Actually I'm just trying to consolidate everything in one place, so The Brunch Platter can now be found here: http://brunchplatter.wordpress.com/
This means that my fun blog and my professional blog are in the same place. In fact, here's a link to my professional blog: http://shkowalsky.wordpress.com/
And, should you really feel the need to stalk me on the interwebs, check out Orange Learners, a collaborative blog with by 5 distance learning Syracuse Students: http://orangelearners.wordpress.com/
Come visit! I'd love to see you all there! And by see you...eh, you get it.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
I used to be a contender...
I miss theater.
Sure, I've been the choreographer for a local middle school for the past 3 years but that's not THEATER theater. That's being a teacher and making sure the kids don't accidentally fall off the edge of the stage the first time they work under the stage lights while simultaneously hoping that they remember to take the chair off when they exit stage left so it isn't accidentally left in the middle of the stage during the full cast dance number.
What I miss is the camaraderie. The friendships. The late night rehearsals that ended in random visits to diners for horribly bad food that didn't affect my stomach because I was young and in college and if I slept until 1pm it was fine - no one I knew would be conscious until at least 5pm which was, conveniently, just about half an hour before rehearsal started.
This all began because I am teaching a theater course (as one of my many current part-time jobs) and I went looking through some old scripts to find material for them to read as monologues. I don't miss acting per se (I think I'm a better director than actor) but I do miss trying out how words feel and practicing the same line with three or four different emotions. You don't really get to do that in real life so much. Well, okay, you can but people won't be sitting next to you on the bus.
Since I met most (read: ALL of my post-high school) friends through theater somehow, I think I also miss the teamwork and friendships that go into making a good show. I used to love performing not for the attention (fine, a little bit for the attention) but mostly for the fun of exploring someone else's life with a group of people who rooted for you.
As you get older, you have less people rooting for you. I'm pretty sure that this is because at the end of a good week of work, you don't have 60-100 of your closest friends showing up at your apartment looking for the free booze.
*sigh*
I miss college. Who knew.
Sure, I've been the choreographer for a local middle school for the past 3 years but that's not THEATER theater. That's being a teacher and making sure the kids don't accidentally fall off the edge of the stage the first time they work under the stage lights while simultaneously hoping that they remember to take the chair off when they exit stage left so it isn't accidentally left in the middle of the stage during the full cast dance number.
What I miss is the camaraderie. The friendships. The late night rehearsals that ended in random visits to diners for horribly bad food that didn't affect my stomach because I was young and in college and if I slept until 1pm it was fine - no one I knew would be conscious until at least 5pm which was, conveniently, just about half an hour before rehearsal started.
This all began because I am teaching a theater course (as one of my many current part-time jobs) and I went looking through some old scripts to find material for them to read as monologues. I don't miss acting per se (I think I'm a better director than actor) but I do miss trying out how words feel and practicing the same line with three or four different emotions. You don't really get to do that in real life so much. Well, okay, you can but people won't be sitting next to you on the bus.
Since I met most (read: ALL of my post-high school) friends through theater somehow, I think I also miss the teamwork and friendships that go into making a good show. I used to love performing not for the attention (fine, a little bit for the attention) but mostly for the fun of exploring someone else's life with a group of people who rooted for you.
As you get older, you have less people rooting for you. I'm pretty sure that this is because at the end of a good week of work, you don't have 60-100 of your closest friends showing up at your apartment looking for the free booze.
*sigh*
I miss college. Who knew.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Bad Person Thought of the Day
Sometimes I think about how I kind of don't want to have kids because I've been working really hard to stay in shape and having kids will ruin all of my hard work.
I wish I weren't serious.
The thing is, I've never been one to like exercise or go to the gym so the idea of spending 9 months feeling sick, uncomfortable, and generally fat only to have to work extra hard to get back to where I am right now is sort of unappealing. And by sort of, I mean completely.
I wish I weren't so vain about it but yeah...it really is kind of about my looks.
Maybe I'll just be the crazy kitten/puppy lady.
I wish I weren't serious.
The thing is, I've never been one to like exercise or go to the gym so the idea of spending 9 months feeling sick, uncomfortable, and generally fat only to have to work extra hard to get back to where I am right now is sort of unappealing. And by sort of, I mean completely.
