varum?

If you are typing and your thumb should accidentally hover over the track pad on my laptop, you will suddenly find yourself in the midst of a completely different function or section of the page, from where you started or intended to be.  This is infuriating. 

Also infuriating - or rather confounding - is the rampant anger and hating for the sake of hating that is everywhere, right now.  I blame the internet.  I know that sounds like a joke, but I really do.  It is now en vogue to hate things, verbalize them, recruit others to your hating and then refuse to even acknowledge any other points of view.  Why is this?  When did compromise and productivity become so gauche?

Just a question for the day, because I'm tired and sore and don't have the capacity to delve further and get....well, angry....about all the anger. 

madiba

A 95 year old man passed away last week, after a protracted bout with lung infections and various other illnesses.  He was survived by his children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and the rest of the world.  Though how we will survive and who will grow to fill his shoes is yet uncertain.  My heart broke a little with his passing, because he affected my life in a profound way. 

Adventure in peace Madiba, the world will feel both your life and your passing in immeasurable ways, forever.  

nest egg

I have no idea what font I actually use on this site.  I also don't know why it is reading as bolded right now, when that enhancement has not been chosen.  

I'm sitting on the 4th floor of a very nice office building.  I will probably get free lunch today.....again.  There are all of the drinks and snacks a person could want, within a 1.5 minute walk of where I sit.  And yet I'm broke. 

I am (financially) broke in every possible sense of the word.  I don't own anything, I have no inheritance or trust funds coming my way, I am unemployed AND I'm a student, which means I have debt.  Mountains of debt. 

What I also have is a few 401k's and IRA's which have needed tending to for quite some time now.  I came across a random statement from one of them the other day and it dawned on me that with all of the tracking and spreadsheeting and analyzing that I have done of everyone else's funds, perhaps I should do that for myself.  This has shown both good and bad things and has also yielded a lesson.  I'll start with the good.

The good thing is, I have something saved up for retirement and after two days of researching mutual funds, calling financial services companies and active consolidation, I now have one 401k plan with a small chunk of money in it, which is actually performing quite well.  This was quite a pleasant surprise. 

The bad thing is, if I divided my small chunk over the years in which I have been gainfully employed and able to participate in a 401k plan, I have saved virtually nothing year over year and should be (and am) ashamed of myself.  But - again with the bright side - at least I'm aware and contributing now. 

And now the lesson.  And oh what an important lesson it is.....
People don't save anymore.  People don't manage their finances and most people - I was, until Monday, one of them - think that they don't have enough money to invest in anything at all, so they just spend it and wait for the next paycheck.  Short term saving, I have never had a problem with, but after looking at these small funds, seeing what their performance has been and how much small gains can do when compounded and re-invested, I now feel it is my duty to tell everyone. 

It's not that hard to manage and if you just pay attention to where the money is and how that fund is managed and performed, you can actually make a foothill out of a molehill and hopefully later, a mountain out of all of it.  So I suppose I should thank my brokeness for showing me all of that. 

Man, it'd be really nice to have insurance again, though. 

rotation

So turns out the universe has gifted me with another trip around the sun.  

I am grateful.  I am trepidatious.  I am excited. 


Life is hard and also amazing.  The world is cruel and beautiful.  Love is fulfilling and trying.  I am wonderful and imperfect. 


Be happy now without reason, or you will never be happy at all. 

borrowed

I can't really say it much better than this, so here is a brilliant, borrowed analogy from that clever girl "anonymous", for what is happening in my city, as I type.

Relevant Analogy: Bill Is A Fucking Jackass

holygoddamnshitballs:

I’ve been trying to find the original author of this piece and I’ve been unsuccessful so far. It’s a hilarious allegory to the current ACA aka Obamacare hoopla.

So, Imagine that the company you work for held a poll, and asked everyone if they thought it would be a good idea to put a soda machine in the break room. The poll came back, and the majority of your colleagues said “Yes”, indicating that they would like a soda machine. Some said no, but the majority said yes. So, a week later, there’s a soda machine.

Now imagine that Bill in accounting voted against the soda machine. He has a strong hatred for caffeinated soft drinks, thinks they are bad you you, whatever. He campaigns throughout the office to get the machine removed. Well, management decides “OK, we’ll ask again” and again, the majority of people say “Yes, lets keep the soda machine.”

