Saturday

bitter girl

Y'know what's a good sign?

When you stop taking attacks on the things you do so personally. For example: I recently taught a class where someone decided to complain on her course evaluation form that I talked too much about my "book and personal achievements" during the class. Now, they averaged out the evaluations and lumped together the comments from two classes I did, so I can't tell which one generated that comment, but I do know that one student specifically asked me how the book came about and how I ended up doing what I do. You can't please everyone, can you? By answering her question, I might have inadvertently annoyed one of the other students. (I was brief about it; these students were roughly 30 years older than my book's target demographic!)


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Friday

The Y Files

Some closing thoughts on the same-sex marriage debate

First, my basic position. I think that ending the social and legal persecution of homosexual men and women has been one of Western culture's greatest cultural and moral victories in our time. I think that sexual orientation is largely innate, and that discrimination against gays in the workplace, housing, and other matters is gravely wrong (and should be illegal if we agree that other types of identity-based discrimination by private businesses can be outlawed -- in other words, you can't be selectively libertarian about anti-gay discrimination if you have no problem with the government prohibiting race or sex discrimination).


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Wednesday

Black Girls Like Us

I can't do nothing for you man or Don't believe the hype

Does anyone else feel that there are times when there is something inherently unfair about being a girl?


The revelation hit me today as I had a conversation with a co-worker about the lies we are told by EVERYONE about body image. Now mind you, this girl is GORGEOUS. I mean stunning. She has the whole package: long pretty hair (that she didn't buy) beautiful smile, great skin (she is 32 but she looks about 25 maybe... I thought she was fresh out of TSU to tell you the truth.) And yet, she is insecure not about the way that she looks but about how much she weighs. She is a thick chick. But she rocks it like it’s her job. Big Ups for that. She stood in my cube (Lord I hate cube-dwelling) and talked to me for 20 minutes about how she gets grief from everyone about her weight. Her mom, her friends and, most disturbingly to me, brothas have all told here at one time or another that she has such a pretty face. If she would just lose that weight... .


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Monday

Rosa Parks

Civil Rights Pioneer Rosa Parks Dies at 92

Speaking in 1992, Mrs. Parks said history too often maintains "that my feet were hurting and I didn't know why I refused to stand up when they told me. But the real reason of my not standing up was I felt that I had a right to be treated as any other passenger. We had endured that kind of treatment for too long."


Yes, I realize she did not blog, but can you fault me for this mention of a great woman?

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Happy Birthday, Baby

Tamara's boyfriend, Louie, just had a birthday, and she gives us a funny recap over at T and A:

Mixing my friends (Louie's new friends) with Louie's Hollywood friends, and work friends, and college friends, and highschool friends and parents and siblings together, made for some strangeness. Me announcing I was pregnant for no reason other than to get a laugh as I took a swig from Tony's flask, made for some awkwardness with Louie's mom, but not in the way you'd expect. The "I'm pregnant" joke has to be put back on the shelf and left to gather dust, I'd guess... for at least the next ten years.
Nobody tells a story better than Tamara does. I've been loving me some T and A ever since I got into the whole blogging "thing," so I thought I'd share.

Check it out.



Technorati Tag: life

Saturday

Frankie Can't Relax

And...Breathe

Exercise. I need to move around for an hour a day and break a sweat. This is necessary for both my mental and physical health, as well as taming the aforementioned sumo ass I've been growing. I suppose a sedentary lifestyle coupled with an hourly dose of mini-snickers washed down with diet coke will wreak havoc on even the most metabolically gifted amongst us. I have the metabolism of a tree-sloth, so I really have to make a conscious effort to move around and get my body pumping.


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Friday

ex-millennial girl

Tim

This is my last Ohio post. The next post will be of some good pictures I took in Ohio, and then onward.


My final story is about a man named Tim. I think Tim was about 55 years old.


Tim was the cook/janitor at The Rox.. Everyone who worked there was petrified of Tim, even the managers.


