flipping through the channels last night, we caught "bourne ultimatum". watching it, i realised why those bourne movies are so popular. i mean, duh, they are well-written, but it's basically the same story over and over again. what's so special about it? here's my theory: it's got something for the guys and something for the girls.
like this:
something for the guys - things blow up
something for the girls - matt damon
something for the guys - fancy cars
something for the girls - office supplies
something for the guys - julia stiles
something for the girls - julia stiles
something for the guys - fist fights
something for the girls - fashion
something for the guys - guy expertly assembles firearm
something for the girls - girl expertly cuts & dyes own hair
something for the guys - motorcycle chases
something for the girls - exotic locations
guys like fast cars, explosions, and blood. girls like self-chopped hair and manila folders filled with crispy redacted pages. everyone loves julia stiles.
12 September 2016
11 September 2016
eleanor & park with blogging and baristas
i am listening to the audiobook "eleanor & park". i mean, like i am listening to it literally right now. which is weird because i am also trying to blog. it's two things i really really really want to do, but i am not certain it's two things that can be done simultaneously. this book is so, so good that i want listen to it all the time, but listening to one thing and thinking about writing something else is just about as challenging as it sounds.
oh, wait. hey. the barista, like, just found the music and turned it way the fuck up up up. i can't even hear my audiobook and the freaking earbuds are jammed in my literal ears. damn.
going outside....
wow. that was completely ridiculous. the barista cranks up the music and people crank up their conversations. it was so pleasant, just sitting in sweet quiet communion with other coffee drinkers. i am pretty sure the baristas crank up the music to drive people away. the sooner everyone leaves, the sooner they can clean up and close the store.
my starbucks has the worst baristas. it doesn't matter how long they've worked there - if they are new, if they've been there a million years, it's all the same. they are the most selfish baristas. all they care about is talking to each other through their drive-thru headsets and running the customers out so they can close up early due to "lack of business". they closed up one time when it was snowy, so there was no sitting outside that day, and i had to walk down to the publix and sit at the tables where the staff eats their lunch. thanks for nothing, baristas.
is this working? is this making any sense? the book is getting pretty good. i think it's going to get my full attention now.
oh, wait. hey. the barista, like, just found the music and turned it way the fuck up up up. i can't even hear my audiobook and the freaking earbuds are jammed in my literal ears. damn.
going outside....
wow. that was completely ridiculous. the barista cranks up the music and people crank up their conversations. it was so pleasant, just sitting in sweet quiet communion with other coffee drinkers. i am pretty sure the baristas crank up the music to drive people away. the sooner everyone leaves, the sooner they can clean up and close the store.
my starbucks has the worst baristas. it doesn't matter how long they've worked there - if they are new, if they've been there a million years, it's all the same. they are the most selfish baristas. all they care about is talking to each other through their drive-thru headsets and running the customers out so they can close up early due to "lack of business". they closed up one time when it was snowy, so there was no sitting outside that day, and i had to walk down to the publix and sit at the tables where the staff eats their lunch. thanks for nothing, baristas.
is this working? is this making any sense? the book is getting pretty good. i think it's going to get my full attention now.
10 September 2016
proximo arcanum
i haven't been running enough lately and i am really trying to do it more often, so today i drove a couple miles to run on a fresh stretch of sidewalk near some new houses. it was okay and all, but that's not the point. the point is that while i was mapping my run to log it, i saw on the map that there's a lake behind the trees across the road from the sidewalk. a lake?? i had no idea.
apparently it's a reservoir and it even has a name. i'm intrigued now and want to go back over there and find out if i can get through the trees to the lake. i mean, not right this minute since it's like a quarter to 2100 hours, but you know, when it's daylight.
i want to get back in there and find the lake and see it for myself. it's not that i don't believe it's there or that i can't look at a picture to see what it looks like. it's that i want to experience the seeing of the thing by allowing my eyeballs to direct light rays to my optic nerve which will send impressions to my brain for interpretation and storage. i want to see it for myself.