Bill continues to campaign, and management continues to ask the employees, and every time, the answer is in favor of the soda machine. This happens, lets say… 35 times. Eventually, Bill says “OK, I’M NOT PROCESSING PAYROLL ANYMORE UNTIL THE SODA MACHINE IS REMOVED”, so nobody will get paid unless management removes the machine.

What should we do???

Answer: Fire Bill and get someone who will do the fucking job.

Bonus: Bill tells everyone that he was willing to “Negotiate”, to come to a solution where everyone got their payroll checks, but only so long as that negotiation capitulated to his demand to remove the soda machine.

Bill is a fucking jackass.

a chuckle

In today's episode of things I find hilarious, I happened upon the following quote, which comes from a "blog" I check in on occasionally for a good laugh, due to the omnipresent douchiness and anger presented within. 

"When attractive women post photos of themselves being hugged and kissed by shirtless guys, regardless of the relationship, it kind of corrupts them in my eyes and makes them a little gross."

This is hilarious, because the writer of said quote hasn't been able to take his shirt off in public for the last 20 years, because he is pasty, rotund and unattractively pileous.  It makes perfect sense then, to just make fun of people who know how to eat logical portion sizes and take care of themselves, in an effort to retain that thin tether of self-perceived superiority.  

I love funny stuff.

365

I got to meet chef Jose Andres last week.  It was one of those moments that proved me to be the nerd I am.  I'd rather meet chefs and athletes in obscure sports, than movie stars or celebrities, any day.  Maybe it's a function of where I grew up and the proximity to film, tv and music stars and all their nonsense.  Either way, I had good food, a serrano-infused margarita and got photographic evidence of my geeked-out-ness, all while catching up with a kid (actually now an adult with a very adult job) that I used to coach.  

So that was fun.  It was also nothing more than a momentary reprieve from a subject that has been on my mind constantly for the last couple of weeks.  

I should also mention that I got to see the President speak, from less than a fifty foot distance, inside the Marine Barracks yard last Sunday.  I'd rather have heard him speaking under pretty much any other circumstances than the ones which entailed me supporting my dear friend and his coworkers from the third floor of building 197 at the Navy Yard, however.  

This all keeps happening.  And then nothing happens.  And then we get news headlines like "worst mass murder tragedy since December 2012".  Really?  We can't even make it a full, calendar year without mass murders anymore?  

You know, I had a bunch of stuff to say on this subject and now I'm just too disgusted and disturbed to even detail it.  Fuck this shit. 

when?

Anyone who knows me, knows I'm pretty much always late to the dance, when it comes to current television shows or entertainment trends.  I can't commit to the crushing demands of a weekly series and haven't had cable in several years, anyway.  

Last night, we were watching TV and for whatever reason, this episode of West Wing was cued up on Hulu.  After watching it, I was struck by a couple of things.  First, I wish people debated like this.  I wish there was enough respect for one another as human beings, that politicians could actually let each other finish a point and could break from the soundbyte script and actually say what they believe with conviction and honesty.  I realize those things are oxymoronic in terms of the reality of the politican, but it would be nice to hear the truth about what they think, without the "experts" chiming in to tell them how they should almost-kinda lie and tell people what they want to hear, because it's better for poll numbers.  Hey, a girl can dream, all right?

Second, and perhaps more importantly, I was flabbergasted at how that fake debate could literally happen - almost verbatim - in the next presidential election cycle.  Hell, it's almost an exact script for the last two elections we had.  This totally feeds into my notion that we, as a nation, are a bunch of sitter-arounders and waiters.  We don't ever actually do anything.  We don't ever actually WANT to do anything.  We just want to yell at the other guy for not doing anything, while remaining sedentary ourselves.  Then, at the last possible second - right before everything is about to collapse due to inaction - we somehow "come together" to push something sub-par through which is far less thought out and filled with loopholes, exceptions and favors.  It's disgusting. 

When does the blame game stop?  When do we as a constituency get our act together and actually research issues, bring up initiatives ourselves and stop being so damned lazy?

Seriously, when?  I think now would be a good time, but why don't we just wait on it and have a think.   

and yet again.....

Notes from the universe manages to freak me out by dropping in with EXACTLY the thing I needed to hear on exactly the day I needed to hear it.  It's really bizarre.  And cool, but mostly bizarre.  Today I received the following:

The more you believe in appearances, [tallgirl], in the story told by your physical senses and in the circumstances that you now find yourself in, the less control you have over them.

