The Sixth Sense is on, which inspired this wonderful bumper sticker, courtesy of gwbush.com:
barf
October 30, 2006 at 6:22 am (health)
Being a girl sucks SO BAD. Right now, I simultaneously have a headache, a tummyache, feel like I’m going to throw up and ALSO feel like I’m going to pass out. I had decided against backing up my hormones so that I only have four cycles a year because my acupuncturist voted against that but I can see the pluses of doing such a thing right now….
I might as well be from Sweden, because my plane ticket home after Xmas cost over $500. It ain’t cheap to be from Colorado. United has a monopoly in Denver and jacks up everyone’s prices. It’s always more expensive to fly home than to fly anywhere else.
In other news, I am on a weird diet. I have had problems digesting things for months and have been pretty miserable so I am eating mostly soy and low-fat meats. Which is painful for me but feeling like shit all the time is more painful I suppose. It worked great for a couple of days but it’s hard to tell now owing to my whole system being in overload thanks to hormones. Do you men in the world realize just how fucking lucky you are?
You son of a bitch, you left the bodies and you only moved the head stones.
October 29, 2006 at 5:08 pm (flix, ghosts)
I was completely obsessed with Poltergeist when I was about eight. The summer after it came out, HBO showed it over and over and over (that would have been 1983). That also happened to be the only summer that we had cable television.
I think I watched that movie about eighty times.
When I was a bit older (I was probably about ten or eleven), the book Twilight Dwellers was published, about Colorado ghost stories. I remember reading about Cheesman Park in Denver, and how it used to be a cemetary. The author (Maryjoy Martin) included some accounts from the late nineteenth century of local people seeing the bodies being removed and combined into coffins and body parts falling out on the street from the wagons that carried them away. They finally decided to stop and supposedly there are still about 5000 bodies in Cheesman Park.
I never put Poltergeist and Cheesman together, but I’m watching The Scariest Places on Earth and Linda Blair says on the show that the movie was inspired by Cheesman. The makers of the show had two teenage or young adult women stay in a tent in Cheesman late at night. Of course, they didn’t account for the fact that there are lots of gay men crusing in Cheesman late at night too. And yuppies walking their dogs. It’s not exactly abandoned after dark.
Other fun hauntings I remember from my home state: the guy who was hanged in the parking lot of Alfalfa’s over 100 years ago in Boulder, who appears to customers in the parking lot, beckoning toward his neck; room 200 something in the Boulderado, which supposedly is the room Cyndi Lauper and Michael Jackson each insisted on staying in back in the ’80s when they played at Red Rocks; Mackey Auditorium and the haunted organ practice room, where a student was murdered in the ’60s; the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, which was the original inspiration for The Shining and where the remake produced by Stephen King was filmed.
feeling crappy on Halloween
October 29, 2006 at 11:53 am (Uncategorized)
means going to ONE party for an hour or so and only taking pics of like, three people. I didn’t even feel like going to the wire to find my blonde wig.
Amy and Jim are the cutest couple in the world.
And one boy at least paid attention to me.
how to leave a scary skeleton
October 28, 2006 at 5:24 am (novelty)
Jack Handey, creator of Saturday Night Live’s “Deep Thoughts,” worries that he’s going to leave behind just another ho-hum skeleton buried in the ground. He offers a few tips on how to make your skeleton live up to its reputation.
If you have trouble getting this RealAudio file, go to the Studio 360 Web site.
symbolism
October 27, 2006 at 1:49 pm (history, holidays)
Supposedly, the INFP personality type is supposed to be way into creating symbols in speech, writing, etc.
I’ve always been like this. I was really ticked off a few months ago when Nerve decided to change my profile name from Walküre to walkre1. And then gave Walkure without the umlaut to a straight guy in New York. Methinks he might not be straight….
When I was involved in all kinds of thing Swedish, I found a calendar in the Swedish museum in Chicago full of all the name days. Many people in Sweden celebrate their natal days but also celebrate their “name” days, or Saints’ feasts. St. Catherine of Alexandria’s feast day is November 25th, which is surprisingly close to my birthday (December 1). St. Catherine of Siena’s day is April 29th. I always identified more with Catherine of Alexandria anyway, because she is the patron saint of virgins, students, scholars, learning, and librarians! C of Siena is all about sickness and childbirth and fire. Catherine of Sweden is apparently the patron saint of anti-abortionists. I’m not about that.
Anyway, I also like Catherine of Alexandria because she is often portrayed with a sword, and a king under her feet. Supposedly that is meant to symbolize the martyrdom she won over the king who had her killed.
Here she is seen standing on the king AND with a wheel. She was supposedly martyred on a breaking wheel. Isn’t medieval torture fun?