it's not doubt - it's curiosity. and not the kind of curiosity that can be sated with second-hand reports. it's the kind of curiosity that requires my going TO and seeing OF. having given it some thought, i believe it's this way because of proximity and mystery.
firstly, the damn lake was right there! and, it's still right there - like two miles from my house. i'm curious about the eiffel tower, too, but the logistics of putting my optic nerves in striking distance of mr eiffel's wonder are a bit more complex. secondly, the lake shows up on maps but can't be seen from the road. not everyone who goes by it every single day has ever seen it, and probably most of them don't even know it's there at all. the damn lake crouches behind those trees like a kid hide-and-seeking under the bed. i want to go to the lake and share in its mystery.
when i get a chance to accomplish this, i'll let you know what i discover.
apparently it's a reservoir and it even has a name. i'm intrigued now and want to go back over there and find out if i can get through the trees to the lake. i mean, not right this minute since it's like a quarter to 2100 hours, but you know, when it's daylight.
i want to get back in there and find the lake and see it for myself. it's not that i don't believe it's there or that i can't look at a picture to see what it looks like. it's that i want to experience the seeing of the thing by allowing my eyeballs to direct light rays to my optic nerve which will send impressions to my brain for interpretation and storage. i want to see it for myself.
it's not doubt - it's curiosity. and not the kind of curiosity that can be sated with second-hand reports. it's the kind of curiosity that requires my going TO and seeing OF. having given it some thought, i believe it's this way because of proximity and mystery.
firstly, the damn lake was right there! and, it's still right there - like two miles from my house. i'm curious about the eiffel tower, too, but the logistics of putting my optic nerves in striking distance of mr eiffel's wonder are a bit more complex. secondly, the lake shows up on maps but can't be seen from the road. not everyone who goes by it every single day has ever seen it, and probably most of them don't even know it's there at all. the damn lake crouches behind those trees like a kid hide-and-seeking under the bed. i want to go to the lake and share in its mystery.
when i get a chance to accomplish this, i'll let you know what i discover.
25 August 2016
the rain would fall
rain would fall in leningrad that day.
birds who sang in summertime would all have sailed away.
she would put the kettle on to boil a steaming kettle song.
he would find in leningrad that day,
the letter that she left though there was nothing left to say.
hope so terrible would start to bud like roses in his heart.
she would fly from leningrad that day.
like a bird of summertime, she would sail away.
trust so delicate would start to dry and crumble in her heart.
the life between a woman and a man
is built on little secrets no one else would understand.
even if you're right there in the middle of the weave,
you still would not expect the threads to leave.
rain would fall in leningrad that day.
birds who sang in summertime would all have sailed away.
she would put the kettle on to boil a steaming kettle song.
birds who sang in summertime would all have sailed away.
she would put the kettle on to boil a steaming kettle song.
he would find in leningrad that day,
the letter that she left though there was nothing left to say.
hope so terrible would start to bud like roses in his heart.
she would fly from leningrad that day.
like a bird of summertime, she would sail away.
trust so delicate would start to dry and crumble in her heart.
the life between a woman and a man
is built on little secrets no one else would understand.
even if you're right there in the middle of the weave,
you still would not expect the threads to leave.
rain would fall in leningrad that day.
birds who sang in summertime would all have sailed away.
she would put the kettle on to boil a steaming kettle song.
11 August 2016
clean genius
okay, i'll come clean. i'm a genius. i mean literally, i have a genius IQ. but what you find as you move through life is that there are many kinds of intelligence, and not all of them can be measured with an aptitude for analogies... like... street smarts, emotional intelligence, business acumen.
but, we were talking about me, right?
my gift is solving puzzles. i can quickly click through options, find solutions, weigh those solutions, and choose one that seems the best fit. i don't like being wrong but at the same time, it doesn't kill me. i'll just reevaluate and try again.
i have a good memory, too, but not spectacular. the way i remember things is by likening them to other things, tying stuff together and tethering it with something heavy. but stuff comes untied all the time and that's a problem. so, being the solver i am, i solve that problem. in school i would use memory tricks like mnemonics but generally what i do now is find a heavier tether, i.e. write that shit down. i am quite the master note taker, and since life is an open book test, i am all set. (at least for the puzzle solving and light memory skills.)