What's real, [tallgirl], is your power to change them. 


And there you have it.

equalicism

As life would have it, there are more important things in the world than Miley Cyrus's poorly parented, nasty, latex-wearing, no-ass-having, grossness.  More important things than some Kardashian baby and more important than the rampant scandals involved in NY Mayoral politics. 

There is still, all these years later, a startling lack of equality in this country.  If you are a fat, white dude (or just a white dude), none of this applies to you.  You still, whether you want it or not, have all of the cards stacked in your favor.  The system pulls for you, ignores your slights, gives you breaks and pays you handsomely.  After that - if you don't present as white-ish, or are not male, it's all downhill from there. 

Since the old white dudes have been making the rules - literally - for the last 200+ years, they did a really good job of entrenching misogyny and racism into the system.  They called it all "fair", because it IS fair.  To them.  They point to the minuscule numbers of people who have been able to pierce their imposed ceilings and tell the rest of us that we don't work hard enough. 

Bullshit. 

You know what it's like to go into an employment situation knowing for sure that 8 out of 10 times you will be low-balled on salary, asked to jump through extra hoops and scrutinized more closely than your white, or male peers?  Ask any woman or black person.  We can tell you. 

Today, specifically, 50 years after MLK's march on Washington, is about black Americans an their ongoing struggle to shed the yoke.  In some ways, the yoke has become such a part of black culture, that it is self-perpetuating.  But just the idea that there is, or has to be "black culture" in America, because these people have been so disenfranchised by our country in these supposedly modern times, is despicable.  We are all Americans.  Once you're born here, or take the citizenship test, there is no sliding scale for your right to opportunity and ascent, theoretically anyway. 

In practice, we seem to be the same pack of bigots we always were with the English hating Italians hating the Irish, hating the Germans, hating the Mexicans, hating the Jews, hating the Asians, hating the Blacks, hating the Native Americans - who are actually the rightful owners of this country, thank you.  The cycle of bigotry is deplorable and yet somehow as an American culture we have not only bought in, we actually defend this crap. 

I happen to present as white and indeed that is a significant part of my genetic makeup, if you are looking solely skin deep.  But in actuality, I am a mix, just like most other Americans, so the fact that my skin presents as white, or another's presents as black should have no impact on how we are treated under the law and in business.  Sadly, it does.  In the job market, it's harder for both women and minorities, which is probably why women are still considered minorities, despite being a larger actual population of people than males.  However for skin-color minorities, the justice system is still racist.  The job market is still racist.  Everywhere it counts, in terms of getting ahead, there is still racism.  Not everywhere mind you, and certainly not to the degree it once was, but any amount is too much and it's ridiculous that it is within our powers to change it and still we do not. 

With the recent onset of the Tea Party and the small yet incredibly loud faction of bass-ackward people trumpeting on about god n' guns and wanting to keep their country free (of what, I have to wonder), our political system has been clogged up to the point of stagnation and so every step we do not take forward on the issues plaguing us, is a step backward.  And every step is actually a leap, when it comes to the growing economic stratification, where less than one percent of our population - something like 500 families out of 300 million people - control over 60% of the wealth.  This is indefensible and yet they somehow manage to defend it.  The mind boggles.  I want change....for all of us, which means summa yous is gonna have to be uncomfortable where you weren't before. 

Old (and young) white men who for some stupid reason run the country, but are not at all representative of it's demographic makeup:  You suck.  It's time to change.  For real.

boom.....

.....is the sound of my heart exploding.

I hate it so very much when human decency lets me down.  I really don't believe the standard is too high, I just don't understand why there are not more good people in the world.  I truly don't. 

...and stuff....

It's time to sleep.  I have one week "off", but given the situation of things lately, it really won't be off, because there is ever so much to get done. 

Operation: Firing On All Cylinders continues, as does my ongoing quest to rid the world of the bullshickatay.  Bullshickatay is kind of a catch-all, which wraps up all idiocy, bigotry, and the like. 

I'm cooking up some abs, counting down to the 9er's upcoming fabulousness and working on my fascia. 

In the meantime, I'm mulling over things like this.  Trickle down economics, my ass.  More on this later, when my mountain - or ant hill - of available time surfaces. 


That is all.

'Merica

Dear 'Merica:

Please stop being bigoted, racist, sexist, religiously intolerant, ignorant, bragging, obtuse, rude and warmongering.