Anyway. This should in no way give my gentle readers an indication of my being a hidden Catholic or anything. I was a medieval studies major and therefore find this stuff fun.
being a sexual threat
October 25, 2006 at 10:23 am (Uncategorized)
I am home with a stomach bug watching Freaks and Geeks. It’s bringing back a lot of painful memories.
I often wonder where I get my fighting warrior instinct from. And I just realized that one of the reasons I hate men (and women, although they’re few and far between) who terrorize everyone with their boom cars or modified bikes is because in my mind, they’re bullies.
I was bullied a lot in junior high and high school. Yes, I was taller than most of the boys. Most of these bullying situations germinated in gym class. I am athletically challenged, to say the least. So if a boy was the captain for our volleyball team in gym class or something and I messed up, I’d get verbally torn to pieces. That would set off a whole other chain of events where I would chronically fuck up in gym class and then the bullying would carry over into the hallways and the classrooms and get passed from one boy to another.
It was particularly distressing when I was a senior in high school to be bullied by a sophomore boy. Again, it was a volleyball situation. He would spike the volleyball off my head every day and one time I got such a bad concussion I had to miss school for a few days. He was the one who liked to come over to my locker and tell me how ugly I was every day. He wasn’t the first — it was following in a long tradition of being told I was ugly on a regular basis from about sixth grade on.
I imagine that’s why I can get so self-righteous and why I try to do things when I see people bullying. In the real world, the bullying I experience is when people do things that make life uncomfortable for many others (like noise). Because I didn’t do anything then. It was so incredibly embarrassing. I didn’t see any other girls being bullied. I’m sure boys were bullied but I was a girl being bullied as though I was a boy.
Now that I’m an adult, I am a lot more confident. But I’m not the kind of woman who men “ask out” or anything. I think some of my insecurities about my perpetual singlehood stem from this early experience of just knowing I was ugly. Because I must have been if I was told I was ugly so often by so many different guys. I used to ask out boys in high school to dances and get turned down all the time.
I think it was about a year or so ago that I actually started to recognize that men are often attracted to me. They don’t ever do ANYTHING about it, but I started to learn a lot of nonverbal language that everyone else learned years ago.
I am at the point now where I think I am rather attractive and happy with how I look. What I saw in the mirror always contradicted what the boys in school were telling me. And then I went to a school that eliminated the male factor, more or less, and I believe that was a good experience for me. Sometimes when I think about my humiliating experiences growing up, I wonder what on earth was going on with those boys. Did they have crushes on me and that’s how they acted? They were pretty fierce, though. Interestingly, I was fully developed (and am also rather well-endowed) by seventh or eighth grade and I used to get sexually harrassed in art class by some boys my age. I felt so disgusting for having large breasts and for having my period even though a lot of other girls my age didn’t have any of that stuff yet. My God — my seventh grade year was so awful. My cousin’s friends had to take pity on me at lunch time because no one in the entire school would eat with me. There wasn’t a precipitous event or anything — the most popular girl in my grade decided she hated me and that was the end of it.
Now I’ve morphed from being a threat to pre-teens because I was better-developed to being a threat because I’m a single woman in my early thirties. I immediately know how good someone’s relationship or marriage is when I meet the woman in the couple. She’ll be open and kind to me if she’s well-situated and she’ll be a cold bitch if not. You’d be surprised at how many female halves of couples are cold bitches to me when they meet me. Luckily, I am more socialized with females than males owing to my college experience, and I usually befriend women and then meet their other halves. And of course, the women in my life who are my friends are confident and amazing. All of them. I like to think that the majority of them are also well-situated in their relationships and well-matched.
hr memo
October 23, 2006 at 1:18 pm (Uncategorized)
Today, we had “customer service” training all day. It reminded me of this email forward.
Human Resources Memo!
TO: All Employees
FROM: Human Resources
It has been brought to management’s attention that some individuals throughout the company have been using foul language during the course of normal conversation with their coworkers. Due to complaints received from some employees who may be easily offended, this type of language will be no longer tolerated. We do however, realize the critical importance of being able to accurately express your feelings when communicating with coworkers.
Therefore, a list of “TRY SAYING” new phrases has been provided so that proper exchange of ideas and information can continue in an effective manner without risk of offending our more sensitive employees.
TRY SAYING: Perhaps I can work late.
INSTEAD OF: And when the fuck do you expect me to do this?
TRY SAYING: I’m certain that isn’t feasible.
INSTEAD OF: No fucking way.
TRY SAYING: I wasn’t involved in the project.
INSTEAD OF: It’s not my fucking problem.
TRY SAYING: That’s interesting.