I wish I weren't so vain about it but yeah...it really is kind of about my looks.
Maybe I'll just be the crazy kitten/puppy lady.
Monday, September 21, 2009
My Continued Annoyance At Local Papers
Today, upon opening up the New Jersey Herald, I found this headline glaring back at me:
America is a Christian Nation
This was news to me as I consider myself to be relatively well informed and hadn't seen that on any news reports nor do I remember learning this in school.
As it turns out, this was the headline the Herald opted to use for their "Letters to the Editor" section and the following is the original letter by a reader:
Editor:
This letter is in response to a letter printed Sept. 15 regarding the separation of church and state by Susan Jones.
Having read your editorial on the separation of church and state, I’d like to let you know a few things and maybe educate you on your topic. It seems that you accepted a “generic” prayer for the victims of 9/11. Prayer, defined as a devout petition or communion with none other than God, according to you, was “more religious than a town sponsored event should be.” Perhaps you might let the rest of us know where we might find such information, i.e., rules and regulations regarding same.
As for the separation of church and state, you did not include where one might find that law regarding same. You might be surprised to find out that there is no law regarding separation of church and state. That was merely a phrase coined by Thomas Jefferson in a letter from him to a friend at the Baptist Association of Danbury, Conn., shortly after he became president. Jefferson, in fact, made numerous declarations afterward about the constitutional inability of the federal government to regulate, restrict or interfere with religious expression. To put this in simpler terms for you, had you read the First Amendment, you would have discovered that it was created to prevent the federal establishment of a national denomination. If you really must be told, this country was founded on basic Biblical principle. In fact the pilgrims (God bless them) were so afraid that anarchy would break out once they arrived here that they created the Mayflower Compact, a short but Christian document that put them all in agreement to keep God’s laws intact for their survival.
You also might not know that the U.S. Supreme Court declared America a Christian nation in 1892. Now I repeat, the Supreme Court (law of the land) declared America (your home) a Christian (followers of Jesus Christ) nation. Benjamin Franklin didn’t have to convince any of our founding fathers to pray for our creator, because they already were doing that. One might deduce that we are in a moral free fall since Madeline O’Hare succeeded in removing the Bible from public schools to “protect” her school-age son, who is now an evangelical Christian, from Christianity. We are living in amazing times when a president attempts to declare that we are not a Christian nation. But that is OK, because Presidents Adams, Roosevelt, Wilson, Hoover, Truman and Nixon already beat him to it.
You might try a lesson in history and civics, and maybe a visit to a church, for the education you need.
Chris Janiec
Vernon
Using the resources I have available to me (read: the official government website as well as that of the Constitution) I wrote the following letter that I will be sending out tomorrow to the Herald:
This letter is in response to a letter to the editor from Chris Janiec of Vernon that ran Monday, September 21, 2009. He originally wrote it in response to a prayer read at a town-sponsored event.
In this letter, the following claims were made:
1) The First Amendment was created to prevent the federal establishment of a national denomination.
2) The Pilgrims were afraid of anarchy would ensue upon reaching the shore so they created a “Christian document” called the Mayflower Compact.
3) The U.S. Supreme Court declared America a Christian nation in 1892.
4) There is no law that forces a separation of church and state and the phrase came from a letter Thomas Jefferson sent shortly after becoming president.
I was astonished at the incredibly twisted and biased interpretation of these statements. Allow me to now correct a few facts.
1) The First Amendment reads as follows: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” (Found easily on the U.S. Government’s website under “Constitution”)
If Congress cannot make a law respecting an establishment of religion, then it is clear that Congress does not have the jurisdiction to declare America a Christian nation. While this does not choose a specific facet of Christianity, it does imply that all Americans are followers of Jesus Christ. Furthermore, even if Congress does not pick a specific sect of Christianity, it still discriminates any Americans who do not consider themselves to be Christian and forces them to associate governmental laws and mandates with Christian philosophies and principles that do not pertain to their religion of choice. The First Amendment very blatantly protects their right (as well as yours) to practice their religion in the United States.