Also, it may be useful to brush up on the actual meaning of the words freedom and liberty, as you are using them incorrectly about 100% of the time.


Thank you.

Down DOMA

I am on four hours of sleep.....I think I got that many, anyway.  I have a final on Friday and two projects and an assignment to complete in the next 8 hours.  Summer school is a bitch.

I do have enough time available to say how happy I am that DOMA has been ruled to be the bunch of bullshit that it is.  Next on the chopping block will be prop 8 and then all of the religious, zealot, weirdo Tea Partiers can begin their whining about how the country is being stolen by fair minded and compassionate people, who understand that to be successful, everyone doesn't have to be just like them.

I won't get into this now, but I'll just say that the super white-bread, god n' guns, anti-everything-not-like-them fella does not a patriot make.  I'd be really, super, extra, double happy to see 'Merica just go away.  You people are fucking morons. 

reliving

Aaaahhh psychosis.

If you've ever been on the receiving end of it, it's quite a(n unpleasant) ride. Two things happened recently....well two things relevant to this topic, anyway, and both made me revisit an extended brush I had with psychosis.  Super fun. Can I just point out real quick that I have sooooo much more fun writing (and I type faster) when I have a good buzz going?  Note to self. 

Anyway, the two things were as follows.  First, I reconnected, randomly, with a friend I knew from the dark time of an old, very awful relationship.  The friend and I actually met as a result of that relationship and it was a great big clusterfuck of ridiculousness, so we stopped corresponding out of exhaustion from all of the bullshit.  Now however, it's great to reconnect with a very kind and genuine person whom I am happy to know.  Way to us for not being brought down.  Huzzah.

Second, having recently moved house yet again, today I was going through some old stuff that had been shoved in a box for a long time and forgotten about.  In said box, I found an old notebook.  A tiny little 3x3 pad that had been given to my ex at some point and in which he took a bunch of random notes.  There were a few contact numbers in there, his social security number (which I have ever so graciously destroyed, despite wanting to cause trouble), and a bunch of notes for his "writing".

The word writing is in quotation marks there, because it's faster than saying well-worded-yet-unbelievably-angry-and-deluded-self-discourse.  There was a time, you know, when I actually justified all of the self-aggrandizing, everyone-hating nonsense.  I actually tried to offer myself up as a buffer to the world for this socially inept, asshole.  In contrast with my current world, it cracks me up how much energy I wasted.

I offer a few highlights:

**"Ratted out (tim)".  This was probably in response to something completely rude and inappropriate that ex did, said, or conspired on, making him the actual asshole, of course.  Darn you, Tim, for "ratting" though.  This was among the milder of the 'notes'.

**"I should just spit on you.  This place (restaurant redacted) sucks".  My guess here is that the portion sizes at said restaurant were reasonable and they probably had a dress code beyond the standard fat fuck lacrosse shorts and stanky t-shirt, which invariably pissed him off.

**"26 year old drug dealer".  This was noted with a 9 digit number that I assume was a social security number of said fellow.  What a peach he is to note all of that, although he did use his "contacts" at the NYPD to run backgrounds on me and several of my friends, so perhaps I wasn't the only lucky one.  I should note that he worked for the NYPD at one point, so it's safe to assume this is something along the lines of racist or corrupt bullshit. 

**"You're the load your mother should have swallowed.  I hate coming into the city".  Isn't that lovely?  What a gentle soul. 

Why this was ever left in my possession I have no idea, but what a lovely little reminder of some very sound decisions I've made and a good laugh.  Wouldn't it be amazing if the color of peoples' faces reflected their insides?  I think his face would be a fantastically unpalatable purple-green-red-grey hue, like if you took all of those colors and tried to somehow blend them together in a pretty little puke.

Way to go EFS for providing the notebook, though.  Well done. 

trinkets

I have no ability to produce deliverables right now, for anything not ratio-oriented.  My life, at the moment, consists of reading, cleaning, suffering through various new training challenges, reading more and calculating and interpreting ratios.

I have had no original thoughts and have barely been out of the 8 walls which make up the perimeters of my apartment and the business school.