INSTEAD OF: What the fuck?
TRY SAYING: I’ll try to schedule that.
INSTEAD OF: Why the hell didn’t you tell me sooner?
TRY SAYING: He’s not familiar with the issues.
INSTEAD OF: He’s got his head up his ass.
TRY SAYING: I’m a bit overloaded at the moment.
INSTEAD OF: Fuck it, I’m on salary.
TRY SAYING: I don’t think you understand.
INSTEAD OF: Shove it up your ass.
TRY SAYING: I love a challenge.
INSTEAD OF: This job sucks.
TRY SAYING: You want me to take care of that?
INSTEAD OF: Who the hell died and made you boss?
TRY SAYING: I see.
INSTEAD OF: Blow me.
TRY SAYING: Yes, we really should discuss it.
INSTEAD OF: Another fucking meeting!
TRY SAYING: He’s somewhat insensitive.
INSTEAD OF: He’s a prick.
TRY SAYING: She’s an aggressive go-getter.
INSTEAD OF: She’s a ball-busting bitch.
TRY SAYING: I think you could use more training.
INSTEAD OF: You don’t know what the fuck you’re doing.
TRY SAYING: So you weren’t happy with it?
INSTEAD OF: Kiss my ass.
a flurry of responses
October 22, 2006 at 6:42 pm (Smith)
to my last post. My apologies for causing any offense with this whole Right Stuff Dating thing. Actually, there is one other member of my family (besides myself) who would qualify for that — my cousin Rarhead. But I digressify. (I just LOVE that word — I got it from www.whitehouse.org from one of the parody Dubya speeches.)
In defense of my alma mater, I have to say for the record that most of the women I knew at Smith College were on big-time scholarships with good financial aid packages. One of my best friends, whom I met at Smith, has told me all kinds of stories about growing up with little means, and her parents always had to tell her that they couldn’t afford for her to be a Brownie. I knew women whose fathers were coal miners, railroad workers, you get the general idea. The fact is, because of the tradition of wealth and privilege at Ivies, most people don’t think they could even consider applying. However, if someone like V who was a National Merit Scholar, etc., etc., applied, the admissions committee would have DROOLED over her and probably found some way to fund her education at Smith for her. Yes, I did go to school with senators’ daughters, etc. (I actually went to school with two of Mitch McConnell’s daughters — let me just say they are light years away from their dad.) But a high number of the women with whom I went to college were the first in their families to get college degrees and were funded by the rich endowment that the rich alums have to offer.
As for me: my family is by no means wealthy, although I consider myself to have some privilege given the scale of privilege that exists. I happened to drop out of high school my sophomore year. Yes, I really dropped out. With a 3.9 GPA, but I was fed up and didn’t want to go back. I spend a semester out of school. Then I transferred to the other high school and graduated at the originally expected time. I used the drop-out experience in my essays for colleges and said that I’d taken my time off and knew what I wanted to do. I can be fairly good at selling myself. I got waitlisted at Smith and bugged them to let me in (with the help of an alum in Denver who thought I needed to go there), and the rest is history.
Truthfully, I think that the humbler background you have and the more diverse of a background you have to offer to an “elite” campus, the more likely you are to get in and get a great scholarship, in all likelihood. The Ivies and Seven Sisters are constantly stressing out about getting people from all walks of life onto their damn campuses and they actually send recruiters out to try to get people from different backgrounds to even apply. My best friend was at a community college in Jersey when a Smith recruiter came and told her to transfer. And she did. And then she went to Harvard Divinity and the rest of that is history, too.
now for more personal stuff
October 21, 2006 at 12:02 pm (books, dating doldrums, music, performance)
Of course, everything I write is personal on some level. But I don’t always update folks on what’s happening in my life because I imagine maybe it’s boring. Anyway, here’s an update — feel free to skip, if you’re bored. 
Today is my first day off after seven consecutive days of full-time work. Sundays in the library are optional, but you get signed up for October through June in September. Working a Sunday in the library is double-time for 1 PM – 5 PM. But of course, for me, that makes Sunday a full work day since I have my church gig until noon.
The church gig pays quite well. I like the people and I like the music. However, it is rather painful to me that many of the singers in the group are opera singers. They must have wonderful solo voices, but they’re killing the tuning in Messiaen’s “O Sacrum Convivium,” which is one of my favorite things ever written. The performance of the piece hinges on the tuning. They’re also killing “Faire is the Heaven” by Harris, another of my favorites. When you work with big voices, you quickly learn that there is no such thing as pianissimo, or piano, or even mezzo-piano. Ho, hum. Think fortississississimo.