2) The Pilgrims’ Mayflower Compact was lost but transcripts are available from a number of sources, including William Bradford’s journal Of Plymouth Plantation. This document does in fact have a number of references to God and was designed to be a guideline for how their new government would run. What needs to be said, however, is that the Pilgrims were escaping religious persecution for practicing their faith. This means that while the document may be Christian in nature, it makes sense because those who established the document and those who signed all belonged to the same faith. So yes, they were founding the first colony as a “Christian Colony.” At this point in history, the citizens of any given European country were expected to practice the religions of their kings. This is the way it had been for hundreds of years and this is the model the Pilgrims used to form their own government. This is not the case in modern America where we are not forced to practice the religion of our president nor do we all belong to the same faith.
3) The United States Supreme Court never ruled that America is officially and legally a Christian nation. If this were the case, then any number of court trials, including the one mentioned in Mr. Janiec’s letter about removing the Bible from public schools would not have been allowed.
The supposed ruling he was referring to came from a court trial, Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, and was actually in regards to an employment contract between The Church of the Holy Trinity, New York and an English preacher. The act of 1885 prohibited the “importation and migration of foreigners and aliens under contract or agreement to perform labor in the United States, its territories, and the District of Columbia.”
The court ruled that the circuit court erred in concluding that the church could not hire an English minister. Justice Brewer stated that “America is a Christian nation” when explaining his reasoning for allowing the minister to work for the church. This statement was NOT the outcome or ruling of the Supreme Court. It was simply a statement that the justice used to introduce his explanation that he felt the country's moral ground (which he, as a Christian, felt was rooted in Christian principles) allowed for a soft interpretation of the Act of 1885 which was put into effect to prevent the hiring of illegal immigrants for American jobs.
4) Finally, while Thomas Jefferson may have coined the term “separation of church and state,” he and James Madison both have stated that the United States Constitution was drafted with this philosophy in mind and after the ratification of the Constitution in 1789, James Madison wrote “practical distinction between Religion and Civil Government is essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States.” He goes on to say that “We are teaching the world the great truth that governments do better without Kings and Nobles than with them. The merit will be doubled by the other lesson that Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.” (These quotes can be found in Monopolies Perpetuities Corporations – Ecclesiastical Endowments by James Madison, found on the government’s website.)
The Constitution does mention religion specifically under the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause. Both mention a separation of church and state as well as focusing on state actions that may amount to a government establishment of religion.
So, Mr. Janiec, as you suggested that I might “try a lesson in history and civics and maybe a visit to a church for the education [I] need,” I suggest that you try your local library and be sure you know what you are quoting before making umbrella statements about the intention of our nation’s founding fathers or Supreme Court rulings.
Hesper
I'm sure there are people out there who will argue with me but please note that I never said our country was not founded on Judaic-Christian philosophies. It was. There is no arguing that. But to declare that our country is specifically Christian is to say that I, as well as many of my friends and family, can legally be discriminated against for not opting to accept Jesus as my savior. To be frank, while attending a town-sponsored event, I do not feel comfortable praying nor am I comfortable knowing my town has specifically chosen to pray when a moment of silence and personal meditation would have sufficed. This way, each individual is allowed the opportunity to reflect or pray to the higher power of his or her choice.
Also it annoys me when people use false facts, especially when they can easily be researched and confirmed or corrected.
America is a Christian Nation
This was news to me as I consider myself to be relatively well informed and hadn't seen that on any news reports nor do I remember learning this in school.
As it turns out, this was the headline the Herald opted to use for their "Letters to the Editor" section and the following is the original letter by a reader:
Editor:
This letter is in response to a letter printed Sept. 15 regarding the separation of church and state by Susan Jones.
Having read your editorial on the separation of church and state, I’d like to let you know a few things and maybe educate you on your topic. It seems that you accepted a “generic” prayer for the victims of 9/11. Prayer, defined as a devout petition or communion with none other than God, according to you, was “more religious than a town sponsored event should be.” Perhaps you might let the rest of us know where we might find such information, i.e., rules and regulations regarding same.