Tim was the "eyes and ears" for the actual owners of The Rox, a group of people whom I never met, and he never let us forget it. My co-workers talked in hushed tones about Tim. "He's mean, but just ignore him, or else he'll get you fired!"


This blog is about the true story of a stripper during the dot.com boom and all its excess, a totally different world. I have a past to share with you.

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Thursday

a discontent malcontent

As you all know by extrapolation and simple deduction

... from my last post that I have been on a mental vacation facilitated through chemical reactions in my squishy cerebral cortex brought on by alcohol and other unmentionables.


Thanks for the congrats on passing the bar. I will be set free onto the world to wreak legal havoc on the 4th of November in the year of our lord 2005 when I am sworn in to uphold the laws of this dear country that, with the confirmation of Roberts and the nomination of Myers, will probably change radically so that everything I learned on the bar exam, namely under the topic of constiutional law, can just fall to the wayside of my frontal lobe because they will surely be trampled upon in the very near future by big, lumbering, gray, trunked mammals (which, btw, did you know that the elephant and the rhino are the only mammals who can't jump?)


ah, it's good to be back in the land of the living and amongst the bloggers.


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Wednesday

Philobiblon

The Carnival of Feminists No 1

Welcome! to the first Carnival of Feminists. In this show there are no captive animals or "freak" displays, but plenty of passion, lots of fun, and more than the odd bit of juggling of life.


Please take the time to read --- well worth it.

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Tuesday

i'm just a simple girl who likes beans

Wow this is the first time I'm ever writing about me

and posting it out there so other people can read it. I have thoughts and confessions that I have kept private until now. I must confess I don't think I'll be able to completely open up but this is a huge step for me.


Today is the start of her blog and this is her first and only post so far. Funny I should run across it in my search for blogs by women. It will be interesting to see how it progresses.

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Monday

Flood

The Fun and Fabulous Lives of the Mitchell DINKS

# Friday went to PF Changs with these people and drank lots of Plum Wine. Yum. Got pretty drunk. It was fun. :-)


# Noticed most of the conversation at dinner centered around something called a HooHoo (probably didn't spell that right) and I'm not quite sure why.


# Was told by Cullen our toilet smells "Wonderful". Dude had a crackle in his voice when he said that, like he had just got a cute little fury white kitten as a present. It was H.I. Larious.


You'll have to click over to see how the rest of the weekend went ...

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karmagrrrl: tales of a karmically challenged life

Documenting the Documentors

A couple of weeks back I visited San Francisco (I love that city) and happened upon a protest on my way to Webzine2005 (more on that to come). So instead of documenting the protest (which many were doing) I pulled out my camera and documented the documentors.


I got to talk to a lot of interesting people, including one man whose son is in Iraq. And I got a bit of insight into the different reasons people are compelled to push the red button.


You'll have to click over to watch the video ...

And sorry for lack of postings, I was in Fort Worth, Texas for the last few days.

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Wednesday

excuse the mess... that was just my head

the sound you hear is my heart breaking

Gore: I Don't Plan to Run for President

As you may remember, I was holding out hope for a Gore run in 2008. And I'm awfully sorry to hear that he won't.
But I love the fact that he goes on the attack these days.


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Tuesday

Sunset

Have you ever been intrigued by someone you come across in your daily life and immediately begin to conjure up a fantasy about the kind of life they must lead?

Ivy at Saving Ophelia shares with us her reflections on a woman she observed while getting her nails done - and how her curiosity and intrigue was suddenly brought back to earth by a sudden blast of reality.

So there I continued to sit in my helpless silence, dreaming up a much different story for her, perhaps far more realistic this time around. I watch the clock ticked by, hoping the fan would quickly dry my perfect manicure, so I can leave this stark little rectangular room, leave this beautiful young girl with her scared heart and the bruises behind in the inner Sunset of this romantically gorgeous city that may have betrayed her dreams.
Ivy's post got me thinking: I know I've been guilty of romanticizing images of people that I've encountered in the past. How many people get caught up in the fantasy - to their own detriment? Do people stay in unhappy relationships because they have some fantasy image of how things would be "if something would just change"? Why do people prevent themselves from fully experiencing life because of some notion (romanticized or otherwise tinged) they've already conceived in their minds?

Technorati Tag: women bloggers

Monday

A Woman of Many Parts

Carnival Time

This week is Carnival week. Over on Cary Miller's cancer news blog, he is hosting the first ever Real Cancer, Real lives Carnival. One of the posts that he has highlighted is my Reasons to thank Cancer and there are several from other patients too. Please go over and have a look.


And me?


This is hard.. I am finding this really difficult at the moment. Nearly in tears three times today and my mouth is sore from the chemo making it difficult to eat. I crawled into bed as soon as I got home from work and just put the phone off. I find it really difficult to talk at the moment and extend myself. If you do know me, please just text or email at the moment as that is much easier and I can write back when I am full of energy.


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Saturday

Just Another Girl On The IRT

Junkie Couture, anyone?

So, uber waif Kate Moss is mired in the unflattering fluorescence of "controversy" after being outed on the front page of the Daily Mirror cutting mysterious white powder lines on a CD cover in a dingy West London recording studio. The picture-in-picture inset reveals a shot of her caught in midsnort.


Dear God, lock up the children and have Conde Nast halt presses on December's Vogue!


Models caught doing blow, film at 11.


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Thursday

A Milestone for Las Fashionistas

One's from California. The other is from New Jersey. Two women, two minds, one love: What's hot.

The girls have reached their 100th post, and they've decided to celebrate by giving their readership a little glimpse into the minds of the women behind the blog. Here's a taste:

Fashionista Cali
Favorite Article of Clothing: A good pair of jeans, a good little black dress. Anything that makes me feel hot.
Favorite Food: I've never met a food I didn't like.

Fashionista Jersey
Favorite Band: I could never pick just one, but my top four in no particular order are Bjork, The Who, Jimmy Eat World and System of a Down. Number five is usually a wildcard for whatever I love at the time. Right now it's Dave Matthews Band.
Favorite Song: "Baba O'Riley" by the Who
Favorite Book: Great Expectations


Want to find out more? Stop by, give it a read, and congratulate them for reaching their 100th post.


Technorati Tag: Las Fashionistas

Binary Blonde

Official Departure Date: November 1st

It's official. I fly out to the Louisiana region on November 1st to volunteer at the Alley Cat Allies base camp for a week. They'll put me to work and I'll know I will make a difference in the lives of the animals still struggling to survive there.


I've been wanting to do this since Katrina blew through the region, knowing that I had real skills to offer and I wouldn't just be a space filler.


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Wednesday

Postcards of Grief

Gravel

For the last few months, I’ve noticed a new person/dog pair walking on my street. The dog is one of several all or mostly black medium-sized pooches. The person at first looked very old to me, but I soon realized she just looked like my mom: fuzzy head, pale skin, glasses.


I saw her on my way to the bus last week, and we exchanged pleasantries about the weather. She takes small, quick steps. I saw as we passed one another on foot that she really does have the hair of someone who has been through aggressive chemotherapy more than once. From time to time, I had thought about saying something to her about how I know or understand what cancer can do to a person, but no one wants to hear from me. My cancer patient died.


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Monday

bypolar/grey

attention all smokers

i wanna swing from trees
i wanna do backhandsprings


i want to teach my daughter how to do these things
and teach her how to throw a curveball


how to spike a volleyball
bump, set, spike
and serve


i want to teach her the cheers
and give her my cheerleading uniform


Click over for the rest ...

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Saturday

Life of Mom

Lazy Pants...

The saddest thing I can think of at this moment is, "By god, I have plumber's crack while sitting at the computer because I am too lazy to fix my pants." Sad.


Masscrebation-This is a word that Jaden and Joey made up. When they first said it to me, I kinda freaked, like, "Uh-okay, who taught you that word? Because I have a sick mind and I thought they were referring to something naughty. They were really trying to say, "Master Creation", because a four year old and a two year old need to have a "Master Creation".


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