yawn

It has been overcast here for the entire month of January, and although normally I love weather like this, lately it has started to take its toll. I woke up this morning and even though I could hear my alarm, I could not summon the will to roll over and snooze it. I just laid there, all awake in my brain but paralyzed from the eyelids down. Bonk.

And now I'm going to make a list of things that I don't understand the point of:

1) Space travel. What the hell. Instead of shooting rockets and temperamental Mars rovers into space, why don't we just dig a big hole in the ground in Arizona somewhere, fill it with money, and then douse it in gasoline and set it on fire? Or we could put all the money in a pile and surround it by ACME dynamite, and then someone could set off the dynamite by pushing down on one of those boxes with the t-handle on the top. Either way.

2) The Large Hadron Collider. There probably is an actual legitimate reason to build an underground room 10 miles long in order to accelerate particles which may or may not even exist to nearly the speed of light, but as I am too much of moron to understand anything beyond the most basic principles of physics, these reasons will continue to elude me.

3) Online forums. Very few people who comment to online forums ever have anything useful to say. Or even seem to speak English, for that matter.

4) High School. I could have taken a 4 year nap after middle school, begun college, and have been equally as prepared academically.

5) Those fridges with the TVs in them. Cool? Yes. Purposeful? No.

6) Automatic everything in bathrooms. No thank you, I can flush my own toilet. No thank you, I can pump my own handsoap. No thank you, I can turn on my own water. No thank you, I can pull out my own paper towel. I don't know what I'm going to do when they start installing automatic ass-wipers.

7) Braille at drive thru ATMs. It's a cliched query, yes, but my knowledge has still never been explained.

a very satisfactory morning, indeed

I got stuck behind the Ashley River drawbridge for a solid 30 minutes this morning, and honestly nothing could have made me happier. I love getting stuck behind trains and drawbridges, on ferries, things like that, because I think it is so great the way that people have no choice but to relax. In the first few minutes cars are still running, brake lights are on, necks crane to see how long things are going to take. But then, slowly but surely, people begin to kill their ignitions, roll down their windows, pull out books and newspapers. Some even get out of their cars and stand next to their doors, just for the novel experience of exiting a vehicle on foot in the middle of a crowded interstate. Sometimes I see parents get out with their children and walk to the roadside to watch the bridge rise. It makes me wish that I had someone young with me so that i could get out and watch it too, but at this age I feel like I am no longer allowed to let on that everyday things still leave me in awe sometimes. Everyone knows that no matter what awaits them on the other side, this is a situation that cannot be bypassed with an alternate route, or expedited with horn honks and shouted curses. And most people treat it as a micro-holiday rather than an imposed inconvenience--like being on vacation with one hundred strangers.

what a great time in history to be five years old

this is the cutest damn thing i have ever seen.

wow...

http://www.parentdish.com/2009/01/22/mother-admits-she-doesnt-love-her-daughter/

this article is the reason that i don't want to have kids--i am about 90% sure that something like this would happen to me. i can't believe this woman actually had the balls to write this article, but i'm willing to bet she's not the only one out there that feels this way.

um, seriously guys?

Ok, finally watched that part of the inauguration ball after they danced to "At Last," where everyone is on stage jamming to Mary J. Blige or something, and wtf?!?!? Why are Barack and Michelle such horrible dancers? They're black, they're supposed to be able to dance really well (you KNOW that's what everyone was thinking, too). I'm just going to tell myself that they didn't want to bust too hard of a move because let's face it, America has pretty much been pushed to the limits of its progressiveness over the past few months. Let's not overdo it, making everyone think we put Chris Brown and that little girl from the Missy Elliot videos in office.

the king of glory comes, the nation rejoices

today makes me wanna...

YAYYY!!!!!! YAAAAAYY!!!!!!!!!

i think she was paralyzed in the story or something

Andrew Wyeth died today, and the only reason I mention it is that when I was in around the 6th grade I read a story that revolved around this painting, and as a result the title of the painting (Christina's World) and the name of the artist always stuck with me. I don't even know why, its just one of those vivid memories that you look back on and are unsure why it made the cut and so many other things didn't.

its been several weeks, but

I CAN'T STOP LISTENING TO BRITNEY SPEARS.

I feel like not being able to stop listening to Britney Spears is a recurring theme in my life. I'm sorry, but I just love her. Even when she was "fat" (read: my size) and crazy and drugged up and varnished with cheetos residue I still loved her. I wouldn't be surprised if I was on my deathbed with my children and grandchildren gathered around, and I would mouth something in a ragged whisper, and my daughter would lean down and tearfully say "what, mother? I couldn't hear you...", and I would summon my final breath and gasp "hit me, baby...one...more...time..."

i swear im not possessed or anything

today was one of the angriest days of my life. i've been pissed off at most recent breakup guy all day long, and honestly i'm kind of exhausted, but i can't turn it off. i spent hours at work going over in my head the most hurtful, terrible, insulting things that i could possibly say to him, going for the lowest blows i could think of, using everything personal he told me about himself as ammo, and it still wasn't satisfying for me. thank god i don't have his number anymore. i don't know why all of a sudden this all kicked in today, either--i've had to rely on my friends to be angry at him up until now because i just didn't have it in me. however, since the opposite of love is indifference, not hate, that is the emotion that i strive for in this situation. and that is how i want him to think that i feel. because really, nothing is more hurtful than knowing someone couldn't give a shit about you.

...and i'm pretty sure i'm not the only one

I was reading a blog by this girl I don't know and she had this picture up--apparently CNN was bored and decided to do one of those 10-year-aging things on Obama, also taking into account the stress that the toll of this particular two-term presidency would have on him. I guess they are insinuating that he will look rode hard and put up wet, but the implication is completely lost on me, as I would still totally hit that.

i think about this story all the time

Before you read this, look at the painting and see if you can tell what it is.


When I was in Spain I took a course on Spanish artists, in which we studied Goya, Dali, Kahlo, and of course, Picasso, among others. One of the things that really stuck with me the story that our professor told us about the Picasso painting on the left, "El Guitarrista". It is was painted during Picasso's cubism period, which is the style that he was most famous for. In it, there is a man sitting on a chair with crossed legs, playing a guitar. Our professor, without explaining the painting, asked us to look at it and point out any details that we could decipher. Some of us could see a head or a foot--most of us couldn't see a thing.

Here's the cool part--apparently a study was done on children ages five through thirteen. Each child was asked to look at the painting for a set amount of time, and then explain to the researcher what he or she thought the image portrayed. After interviewing 100+ kids, they found that in the group of thirteen-year-olds, around 30% could tell that it was a picture of a man playing a guitar. However, as the groups decreased in age, more kids could accurately pinpoint the image. When they finally interviewed the group of five-year-olds, they were shocked to discover that 100% of the children could not only tell what the subject was, they could also point out details as minute as fingers and details in clothing.

Our professor theorized that when we are children, we have a much broader view of the world. Our perception has not been hindered by knowledge, and we are able to accept the unconventional without question because we have not yet been told that it is wrong. However, as they age they are shown how things are supposed to be, and lose their "other pairs of eyes" (that's what he said in spanish and I honestly can't think of a better way to say it in english). Think about it, how many times have you seen a kid present an adult with a pageful of squiggly lines and explain that it is a giraffe, only to have to adult draw their own more "accurate" version and provide it as an educational example (this clearly does not apply to me--I could never in a million years draw a giraffe). I don't think I'll ever forget that lecture--I've can't remember being that fascinated about anything before or since.