As for the separation of church and state, you did not include where one might find that law regarding same. You might be surprised to find out that there is no law regarding separation of church and state. That was merely a phrase coined by Thomas Jefferson in a letter from him to a friend at the Baptist Association of Danbury, Conn., shortly after he became president. Jefferson, in fact, made numerous declarations afterward about the constitutional inability of the federal government to regulate, restrict or interfere with religious expression. To put this in simpler terms for you, had you read the First Amendment, you would have discovered that it was created to prevent the federal establishment of a national denomination. If you really must be told, this country was founded on basic Biblical principle. In fact the pilgrims (God bless them) were so afraid that anarchy would break out once they arrived here that they created the Mayflower Compact, a short but Christian document that put them all in agreement to keep God’s laws intact for their survival.
You also might not know that the U.S. Supreme Court declared America a Christian nation in 1892. Now I repeat, the Supreme Court (law of the land) declared America (your home) a Christian (followers of Jesus Christ) nation. Benjamin Franklin didn’t have to convince any of our founding fathers to pray for our creator, because they already were doing that. One might deduce that we are in a moral free fall since Madeline O’Hare succeeded in removing the Bible from public schools to “protect” her school-age son, who is now an evangelical Christian, from Christianity. We are living in amazing times when a president attempts to declare that we are not a Christian nation. But that is OK, because Presidents Adams, Roosevelt, Wilson, Hoover, Truman and Nixon already beat him to it.
You might try a lesson in history and civics, and maybe a visit to a church, for the education you need.
Chris Janiec
Vernon
Using the resources I have available to me (read: the official government website as well as that of the Constitution) I wrote the following letter that I will be sending out tomorrow to the Herald:
This letter is in response to a letter to the editor from Chris Janiec of Vernon that ran Monday, September 21, 2009. He originally wrote it in response to a prayer read at a town-sponsored event.
In this letter, the following claims were made:
1) The First Amendment was created to prevent the federal establishment of a national denomination.
2) The Pilgrims were afraid of anarchy would ensue upon reaching the shore so they created a “Christian document” called the Mayflower Compact.
3) The U.S. Supreme Court declared America a Christian nation in 1892.
4) There is no law that forces a separation of church and state and the phrase came from a letter Thomas Jefferson sent shortly after becoming president.
I was astonished at the incredibly twisted and biased interpretation of these statements. Allow me to now correct a few facts.
1) The First Amendment reads as follows: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” (Found easily on the U.S. Government’s website under “Constitution”)
If Congress cannot make a law respecting an establishment of religion, then it is clear that Congress does not have the jurisdiction to declare America a Christian nation. While this does not choose a specific facet of Christianity, it does imply that all Americans are followers of Jesus Christ. Furthermore, even if Congress does not pick a specific sect of Christianity, it still discriminates any Americans who do not consider themselves to be Christian and forces them to associate governmental laws and mandates with Christian philosophies and principles that do not pertain to their religion of choice. The First Amendment very blatantly protects their right (as well as yours) to practice their religion in the United States.
2) The Pilgrims’ Mayflower Compact was lost but transcripts are available from a number of sources, including William Bradford’s journal Of Plymouth Plantation. This document does in fact have a number of references to God and was designed to be a guideline for how their new government would run. What needs to be said, however, is that the Pilgrims were escaping religious persecution for practicing their faith. This means that while the document may be Christian in nature, it makes sense because those who established the document and those who signed all belonged to the same faith. So yes, they were founding the first colony as a “Christian Colony.” At this point in history, the citizens of any given European country were expected to practice the religions of their kings. This is the way it had been for hundreds of years and this is the model the Pilgrims used to form their own government. This is not the case in modern America where we are not forced to practice the religion of our president nor do we all belong to the same faith.
3) The United States Supreme Court never ruled that America is officially and legally a Christian nation. If this were the case, then any number of court trials, including the one mentioned in Mr. Janiec’s letter about removing the Bible from public schools would not have been allowed.
The supposed ruling he was referring to came from a court trial, Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, and was actually in regards to an employment contract between The Church of the Holy Trinity, New York and an English preacher. The act of 1885 prohibited the “importation and migration of foreigners and aliens under contract or agreement to perform labor in the United States, its territories, and the District of Columbia.”