But on the bright side, I have just agreed to sing in a group that is being put together by my acquaintance at Penn. I met him through a musicology friend of mine at U of I. We will be working on lots of stuff that probably sounds best with light, lyric voices, and so I hope that the roster will reflect that.
Today, I had my first voice lesson with the wife of my coworker. Well, I guess he’s sort of my coworker — he’s the curator of the Fleisher Collection which is technically a bit separate from the music library. I really like her a lot and I’m excited. I basically have no technique and so we’re going to start from scratch and get down to the basics all over again. Hello, 24 Italian Songs and Arias. All over again. Haven’t seen those since high school. I had a fun adventure going out to Fox Chase, which is off one of the regional rails. My backpack broke on my way out there, so I had to carry it quite a distance like a baby.
I am currently proofreading a novel called Scavenger, which was written by the guy who wrote Rambo. Now I’ve never seen Rambo, so I just figured it was more of a concept and certainly not a novel, but the novel is called First Blood. Hmm. Anyway. I think the guy has been reading too much Dan Brown. But I wasn’t expecting Wuthering Heights in any case.
Last night, I tried to get the LibraryThing blog widget to work, and it wouldn’t budge. I will try again today. I only have like, eight books listed or something but I want to have a sidebar on my blog with what I’m currently reading. I wish Netflix had a similar feature. Then you all could see what a dork I am with the documentary watching. I’m currently obsessed with this:
And, since I work in the music library, I checked out this, which I also adore:
I was talking to my brother, who is a huge Civil War buff (and most certainly watched this when it aired. I think he was in junior high or something), reminded me that I made a salt-dough bust of General George Gordon Meade when I was in fifth grade. It was pretty pathetic-looking. I think it’s around somewhere. Chris was being a smartass and suggested I find it and donate it to the Union League or something and ask them to mount it on a pedestal. BTW, Chris, Mother said she did indeed help you with that teepee you made in third grade, so take that!
My brother and his fiancee also set a date and arranged a place for their wedding, and methinks that it seems to be some particular destiny of mine to attend many weddings in the far reaches of upstate New York. OK, well, maybe not far reaches in this case (Lake George), but not the easiest place to get to by train or anything. Looks like it’s rental-car city for me. I’ve been inundating him with ceremony-music suggestions.
My father and stepmother are coming in a couple of weeks to visit me here and my bro in DC. I am very excited, for it’s been almost a year since I saw my dad. I am hoping to go home just after Christmas–I can’t go the day of Christmas because I have to work on the day after and cover for everyone else. 
But hopefully they’ll let me go. I’ve been homesick for Colorado lately.
I gave up on Match and am now on eHarmony. Which is not very promising. But then, after that experiment I performed on Match (where I said that I was just a girl who likes to laugh a lot and I just like simple pleasures, like making nachos for my boyfriend when he’s watching football, and I just LOVE football!), I discovered that most guys aren’t looking for someone like me, anyway (yes, I got a shitload of responses to that). Several friends of mine over the years have recommended The Right Stuff. I don’t know anyone who’s been on that, or if there’s been much success. You can only be on it if you went to a certain school. I think there’s only about 25 schools. Ivies, Seven Sisters, and other newer schools like U of Chicago, Northwestern, Stanford. But maybe if I give it a spin, I’ll find some guys who at least aren’t hoping to meet complete idiots. Or who are complete idiots.
As for my Halloween, costume, I decided to forego spending money on a costume this year and be a beer slut again or maybe don my ridiculous prom dress and be Scarlett O’Hara. Or I could be Harpo again. But I don’t think I still have a trench coat. Or I could wear my silly Dickens carolling outfit. Instead of spending money on a costume, I bought a textbook online last night about secrets and how our society has gotten so obsessed with opening up about everything that it’s become psychologically damaging to everyone. I myself am so open about things that I don’t even think about it, and I would like to not divulge so much stuff about myself. Hello, yes, I know I’m writing on a blog here. Anyway, here’s the book:
Yes, it’s at the library. Yes, I should have thought about that before I bought it, but hey! this is an instant-gratification society. And I kind of want this for reference. (And I didn’t have to buy any books this semester!)
And last, but not least, I got a lovely visit from my coussie-poo and her offspring last Friday. We went to the Please Touch Museum. We went to a diner for lunch, and Audra’s sandwich was served to her in pyramid form. She said, “Wow, this is just like a ten-dollar bear house!” At least, that’s what Meg and I both thought we heard. Actually, she said it was like a “teepee or a bear house.” But it was hysterical anyway.
This picture of Audra is alarming because it looks exactly like Meg when she was growing up. Except for the blonde hair bit. But we have some pictures of Meg making this very expression:
And here’s Audra playing my new digital piano:
