be about who will be the headliner of the show. With that said a break is in order.
As some of you many know, I like to spotlight parts of the world that take an interest in my blog in a series I am calling, "This is your life."
Well, Brno, this is yours...

Brno (IPA: [ˈbr̩.no] (help·info); German: Brünn) is the second-largest city in the Czech Republic. It was founded in 1243 although the area had been settled since the 5th century. Today Brno has over 380,000 inhabitants and is the seat of the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic, Supreme Court, and Supreme Prosecutor's Office.

Geography
Brno is located in the southeast part of the country, at the confluence of the Svitava and Svratka rivers. The city is a political and cultural hub of the South Moravian Region (estimated population of 1,130,000 for the whole region). At the same time, it represents the centre of the province of Moravia, one of the historic lands of the Czech Crown. It is situated at the crossroads of ancient trade routes which have joined northern and southern European civilizations for centuries. Due to its location between the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands and the Southern Moravian lowlands, Brno has a moderate climate.

History
Brno as such was acknowledged to be a town in 1243 by Václav I, King of Bohemia, but the area itself had been settled since the 5th century. From the 11th century, a castle of the governing Přemyslid dynasty stood here, and was the seat of the non-ruling prince.

During the mid-14th century Brno became one of the centers for the Moravian regional assemblies, whose meetings alternated between Brno and Olomouc. These regional authority organs made decisions on political, legal, and financial questions. They were also responsible for the upkeep of regional records.

During the Hussite Wars, the city remained faithful to King Zikmund. The Hussites twice laid siege to the city, once in 1428 and again in 1430, both times in vain.

During the Thirty Years' War, in 1643 and 1645, Brno was the only city to successfully defend itself from Swedish sieges, thereby allowing the Austrian Empire to reform their armies and to repel the Swedish pressure. In recognition of its services, the city was rewarded with a renewal of its city privileges. In the years following the Thirty Years' War, the city became an impregnable baroque fortress. In 1742, the Prussians vainly attempted to conquer the city, and the position of Brno was confirmed with the establishment of a bishopric in 1777.

In the 18th century, development of industry and trade began to take place, which continued into the next century. Soon after the industrial revolution, the town became one of the industrial centres of Moravia — sometimes it even being called the Czech Manchester. In 1839, the first train arrived in Brno. Together with the development of industry came the growth of the suburbs, and the city lost its fortifications, as did the Spielberg fortress, which became a notorious prison to where not only criminals were sent, but also political opponents of the Austrian Empire. Gas lighting was introduced to the city in 1847 and a tram system in 1869. Mahen Theatre in Brno was the first building in the world to use Edison's electric lamps.

During the "First Republic" (1918 - 1938) Brno continued to gain importance — it was during this period that Masaryk University was established (1919), the state armory (Československá Statni Zbrojovka Brno) was established (1919), and the Brno Fairgrounds were opened in 1928 with an exhibition of contemporary culture. The city was not only a centre of industry and commerce, but also of education and culture. Famous people who lived and worked in the city include Gregor Mendel, Leoš Janáček, Viktor Kaplan, Jiří Mahen, and Bohuslav Fuchs.

In 1939 Brno was annexed by Nazi Germany along with the rest of Moravia and Bohemia. After the war, the ethnic German population of approximately 270,000 was expelled.

Brno today

The Augustinian Abbey of St Thomas, Brno.
St. Peter and Paul Cathedral
Courtyard of the Špilberk Castle
Gate of the Old City Hall
Dominikánská Street in the city centre
Villa Tugendhat
Brno Exhibition CenterBrno Exhibition Center, established in 1928, is the city's premier attraction for international business visitors. Annually, over 1 million visitors attend over 40 professional trade fairs and business conferences held here. In 2007, the center hosted the 14th Meeting of Central European Presidents, and a Rolling Stones concert. Exhibition and convention industry contributes heavily to the region’s economy, while 90% of Czech population associate Brno with trade shows. Thanks to its excellent infrastructure with modern facilities, Brno Exhibition Center has a prominent position in the region. Therefore, Brno can be nicknamed the capital of trade fairs of Central Europe.
Masaryk University, located in Brno, is the second biggest public university-type school in the Czech Republic and the first in Moravia. Today, it consists of nine faculties, more than 190 departments, institutes and clinics. It is recognised as one of the most significant institutions of education and research in the Czech Republic and a respected Central Europe university with democratic traditions advocated since its establishment in 1919.
Špilberk Castle is one of the principal monuments, as is the Cathedral of St. Peter and Paul, also known as Petrov. The cathedral was built during the 14th and 15th centuries. Its bells ring noon at 11 a.m., a tradition since the siege by the Swedes in 1645.
The town has a long history of motor racing. The first races were run as a checkpoint for the Vienna – Breslau race in 1904; in the 1920s, the town hosted the Brno – Soběšice hillclimb race; and in the 1930s, all races were held on the street course called Masaryk Circuit which led through the streets of the western part of the town and neighbouring villages, such as Bosonohy and Žebětín. A series of Czechoslovakian Grand Prix was held from 1930 to 1935, in 1937 and also once after the war, in 1949. Since 1968, Brno has been a permament fixture on the European Touring Car Championship (ETCC) series, and has held motorcycle races since 1965. The road course ceased to be used at the end of 1986 when all motorsport activities resumed at the new permanent Masaryk Circuit, which was completed in 1985 in the northwest section of the town. Among other events, it hosts the Moto GP series. The Czech Moto Grand Prix in 2006 was won by Loris Capirossi.
Ignis Brunensis, an international fireworks competition, is held each June. The show attracts more than 200,000 spectators regularly.
Villa Tugendhat, a unique example of modern functionalistic architecture, designed by Mies van der Rohe and built in the late 1920s close to the centre of the city, was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2002. Another renowned architect who changed significantly the modern shape of Brno was Arnošt Wiesner. Many of his functionalistic buildings can be found all around the city.
In the 1990s, after more than 70 years of discussion, the city council decided to build a new main train station farther from the centre of the town and to develop a more modern area of the town, which is currently occupied by train track. This plan has been criticised for its possible economical and ecological consequences. The whole Brno railway junction is to be reconstructed, which is very complicated due to its 170 years of development since the first train came to Brno from Vienna in 1839. The construction is projected to finish in 2017. After municipal elections in autumn 2006 this project has been put on hold by new city leadership and it appears that an upgraded main station in the city center will be reconsidered.
The Brno University of Technology, established in 1899, has been developing the Czech Technology Park since 1995.
Every September, Brno is home to a large wine festival (Slavnosti vína) to celebrate the harvest in the surrounding wine-producing region. [1]
Hantec is a unique dialect that originated in Brno, however most peoples' knowledge of it is restricted to a few words.
Brno is the home to the highest courts in the Czech judiciary. The Supreme Court is on Burešova Street, the Supreme Administrative Court is on Moravské náměstí (English: Moravian Square), and the Constitutional Court is on Joštova Street. This makes Brno a second capital of the Czech Republic — or would, if the constitution didn't define the capital as being solely Prague. Thus, Brno might be thought of as the "capital of the judicial branch of government" in the Czech Republic.

So, relax, kick your shoes of and take a visit.
Brno: for a day or a lifetime


(thank you to wikipedia. Without it this post would not have been possible.)

lights, camera, action!

1. Pick 10 of your favorite movies.
2. Go to IMDb and find a quote from each movie.
3. Post them here for everyone to guess.
4. Strike it out when someone guesses correctly, and put who guessed it and the movie.
5. Looking them up is cheating, please don't.

Can you guess mine?
1. "I'm ready to quit this dump, I really am. Ray won't let me wear my glasses on stage, then Ian gets pissed because I can't do any of the tricks, I mean I'm only legally blind. I could understand if I wanted to wear my glasses on my tits, but nobody in this dump is looking at my face anyway." Desperately Seeking Susan. Go Kat Go!
2. "Fair! WHO'S THE FUCKING NIHILIST HERE! WHAT ARE YOU, A BUNCH OF FUCKING CRYBABIES?" the big lebowski. Cousin Coquette
3. "Sometimes there's things more important than pit beef."
4. "Have you ever had two people look at you, with complete lust and devotion, through the same pair of eyes?" Being John Malkovich Martine
5. "Look out the window. And doesn't this remind you of when you were in the boat, and then later than night, you were lying, looking up at the ceiling, and the water in your head was not dissimilar from the landscape, and you think to yourself, 'Why is it that the landscape is moving, but the boat is still?'"
6. "Only grown-up men are scared of women."
7. "You know, Mr. Bernstein, if I hadn't been very rich, I might have been a really great man."
8. "Look. They drummed you right outta Hollywood! So ya come crawlin' back to Broadway. Well, Broadway doesn't go for booze and dope."
9. "What's the most you ever lost on a coin toss."
10. "I knew this girl who like had this crazy freak out because she took too many behavioral meds at once and she like ripped off her clothes, and dove into the fountain at Ridgedale Mall and was like, 'Blah I am a Kracken from the sea!'"Juno Kat again

The Unanswered Movies
3. Pecker
5. Dead Man
6. The Sound of Music
7. Citizen Kane
8. Valley of the Dolls
9. No Country for Old Men

should auld aquaintance be forgot

Yet another year has been swept under the rug and the time has come to wax retrospective, or wane if one should so fancy.
The past year paraded many disappointments under my nose. For instance, drinking red wine started giving me sniffles this year. This was a slap in the pants and not in the way I tend to enjoy. Quite the contrary.
What else? Oh, I've become a grump and that means everyone has managed to piss me off enough to make me not want to be friends any more. Luckily, I've managed by drinking heavily and venting to the people who aren't currently pissing me off. I foresee this biting me in the ass in the upcoming year. I blame it on stress-induced episodes and momentary lapses in judgement.
My ass has seen a lot more of my couch. subsequently, my pants are seeing a lot more of my ass. I blame it on stress-induced episodes and momentary lapses in judgement.
my grandma died. that really sucked. and the years of her being sick even more so.
i wasted time with yet another waste of a roommate. this one may have been the worst. she left fecal matter on the toilet seat on a regular basis--YUCK!!
the relief is that it's all over.
i discovered bloody marys, my mouth keeps my day planner from over flowing, i've caught up on a bunch of premium television, my grandma is finally resting, i have a good roommate for once who can drop a deuce without her ass exploding! and most importantly, I fell in love. this was quite a shock, because I was convinced that love was a cliche novelty that didn't go with any of my shoes. Fortunately, love brought shoes with him! my insecurity about relationships seems to be dissolved. and my disdain for man almost completely gone as well. this is a good feeling and Harpo is a good man.
So, what do I want from the upcoming year?
I want to be done with school (for now). and I will be in June (for now)!
I want to travel.
I want to lose weight and some moles.
I want more time for myself.
I want to tell people "no."
I want to be content.



the good news is, I think all of my wants for the year are attainable. I'll let you know how far I get on my list next year. for now, prospero ano y felicidad.

This Week in Print

As all of my adoring fans have probably noticed, I have fallen off the map. While I've been absent, I've still been obsessing over my blog hits. Apparently, I am a hit with the gay Parisiennes on the other side of the pond. who knew?
Anyway, I figured to make up for my absence that I would post what has been occupying my times. (because everyone loves to read college essays, right?) whether you do or don't will determine whether you read or won't. if for nothing else you can know what has been making me crazy lately.