The court ruled that the circuit court erred in concluding that the church could not hire an English minister. Justice Brewer stated that “America is a Christian nation” when explaining his reasoning for allowing the minister to work for the church. This statement was NOT the outcome or ruling of the Supreme Court. It was simply a statement that the justice used to introduce his explanation that he felt the country's moral ground (which he, as a Christian, felt was rooted in Christian principles) allowed for a soft interpretation of the Act of 1885 which was put into effect to prevent the hiring of illegal immigrants for American jobs.
4) Finally, while Thomas Jefferson may have coined the term “separation of church and state,” he and James Madison both have stated that the United States Constitution was drafted with this philosophy in mind and after the ratification of the Constitution in 1789, James Madison wrote “practical distinction between Religion and Civil Government is essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States.” He goes on to say that “We are teaching the world the great truth that governments do better without Kings and Nobles than with them. The merit will be doubled by the other lesson that Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.” (These quotes can be found in Monopolies Perpetuities Corporations – Ecclesiastical Endowments by James Madison, found on the government’s website.)
The Constitution does mention religion specifically under the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause. Both mention a separation of church and state as well as focusing on state actions that may amount to a government establishment of religion.
So, Mr. Janiec, as you suggested that I might “try a lesson in history and civics and maybe a visit to a church for the education [I] need,” I suggest that you try your local library and be sure you know what you are quoting before making umbrella statements about the intention of our nation’s founding fathers or Supreme Court rulings.
Hesper
I'm sure there are people out there who will argue with me but please note that I never said our country was not founded on Judaic-Christian philosophies. It was. There is no arguing that. But to declare that our country is specifically Christian is to say that I, as well as many of my friends and family, can legally be discriminated against for not opting to accept Jesus as my savior. To be frank, while attending a town-sponsored event, I do not feel comfortable praying nor am I comfortable knowing my town has specifically chosen to pray when a moment of silence and personal meditation would have sufficed. This way, each individual is allowed the opportunity to reflect or pray to the higher power of his or her choice.
Also it annoys me when people use false facts, especially when they can easily be researched and confirmed or corrected.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Remember that time I had a blog?
I do.
It's been quite a while and I could bore you with all that's happened since I last wrote but I'll just summarize and say that I took a bit of a hiatus to find myself. I wish I had a less cliche reason but it's the unfortunate truth.
I'm currently working on a master's degree in library and information science. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to capitalize that or not so we'll just say that I should be getting an MSLIS by December, 2010 if all goes well. If not, Spring 2011 and if I don't do it by then, something horrible has happened to me because I am too motivated to just let it slip on by.
I don't really know what made me write tonight (the avoidance of homework, the sudden realization that I am far too old to spend most of my time sitting on the computer and yet I do it anyway, today feeling like the first day of fall and that makes me exceedingly happy) but here I am. At a ridiculous hour of the night. Not sleeping. Again.
That's the other thing - since I started the MSLIS program, I have somehow managed to revert back to my college hours which means I'm up until 3 or 4 am everyday working on stuff. What. The. Hell. I worked so hard to get on an adult schedule and once I start doing fieldwork and practicum hours I'm going to have to be on school time so this is really just setting me up for disaster.
I think the other thing that has me up and writing is the fact that while I've been doing the grad school thing, writing has taken a bit of a backburner. I don't just mean poetry and fiction and all that stuff I like to write, but like, emails to people who long over-due deserve them. I'm kind of a bad person when it comes to keeping in touch with people I really don't want to loose touch with. And don't get me started on holiday greeting cards. I know that there is some unwritten rule in ettiquette somewhere that says any girl over the age of 25 should send everyone she knows a greeting card. Being 26 now, I feel this pressure but my problem is that 1) most of my friends don't have real addresses. If they're not moving from apartment to apartment every year they're in school or temporarily living somewhere or, 2) if they do have a permanent address, I sure as hell don't know it because the majority of the interactions I've had with them in the last 6 months has been over Facebook. It's a really sad reality of the times, I suppose. This is my very long explanation as to why you should not expect a greeting card from me.
Also, they never make good secular ones that are just all "Hey, I'd like you to appreciate the winter during the holiday season." I can only seem to find mass produced boxes of "Happy Birthday, Jesus!" and "Christmas Is The Season" and "May the warmest wishes of Jesus' birthday follow you through the rest of the year, warming your heart and spirit with Christmas even if it's already hot out because it's July and the last thing you want to think about is making your heart any warmer." Maybe not that last one. And I honestly don't have anything against Jesus personally, it's just that as a Jewish girl I'm not likely to send my non-Jewish friends "Happy Hanukkah/Chanukkah/Hanukah/Chanuka" cards and I kind of don't want a Merry Christmas card. I've gotten into conversations with people where they tell me that I should accept well wishes no matter where they come from and yes, this is true. That being said, sending a very religious-based card to someone of a different faith has a certain arrogance to it that I don't think many people consider.
Having grown up in a not diverse by any stretch of the imagination town, I was often sort of the odd man out and by third grade, explaining Hanukkah got old. This isn't supposed to be a rant about how I was the misunderstood minority because that's not what I mean at all. I just feel that there is a weird double-standard in the card-giving world. If I give an overly religious card that celebrates Rosh Hashanah to non-Jewish friends, they'd consider it a joke and assume I was being funny. This could be that for other occasions, when Hallmark didn't seem to have the right style of humor, I've been known to congratulate someone on their newly expected baby instead of sending a birthday card (and no, they were neither expecting nor female). That being said, I'm expected to assume that an overly religious Christmas card from my friends is a simple wish of joy and happiness for the coming year. Why can't they just make a card that's all "Hey, this is the season society says that I give cards to people I care about, so here's yours." Of course, you still won't be getting one from me, I just wish they made them.
It's been quite a while and I could bore you with all that's happened since I last wrote but I'll just summarize and say that I took a bit of a hiatus to find myself. I wish I had a less cliche reason but it's the unfortunate truth.
I'm currently working on a master's degree in library and information science. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to capitalize that or not so we'll just say that I should be getting an MSLIS by December, 2010 if all goes well. If not, Spring 2011 and if I don't do it by then, something horrible has happened to me because I am too motivated to just let it slip on by.
I don't really know what made me write tonight (the avoidance of homework, the sudden realization that I am far too old to spend most of my time sitting on the computer and yet I do it anyway, today feeling like the first day of fall and that makes me exceedingly happy) but here I am. At a ridiculous hour of the night. Not sleeping. Again.
That's the other thing - since I started the MSLIS program, I have somehow managed to revert back to my college hours which means I'm up until 3 or 4 am everyday working on stuff. What. The. Hell. I worked so hard to get on an adult schedule and once I start doing fieldwork and practicum hours I'm going to have to be on school time so this is really just setting me up for disaster.
I think the other thing that has me up and writing is the fact that while I've been doing the grad school thing, writing has taken a bit of a backburner. I don't just mean poetry and fiction and all that stuff I like to write, but like, emails to people who long over-due deserve them. I'm kind of a bad person when it comes to keeping in touch with people I really don't want to loose touch with. And don't get me started on holiday greeting cards. I know that there is some unwritten rule in ettiquette somewhere that says any girl over the age of 25 should send everyone she knows a greeting card. Being 26 now, I feel this pressure but my problem is that 1) most of my friends don't have real addresses. If they're not moving from apartment to apartment every year they're in school or temporarily living somewhere or, 2) if they do have a permanent address, I sure as hell don't know it because the majority of the interactions I've had with them in the last 6 months has been over Facebook. It's a really sad reality of the times, I suppose. This is my very long explanation as to why you should not expect a greeting card from me.
Also, they never make good secular ones that are just all "Hey, I'd like you to appreciate the winter during the holiday season." I can only seem to find mass produced boxes of "Happy Birthday, Jesus!" and "Christmas Is The Season" and "May the warmest wishes of Jesus' birthday follow you through the rest of the year, warming your heart and spirit with Christmas even if it's already hot out because it's July and the last thing you want to think about is making your heart any warmer." Maybe not that last one. And I honestly don't have anything against Jesus personally, it's just that as a Jewish girl I'm not likely to send my non-Jewish friends "Happy Hanukkah/Chanukkah/Hanukah/Chanuka" cards and I kind of don't want a Merry Christmas card. I've gotten into conversations with people where they tell me that I should accept well wishes no matter where they come from and yes, this is true. That being said, sending a very religious-based card to someone of a different faith has a certain arrogance to it that I don't think many people consider.