But there were the fantastic moments when a girl waltzed into class thirty minutes late, plunked down her cavernous Louis Vuitton bag, checked her Chanel watch, clicked her Prada slippers, pulled out her iPhone, then pulled out her blackberry.  And then, finally after all that, she pulled out a pencil and a very small 5 x 7 notebook and looked around quizzically.  She got up three or four times and on the break I heard her oh emm gee-ing about some guy.  Then she left early.  So that was fun.  

suckin it up

I am going to work out at 8:30am, tomorrow.  Other than the time, there should be nothing odd about this statement.  What is the scary (odd) part, is that I am going to train with one of my former teammates, who basically never stopped training. 

It feels mildly pathetic to be ready to swallow my pride and get my ass handed to me, but I need that right now, so it's all good.  With everything else going on in my life at the moment, it makes perfect sense that I should be in competitive shape right now, so.....well, here goes a healthy dose of embarrassment and future motivation. 

My demise is imminent, please say nice things about me. 

those days

There are those days when you have a final and things are annoying you and your house is a mess because you don't yet have your sofa or your dresser......

And then someone dies and none of it matters. 

I have lost two friends in recent years to suicide.  They were about the same age when they did it, too.  Two very smart, caring men with bright futures and lots of friends who cared about them.  Two good souls who were so locked inside themselves that they saw their only way through as out.  It breaks my heart to pieces to think that gone forever was a better option than another day, week, month, or year.  Why? 

There is a large part of me that is angered by this.  I have another friend, whom I have known since childhood, who has tried - an fortunately failed - a few times now.  He would leave behind a loving wife and an adorable, smart son.  I get angry with him, but have to keep that inside, because the anger doesn't fix anything for the tortured soul.  All one can do is try to be as supportive as possible, assuming the problem is visible on any level.  If you don't know however.....

My heart is heavy.  I hope you have found some peace, my dear friends.  I hope that things truly are better as your soul rejoins the cosmos.

....grads

Dear undergraduate students......

The library, as the huge sign on the wall says, is a quiet place where no phone calls are allowed.  I realize you don't give a shit about your schooling because you have no idea what you will actually do with your degree and chances are you were out drinking late last night. 

I don't give a shit if your library trip is for appearances only.  The graduate students - especially the ones racking up debt on their own credit - give a shit about their finals.  Take your loud chewing and your phone calls outside, for fucks sake. 

thank you.

Boston

I have few words tonight, after watching the absolute horror that occurred today when two bombs went off during the Boston Marathon.  Boston is a city I hold dear to my heart.  I lived there, went to school there, wandered its streets, rowed on its river, played and lounged in its parks.  The Boston Marathon is one I hope to run, one day. 

I feel fortunate that all of my friends up there have checked in and are safe, but having lived just a few blocks from where the blast occurred, my heart just breaks for the city, the runners and all those who traveled great distances to participate in what has - for 116 years - been one of the greatest days of the year to be in that beautiful, quaint city. 

I know that our better humanity will prevail and that people will band together to care for one another and help each other heal.  I just loathe that it always takes such grave tragedy to produce this kind of beauty. 

I love you, Boston.

bus stop

Someone drove over my bus stop.  The bus still arrived, so I guess the operators of the DC Metro bus system are smarter than that bus stop wrecker, but still....I arrived today and it was gone, replaced by various car parts, broken side mirror pieces, a mangled crosswalk sign that had been lovingly draped over a tree branch, and some metal fence parts.

Since it's Monday, I can assume that this happened over the weekend when a drunk person careening up Connecticut Avenue veered onto my street and then did not complete the veer and instead tried to visit the Russian embassy via the inside of his or her vehicle.  Or maybe it was a Russian on the run, trying desperately to get away from one of the 17 police forces at work in this tiny hamlet and crash to safety inside the embassy gates.  Either way, it clearly didn't work and my guess is that the Russian embassy is not stocked with ample staff to retrieve errant ex-pats at the time said accident occurred.

I dated an idiot one time, who liked to tell people that he wasn't drunk when he was three sheets to the wind.   Three sheets to the wind, incidentally, is a nautical phrase describing not the sails, but the ropes which secure them, being left to flap in the wind and thus throw the boat helplessly off course.  Anyway.  He was shitfaced drunk, we were in an argument and he decided in his infinite and self-righteous wisdom, to vehemently proclaim his sobriety, override my desire to walk to the train station and instead drive me there, probably with only one eye open the whole way.  As this was in his intensely trashy part of the world, chances are there were many other drunk idiots on the road and we could have all been killed, or crashed up into someone's living room.  But I digress.

To his dismay, there was no train to arrive for some hours after that and instead of just chilling out, he decided to hail a cab and send me on my way.  I kept my mouth shut at that point, since his decision making skills were on the fritz and took the c bill he offered with a smile on my face.  The cab - with generous tip - cost $55 and so I made some money on the deal, which I spent on a pair of shoes at Nordstrom Rack.

And there you have it.  Don't drive drunk, kids. 

trough of youth

Ah children.  Lovely little germ factories of cuteness and screaming.

I visited with several of those, while on my vacation last week and they generously bestowed upon me a combination of their various illnesses and exposures, leading me to be pajama ridden and knocked into submission, at present.  A friend of mine says that a day with kids is the ultimate form of birth control.  I waffle on that sentiment.  One thing I can say with total confidence however, is that millenials confuse, annoy and amaze me, all at the same time.

I guess I know I'm old because I'm at the point of saying "when I was that age" and "kids today......".  But seriously, the peaks of intelligence, awareness and acceptance go ever higher, leaving me duly impressed with what it will be possible to achieve in the future, with minds like these already at work.

And then they speak.  Maybe not the brainiacs of the millenial generation, but the rest of them.  Holy shit.  They are SO rude, SO obtuse, SO entitled, SO shrieky, SO irritatingly snotty.  The trough, friends, has deepened and pulled these attention deficit-ridden nightmares o so deep into it's morass that it is hard even to peer over the edge for fear of falling in from vertigo.  They hurt my brain.  I'm starting to think that getting smacked in the mouth for being a smartass wasn't such a bad thing.  Is it wrong to smack other peoples' kids in the mouth?  I mean, the germs are bad enough, but there's not a lot I can do about that part......

gnats

I should be doing tax questions and write-ups on both managerial decision making and international financial reporting standards, right now.  I however, have the focus of a gnat, at the moment.  Perhaps a greater degree of coffee rationing is in order. 

Since I'm all a-flutter (in more ways than one), I'll post a song that I can't get out of my head, since I'm just so stinking happy that even intense 4-classes-in-a-semester pressure can't get me down.  I'm not even going to bother estimating when I'll finally make it to sleep. 

one and done

Not to be confused with the one shot wonder, the one minute man or other assorted one-off items, I am presently reviewing what it was like to have one day left of work. 

I recently ended what is among the shortest tenures I have held at a company, and while it was a good and worthwhile reason that I left, I'm still amazed at the "I'll miss" moments.  I learned, yet again, why I have less than no desire to work for a woman - although I think the possible exception for that would be a woman who was, or is a team athlete - but all in all, this job wasn't the suck-hole of death I have previously experienced. 

I guess the prospect of being unemployed on purpose - without the presence of large sums of liquid money - makes the heart grow fond for the daily rigors of the paying gig.  As I cruised around and said my goodbyes however, I was struck by how many times I heard "lucky you're getting out" or "o man, take me with you".  Take you with me?  Into about $100k of debt, countless tests, a grueling battery of national exams and the search for a job as a newly minted graduate?  Really, that sounds better?

Being a person who consistently wants to improve and who is learning the art of appreciating the lessons of the now (albeit awkwardly and sometimes after the fact), I guess I can understand the concept of those statements.  But if you are so unhappy as to want to be taken along or 'get out', as it were, why not just get out?  Is the unknown really so daunting that feeling like or acting like you are a caged animal is your only recourse?

Ironically, I just had a phone call to that very effect, because apparently I'm now part this, part that and part gypsy, which is kind of funny, actually.  I guess however, this 'omigod I'm stuck' attitude goes lockstep with the fact that most people live their lives - the vastly greater part of their lives - within about thirty miles of where they grew up.  Get out a little, people.  It's a big world, once you realize you have options.  I'm not really so bold.  

Or okay, maybe I am so bold, but that doesn't mean everyone else can't be, too.  But that aside, seeeeeeee yaaaaaaaa.  Unemployment and mounting financial debt now have me firmly in their clutches.  No going back now...I'm stuck here.  

St. Valentine's

Grumpy cat.  There are no limits to the possible memes.