The Dream is the Truth
Zora Neale Hurston’s novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, is often described as one woman’s journey of self-discovery. While I believe this to be an accurate analysis overall, it is not sophisticated enough. By describing the journey of one’s self, Hurston is able to accomplish an immense depth of collective understanding. In this story of self-discovery there are outlines of gendered norms and societal restraints. Hurston employs vivid metaphors of pollen, entanglement and inner self to personify roles of agency. Through the use of these metaphors she is able to depict one woman’s path to discovering how norms and society play a role in shaping circumstances and how these circumstances shape people. Through Hurston’s words Janie embarks on a journey of self-discovery and through this discovery of Janie’s self there is also an unspoken understanding of women as a whole.
The first paragraph of Hurston’s novel addresses man’s agency in post-Civil War America. Hurston artfully describes the ambitions of men, “ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board” (Hurston 1). This implies that men have their dreams right in front of them. They can see them and they can aspire toward them. The following two sentences describe the difference between men. This sentence refers to those who are privileged, “for some they come in with the tide” (1). The reader has to decide for whom wishes come in with the tide. It is never explicitly stated but Hurston seems to allude to a racial and a class divides. The well-off are white and only need to wait for the tide to come in. Other men are not so lucky: “for others they sail forever on the horizon” (1). The horizon represents a condition of not having. The horizon is always in front of oneself and always just out of reach, the same way that tomorrow never comes. Wishes then become something that is dangled in front of these men. This implies an expectation inherent to masculinity. Until eventually the sun sets on their horizon. This lifetime of fruitless dreaming is what defines the life of men who are in want. The only similarity between these two men lies in the amount of inaction with regard to the perusal of dreams. We do not see men asserting themselves and having the fruits of their labor rewarded. Instead, we see some men waiting and other men watching. Either way, we are not seeing men pursuing and taking. Instead, they are simply acted upon with the changing whims of the tide. This negates a state of willful agency.
The second paragraph sets up the normative dichotomy between men and women. Men sit in wait for their dreams. Women, on the other hand, seem to take more initiative regarding their dreams, without actually executing power. Instead of steadfastly watching one’s dreams, women employ the art of selective remembrance. They figure out the situations that are out of their control. “Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember, and remember everything they don’t want to forget” (1). Their selective memory becomes their reality. This helps them deal with the hardship in life that is unfathomable and equally intolerable. They exercise agency when they can and forget about the instances they cannot. This act of willful amnesia makes an unbearable life bearable. They acknowledge they lack power in some situations and attempt to navigate around that the best they can. This creates a state of willfulness, without necessarily creating a space for agency. Understanding these first paragraphs helps one negotiate the constant strife between the sexes in this novel. Men and women are inextricably bound together. However, women’s acceptance of reality seems to undermine the men who are not satisfied with the dream being the truth.
There are many intersecting themes throughout the novel that flesh out the tension and ambiguity between men and women. Understanding love and marriage is one of these critical themes that helps navigate gender relations in this novel. Janie describes the union of love in the poetic language of birds and bees. She spends her time examining love and marriage while outstretched underneath the shade of a pear tree. She is witness to flies tumbling, interconnected, “marrying and giving in marriage” and, through a haze of pollination, she finds love and kisses Johnnie Taylor (11). We will see the critical themes of bound interconnectedness, pollen, inner self and issues of agency continue throughout the novel.
Pollen-induced haze and lying beneath the pear tree are also reoccurring symbols throughout the novel. They symbolize the haze of romanticism and Janie’s attempt to make the truth the dream. She wants the elements of marriage to be sweet, like when one sits under the pear tree to think. When her first marriage does not bring her this, she begins to stand near the gate and wait for something, like when she got her first kiss from Johnnie Taylor (23). It is at this point that she comes to realize marriage does not automatically bring love. Her dream had died, “so she became a woman” (24). Pollen imagery returns when she is describing the realization of her shattered dream of marriage with Joe. She is described as having “no more blossomy openings dusting pollen over her man.” She was no longer subdued by the haze of love and realized the truth was not the dream. The dream was merely a cloak for the man to wear (68). She forgot about love and molded her dream to fit the truth.
We see the shaping of dreams in relation to truth through Janie’s proximity to self, which is directly reflected by the circumstances of her life. We see this during her first marriage to Logan Killicks. Prior to her marriage, she believes that husbands and wives love each other without question. So she “went on inside to wait for love to begin” (21). The inside alluded to in this passage refers to Janie’s inner self. This is the first time we see her altering the proximity to herself. This is a continuing thread throughout the novel. We see it again in chapter 6 with Joe Starks. She is described as not being “petal-open” with him anymore. She came to this realization immediately after the first time he administered a beating upon her. Following the incident, she felt something fall “off the shelf inside her.” She looked inside herself and realized it was her dream of Joe. This is the point in the novel when she addresses that she has an inside and an outside and they are not meant to mix (68). If she can separate her emotions from herself, then she can make her dream of Joe the truth.