Having grown up in a not diverse by any stretch of the imagination town, I was often sort of the odd man out and by third grade, explaining Hanukkah got old. This isn't supposed to be a rant about how I was the misunderstood minority because that's not what I mean at all. I just feel that there is a weird double-standard in the card-giving world. If I give an overly religious card that celebrates Rosh Hashanah to non-Jewish friends, they'd consider it a joke and assume I was being funny. This could be that for other occasions, when Hallmark didn't seem to have the right style of humor, I've been known to congratulate someone on their newly expected baby instead of sending a birthday card (and no, they were neither expecting nor female). That being said, I'm expected to assume that an overly religious Christmas card from my friends is a simple wish of joy and happiness for the coming year. Why can't they just make a card that's all "Hey, this is the season society says that I give cards to people I care about, so here's yours." Of course, you still won't be getting one from me, I just wish they made them.
Friday, May 02, 2008
Love is Watching Someone Die
And it came to me then that every plan is a tiny prayer to Father Time
As I stared at my shoes in the ICU that reeked of piss and 409
And I rationed my breaths as I said to myself that I'd already taken too much today
As each descending peak on the LCD took you a little farther away from me
Away from me
Amongst the vending machines and year-old magazines in a place where we only say goodbye
It stung like a violent wind that our memories depend on a faulty camera in our minds
But I knew that you were a truth I would rather lose than to have never lain beside at all
And I looked around at all the eyes on the ground as the TV entertained itself'
Cause there's no comfort in the waiting room
Just nervous pacers bracing for bad news
And then the nurse comes round and everyone will lift their heads
But I'm thinking of what Sarah said that
"Love is watching someone die"
So who's going to watch you die?...
-Death Cab for Cutie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1SZvhCNIY0
For Rory.
As I stared at my shoes in the ICU that reeked of piss and 409
And I rationed my breaths as I said to myself that I'd already taken too much today
As each descending peak on the LCD took you a little farther away from me
Away from me
Amongst the vending machines and year-old magazines in a place where we only say goodbye
It stung like a violent wind that our memories depend on a faulty camera in our minds
But I knew that you were a truth I would rather lose than to have never lain beside at all
And I looked around at all the eyes on the ground as the TV entertained itself'
Cause there's no comfort in the waiting room
Just nervous pacers bracing for bad news
And then the nurse comes round and everyone will lift their heads
But I'm thinking of what Sarah said that
"Love is watching someone die"
So who's going to watch you die?...
-Death Cab for Cutie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1SZvhCNIY0
For Rory.
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
I'm totally about to bore you.
Good god, I'm bored. I'm the kind of bored you get when you're making excel list after excel list of contacts that you know you'll eventually be contacting, but right now just isn't the right time so you start to go a little stir crazy and you're considering hurling the stuffed monkey that's in your office across at your boss just to see what happens.
I'm the kind of bored that you only get after you've done 3 myspace surveys (and hated yourself a little bit for it) and a number of online quizzes (in case you were wondering, my inner super villian is Mystique) and found a free-streaming version of Tetris just to keep my brain from dying, turning into a pudding-like substance and escaping out my ear from this utter torture.
I even counted how many calories I've eaten so far today (630) which is something Sputz will tell you I NEVER do. And I did it just to see if I could figure it out. And yes, then I double checked online for nutrition facts.
It's not that I'm not working. I'm doing the power-work thing I used to do in college where I work work work work work for like 20 minutes and then take a 5 minute break. It actually works quite well. The problem is, the work I'm doing is anything but mentally stimulating.
Really, what I wish is that I could get paid to sit around and write. Especially because I work better when I make my own schedule and can get a lot of night work done.
In fact, if I had it my way, this is how my time would be used:
9-12am: workout, errands, chores, and mailings for submitting my work.
12-1: lunch, organizing deadlines.
1-5: editing of partially-written things, outlining, and pushing further on already created works.
5-7: dinner, chilling, getting more chores done
7-whenever (I'm a late-night person): creative new things. I work best at night, so this is where all the creative energy would be used.