MD

Happy Mistress Day....the little celebrated holiday preceding the Hallmark holiday we all tolerate, tomorrow.  I suffer today not from irritation about this whole non-holiday holiday business, but from an irritation I can't quite put my finger on.  Ever had that?  You go for days not knowing why there is a nagging annoyance hanging around, just trying to go forward and shake it off.  This, too, shall pass.  And at least my homeland is no longer being terrorized by some disaffected dude with an arsenal.  

I can pinpoint one item of discontent quite easily, and here it is.  Tolerance.  Actually, acceptance.  I hate the word tolerance because it carries with the idea that things and people are to be tolerated, which I find absurd.  I am seeing lately, too little acceptance of other people, other viewpoints and other cultures.  Too much self-segregation and too little willingness to explore the world.  It bothers me immensely that one would dictate his, or her life, based primarily on what others might think of innocuous and personal decisions.  

Here's a note:  if you are engaged in something, with a person, or in a situation where no one is being hurt, or mistreated, it's nobody's business, but your own.  Those who would rail against you being gay, having an interracial relationship, choosing to expand your horizons by checking out new things and ideas in life, or trying to better yourself in some way, have no business in your life or in your decision-making process.  Shutting them out of your process shows strength of character, not the opposite.  Nay-sayers in that capacity are generally motivated by fear and that is to be pitied, not indulged.  

Personally, I realize that I'm more opinionated than many people.  I am more rigid when it comes to doing the 'right' thing and I take very seriously my loyalties.  I am not without fault, or the need for growth and evolution.  But one thing of which I am proud - and which I wish to impart and see implemented in others' lives - is my strength.  You will not see me back down or be ashamed of something I feel is right for me and I will defend the rights of others, when it comes to making decisions for their lives, as well.  

Getting off the soapbox now, but if you don't like this about me.....there's the door.   See?  Irritable.  But at least I can find something constructive to say, I guess. 

liberry

If I change my address to the library, I wonder if they will actually just bring my mail up to my permanent station here.  I had forgotten what it's like to be a fixture on a campus.  Too bad I don't have the cachet of being a top athlete at the school, anymore, because the minor celebrity was fun.

Posting remains at a minimum because IFRS, cost accounting, microecon and a few other fun things are sucking up my time on a daily basis.

I have had enough time to read about how other countries are rejecting our meat exports because we have all sorts of wacky chemicals in our food.  It's so insanely concerning that it makes me beyond glad that I'm a hippie who shops at farmer's markets and only eats organic meat products, if I eat meat at all.  More on this later.

I also had time to digest a lovely story on a looney dude who murdered a kid who pulled into his driveway by accident.  Man am I glad I have no affiliation with the south.  It just hurts my soul though, to think of how many ignorant assholes are out there, packing heat to keep the brown people away from them.  Come into the twenty first century, idiots.

That's all for today, back to calculating labor rates and overhead. 

famer

I'm just in this kind of mood....deal with it.  I'm sore, my hamstrings are crying out (for joy) and I'm going back for more today, so I thought I'd pass along the vibes.  No matter how old you are, or how far outside your former greatness you get, there is still greatness to be pursued, triumph to be won and satisfaction to be enjoyed. 

All things look good from the attitude of FSU.  Hall of Fame in my mind.   

12-13

Change.  Challenge.  Learn. 

2012 was a year of great success and great challenge for nearly everyone I am close to.  And yet we seem to all have emerged with a greater sense of self, of purpose and willingness to push forward. 

After the festivities, the toasting, the hugs and the texts to those who couldn't join us, there was the usual gawking and head-shaking as to what people would have to fight or cry about on a hopeful night, coupled with the wonderment as to why people need to be so amateur as to get completely obliterated and puke all over each other.  But then, on the walk home, it was time to start thinking and scheming. 

I love scheming.  2013 will surely bring with it new happiness, new challenges, new pain and new lessons.  I am of the age now where I believe in looking forward with excitement and squaring up to each new year and opportunity.  It is not enough for time to pass, one must live deliberately and with purpose, or what's the point?

Today, I had the chance to start my year by celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and going to view the original document.  It is a powerful thing to think back on that time in our history, see how far we have come, and realize how far we've yet to go as a human race.  Perfect to take notice of that on the first day of a new year and take some time to reflect on how to better participate in the human experience.  It is always worth remembering why it is imperative to treat each person with respect, dignity and genuine interest and understanding. 

I hope you wished those close to you well, embraced and said goodbye to all that occurred in the last year and are looking forward with excitement to what is to come.  It will be fun to chronicle. 

Peace.