Janie’s final marriage is a turning point in the novel. Through Tea cake we see the culmination of imagery introduced to us so far. For instance, we get to see reference to Janie’s inside and outside again. Janie and Tea Cake had just left Eatonville and been married. Janie had brought along some safety money, which Tea Cake had stolen and lost while gambling. Tea Cake promised that he would win it back. This passage comes after his return. He has been injured in an altercation after winning back Janie’s money. Janie observes him drifting off to sleep. As she looks down upon him while he sleeps, she describes feeling a “soul-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place” (122). It is interesting that she does not use the typical imagery of pollinated haze to describe a joyous love embrace or an ecstatic shiver (11). Instead the love she feel is one that crushes with its embrace. Therefore, her soul cannot gaily frolic out from its hiding place. Her soul, so crushed by the weight of her love for Tea Cake, can do nothing but crawl out from its hiding place. This suggests a lack of willfulness. Perhaps it was only the crushing that squeezed it out in the first place.
Through Tea Cake we see the reemergence of tangled bodies of relationships and are introduced to a complicated matter of intimacy. In chapter 15, Janie learns how jealousy feels. She believes that Tea Cake is cheating and confronts him with a blow. We then see them fighting from room to room. All the while, Janie is flailing and Tea Cake is holding her wrists in restraint. They continue, tangled, until their clothes are ripped away and Tea Cake hurls Janie onto the floor. In this passage we see and eroticism of their violent struggle. We also see a quagmire between want and volition. Saidiya Hartman examines this perplex in her work looking at racial justifications for the sexual subjugation slave women. In this violent encounter, the “language of passion expresses the essential conflation of force and feeling” (Hartman 79). However, during slave era there was a defined evil—the slave holder. In the climate of the novel, there is no defined evil outside of the slave system. Tea Cake holds her down until her resistance is melted away. They continue, tangled, doing with their bodies what cannot be expressed with words (Hurston 132). Is this a desired sexual encounter or is this seductive duress? We see the same conversation popping up in nineteenth century theory, through the work of Pamela Haag. It seems the conversation is unfinished through the unspoken norms in Tea Cake and Janie’s relationship.This portion of text illuminates the “evocatively ambiguous relations of power” between Janie and Tea Cake under which an imperfect choice was made (Haag 3). If she had continued to struggle, the reality would have been rape. The melting of resistance gives a space to Janie to refuse the existence of forced coercion. The sex they engage in is full of passion, not force, so Janie can make the dream of passionate love her truth.
The struggle continues. In this case it is man versus animal: Tea Cake versus a dog. This is during the hurricane that drives them to higher ground. After falling into flood water, Janie latches onto a cow to avoid drowning. There is a vicious dog on the cow and she is in danger of being bitten. Tea Cake dives into the water and rushes to her rescue. The dog was strong and Tea Cake was exhausted. Tea Cake was unable to kill the dog with one stab of the knife, but the dog was also unable to free himself from Tea Cake’s grip. They fought in a tangled mess, with the dog’s teeth in Tea Cake’s flesh and Tea Cake’s knife in the dog’s flesh. They are eventually separated when the dog dies, leaving Tea Cake with what will eventually become a mortal wound (Hurston 157).
The struggle of entanglement concludes when Tea Cake is consumed by rabies. He becomes as blood-thirsty as the dog that bit him. Inside of him was a need to kill. Unfortunately, Janie was the only living thing in his sight. She was forced to shoot him and as he crashed toward the floor, Janie lunged to catch him. As the two bodies came together, Tea Cake sinks his teeth into Janie’s flesh and they crash to the ground a tangled mess (175). Interconnectedness, as we see it in this novel, addresses the need of reliance upon another person. It is safety in numbers and it is circumstance binding people and things together, for better or worse.
The conclusion of the book echoes the metaphorical sentiments of the beginning. Janie says that she has been to the horizon and back. She has served to embody the dreams of Tea Cake and she sailed in just as the sun was setting on his horizon. In the end, “she pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net…so much of life in its meshes” (184). . She had so much life in her fish-net’s meshes, so she pulled it in. She was not watching the horizon, dotted with ships at a distance which forever hold the dreams of men. Instead, she remembered Tea Cake because he was everything that she did not want to forget. She beckoned her soul back inside for the last time. Then there was peace and the dream was the truth.
In conclusion, by analyzing pollen, entanglement and inner self we are witness to the distinct differences between men and women in regard to personal agency. Men wish upon ships at a distance; while women accept the facts. This puts men in the position of being blameless victims; while women seem to be more responsible for their hardship. These diverging perspectives cause ambiguity: who is the oppressor and who is the victim? The ambiguous state of blame serves to inform the relationships of tension between men and women throughout the novel. In the end, Janie discovers herself and she represents the journey required of women during that time period. Hurston’s words describe a tale of self-discovery, but what is left unsaid details the difficult road of collective discovery for women in the post-slave era.