A far off destiny of a dream, perhaps, but think of how amazingly sweet it would be. Plus, if I can make my own hours like that with my laptop, I can work from anywhere. One day, in my living room, the next in a cafe, and the day after that, London.
I digress...the stuff I'm doing now that we're closed for the summer and gearing up for a new season is a lot of prep work but not a lot of actual doing of anything. And I'm busy because I have a lot of stuff to do, but it's seriously mind-numbing. The results are that I get incredibly observant about the people around me:
The Whistling one calls house on his bluetooth ("Call....house. Call...house.") approximately once every 45 minutes to discuss dinner plans in greater detail. They're having chicken with mushrooms and some potatoes. Then, every hour, he gets up to stretch and ask us a question he already knows the answer to. Then, he walks with purpose out of the room. He returns 10 minutes later with the same purposeful walk and whistling. He then uses the bathroom.
The Eeyore one will bury his face in his hands and rub his eys every hour or so. He also disappears for no reason every hour and a half, returning 15 minutes later, usually with a random object. The last time he left, he came back with a pamphlet from the new pizza place.
And finally, The Perfectionist will stare out of the window in thought every 25 minutes. Then, she'll click a bunch on her mouse and sigh randomly to herself. She's always covering her mouth with her hand.
I keep visiting the box office to ensure that I will actually get up from my desk every once in a while and not become one of those huge-assed office people with severe carpal tunnel syndrome who is perpetually pale from lack of sunlight. On that note, I'm gonna see if my boss wasn't kidding when he said he's cutting out early.
I'm the kind of bored that you only get after you've done 3 myspace surveys (and hated yourself a little bit for it) and a number of online quizzes (in case you were wondering, my inner super villian is Mystique) and found a free-streaming version of Tetris just to keep my brain from dying, turning into a pudding-like substance and escaping out my ear from this utter torture.
I even counted how many calories I've eaten so far today (630) which is something Sputz will tell you I NEVER do. And I did it just to see if I could figure it out. And yes, then I double checked online for nutrition facts.
It's not that I'm not working. I'm doing the power-work thing I used to do in college where I work work work work work for like 20 minutes and then take a 5 minute break. It actually works quite well. The problem is, the work I'm doing is anything but mentally stimulating.
Really, what I wish is that I could get paid to sit around and write. Especially because I work better when I make my own schedule and can get a lot of night work done.
In fact, if I had it my way, this is how my time would be used:
9-12am: workout, errands, chores, and mailings for submitting my work.
12-1: lunch, organizing deadlines.
1-5: editing of partially-written things, outlining, and pushing further on already created works.
5-7: dinner, chilling, getting more chores done
7-whenever (I'm a late-night person): creative new things. I work best at night, so this is where all the creative energy would be used.
A far off destiny of a dream, perhaps, but think of how amazingly sweet it would be. Plus, if I can make my own hours like that with my laptop, I can work from anywhere. One day, in my living room, the next in a cafe, and the day after that, London.
I digress...the stuff I'm doing now that we're closed for the summer and gearing up for a new season is a lot of prep work but not a lot of actual doing of anything. And I'm busy because I have a lot of stuff to do, but it's seriously mind-numbing. The results are that I get incredibly observant about the people around me:
The Whistling one calls house on his bluetooth ("Call....house. Call...house.") approximately once every 45 minutes to discuss dinner plans in greater detail. They're having chicken with mushrooms and some potatoes. Then, every hour, he gets up to stretch and ask us a question he already knows the answer to. Then, he walks with purpose out of the room. He returns 10 minutes later with the same purposeful walk and whistling. He then uses the bathroom.
The Eeyore one will bury his face in his hands and rub his eys every hour or so. He also disappears for no reason every hour and a half, returning 15 minutes later, usually with a random object. The last time he left, he came back with a pamphlet from the new pizza place.
And finally, The Perfectionist will stare out of the window in thought every 25 minutes. Then, she'll click a bunch on her mouse and sigh randomly to herself. She's always covering her mouth with her hand.
I keep visiting the box office to ensure that I will actually get up from my desk every once in a while and not become one of those huge-assed office people with severe carpal tunnel syndrome who is perpetually pale from lack of sunlight. On that note, I'm gonna see if my boss wasn't kidding when he said he's cutting out early.
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