I'm hoping this maintains or boosts my GPA as opposed to bring it down. This class has been the most challenging for me in regard to meeting my professor's expectations. Overall, I have good feelings about it.

In other news, I auditioned for a UW production...
THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES!!!
I'll find out in the next day or two whether I get a part or not. I actually don't know whether I have the time for the production in my schedule next quarter. So, if I do get a part, I'm hoping I don't get three. During the audition, they asked me to talk about my vagina to see if I would get squeamish. I think what I said made them blush. I suppose this could be good or bad. Either I'm just bold enough or a bit too bold. Anyway, it will work out either way. I mostly just wanted to remember how fun it is to audition for a play again.
Good night and Happy Festivus!

YES

yes, I have not posted in awile.
no, I am not dead.
however, my external hard drive fell asleep and will not wake up.

does anyone want to play Prince charming and awake my memory holder from its deep slumber?

am i a mail order bride?

I never thought so, but apparently the person who sent me this email thinks so:

"Hello Dear.
My introduction, my name is Jeff from republic of Sierra Leone, I want to solicit your attention in receiving funds on my behalf, which my late father left in a merchant bank in Ivory Coast before his death and the Amount is 2.5million dollars. The purpose of my contacting you is because you been a foreigner who I can have trust on to avoid my fathers relatives using the advantage of my age and cheat or betray me of this money, so that is why I decided to disclose it to you.

You live in a Western country with a stable economy where I can invest the money into true you. Please I don’t have any choice of investment; only what I need is your full assistance and support in any good investment in your country.

If you can be of an assistance to me I will be pleased to offer to you 20% of the total fund while the balance will be invested by you.
I am waiting for your response with your full information for me to be to be submitted to the bank.

Sincerely
Jeff kumma"

i wonder if he's handsome. he says he can only trust me because i've been foreign. ha!
i'm tempted to respond just to see what this person actually wants. Probably my bank account info. however, i'm afraid of computer viruses. so, i won't.

who do I endorse?

I must admit I am a Kucinich dreamer. When I look at him, I really believe he is for the little guy. All joking aside, I am very much a pink-o at heart and he represents a lot of my sentiments for communism, oh that it were a perfect system. When I leave munch kin land and come back down to the real world, I bounce between Clinton, Obama, and Edwards. The one who best brings out my eyes on any given day is the one I am apt to support. Being that I am still up in the air, I decided to take an online survey. Much like using Cosmo to tell me what I want in a lover, I figured a survey that identifies my top candidates must be flawless. I used VA Joe's Candidate Calculator
and this is what it told me.

Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich (D) - 88.24%
Former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel (D) - 88.24% match
Illinois Senator Barack Obama (D) - 70.59%
New York Senator Hillary Clinton (D) - 67.65%
Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards (D) - 67.65%
Delaware Senator Joseph Biden (D) - 67.65%
Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd (D) - 61.76%
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (D) - 61.76%

Just look! The number one candidate on my list is one of the representatives from the Lollipop Guild! I think he is the one in the middle, showboating as usual. Now, do I know my treasonous politics or what? God willing, I believe McCarthy would have my ass in a sling.

This is what it said about the other side of the aisle.

Businessman John Cox (R) - 32.35%
Texas Representative Ron Paul (R) - 32.35%
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) - 26.47%
Arizona Senator John McCain (R) - 20.59%
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee (R) - 14.71%
Kansas Senator Sam Brownback (R) - 11.76%
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (R) - 11.76%
Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo (R) - 11.76%
California Representative Duncan Hunter (R) - 8.82%
Former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson (R) - 5.88%

It's funny, I always fancied myself a McCain girl, but the survey doesn't lie. I guess I finally siphoned the AZ vemon from my veins.

Now I am off to bed, while visions Kucinich dance in my head...

the blog and the beautiful

Some of you know this person as Harpo, but as he is no longer harping he will from here on out be referred to as McDreamy. This is incidental to the good news at hand. and the good new is this--McDreamy is finally blogging!!!!
I can't tell you how excited I am or how excited I think you should be, but you don't have to take my word for it. Check it out for yourself, while picturing him in the pose above. Now you, too, can see all the ways in which he is witty and charming and all the other things that make me crazy about him!!

be well, do good work, and keep in touch

p.s. just an addendum: if you look at the video below you will see that McDreamy and ted are dressed quite similarly. and why are these two my heartthrobs??
p.p.s. McDreamy if far more handsome than ted though and i am a lucky girl.

top ten reasons to blog

this post is for one person in particular. in my blog he goes by harpo and/or the harp whisperer (HW for short). i digress...

10. it increases your international exposure and your chances of being the future US diplomat to Latvia.
9. your special lady/your fucking lady friend will have another avenue with which to pester you throughout the day.
8. you can keep the world apprised of your bike maintenance.
7. surely there is at least one person on the planet whom wants to be exposed to your rants and whom currently isn't--let this person find you.
6. you'll be plugged into a community of people doing whatever they can to avoid putting on pants.
5. you will leave a legacy for future anthropologists to use while speculating the demise of the human race.
4. you can, so why not?
3. blogging is sexy.
2. you need diverse feedback re: your capacity models for seattle transportation and what better venue than the interweb?
1. the world deserves to know what all those recycle codes on the bottom of plastic bottles REALLY mean.

anybody else have any shining reasons why HW should blog? leave a comment!!!