20 July 2016
obviously full of something
so, you don't want to talk current events? okay.
last night we had what looked to be a full moon. tonight, it looked big and full again, so i googled it up to be sure. turns out, it was full last night and according to full moon calendar, it was the "buck moon". what the hell is the buck moon, you ask? well, i will tell you. it's when the everyone runs around buck naked. HA. i kid.
the july full moon is known as: hot sun, hay, thunder, buffalo, and buck.
-- hot sun. well, that's obvious - it's july, the sun is hot. that said, seems sad to name the moon for the sun. i mean, the moon spends its entire existence reflecting the sun, seems like the least we could do is give it its own name.
-- hay. again, obvious. hay ripens in the summer.
-- thunder. lots of thunderstorms in the summer.
-- buck. i had to research this one. turns out that young male deer (a.k.a. bucks) begin to grow antlers in mid-summer.
-- buffalo. i didn't find anything specific on this one but did find that august's sturgeon moon was so named by native americans because august is a good month to catch sturgeon in the great lakes area. frankly, i don't believe that the natives called them "sturgeon" but whatever. now, based on this, i assume "buffalo moon" has to do with july being a good time to hunt buffalo.
so, that's july, and i am not going into that amount of detail for the remaining months. you can research those yourself. for some months, i found multiple names
january - wolf, black snake
february - snow, raccoon, hunger, bare spots on the ground (WTF??)
march - worm, crow, little grass
april - pink, duck, goose egg (duck-duck-goose moon!)
may - flower, milk
june - strawberry, mead, rose
july - (SEE ABOVE!)
august - sturgeon, green corn, grain
september - harvest, wild rice, full corn, red plum
october - hunter, nut, blood
november - beaver, frost
december - oak, cold, long night
note that there is no "blue corn moon" as per disney's pocahontas. most likely, the "green corn moon" just didn't sound right.
note that march, the month of my birth, is the WORM MOON. i am currently ambivalent about this.
thoughts?
last night we had what looked to be a full moon. tonight, it looked big and full again, so i googled it up to be sure. turns out, it was full last night and according to full moon calendar, it was the "buck moon". what the hell is the buck moon, you ask? well, i will tell you. it's when the everyone runs around buck naked. HA. i kid.
the july full moon is known as: hot sun, hay, thunder, buffalo, and buck.
-- hot sun. well, that's obvious - it's july, the sun is hot. that said, seems sad to name the moon for the sun. i mean, the moon spends its entire existence reflecting the sun, seems like the least we could do is give it its own name.
-- hay. again, obvious. hay ripens in the summer.
-- thunder. lots of thunderstorms in the summer.
-- buck. i had to research this one. turns out that young male deer (a.k.a. bucks) begin to grow antlers in mid-summer.
-- buffalo. i didn't find anything specific on this one but did find that august's sturgeon moon was so named by native americans because august is a good month to catch sturgeon in the great lakes area. frankly, i don't believe that the natives called them "sturgeon" but whatever. now, based on this, i assume "buffalo moon" has to do with july being a good time to hunt buffalo.
so, that's july, and i am not going into that amount of detail for the remaining months. you can research those yourself. for some months, i found multiple names
january - wolf, black snake
february - snow, raccoon, hunger, bare spots on the ground (WTF??)
march - worm, crow, little grass
april - pink, duck, goose egg (duck-duck-goose moon!)
may - flower, milk
june - strawberry, mead, rose
july - (SEE ABOVE!)
august - sturgeon, green corn, grain
september - harvest, wild rice, full corn, red plum
october - hunter, nut, blood
november - beaver, frost
december - oak, cold, long night
note that there is no "blue corn moon" as per disney's pocahontas. most likely, the "green corn moon" just didn't sound right.
note that march, the month of my birth, is the WORM MOON. i am currently ambivalent about this.
thoughts?
17 July 2016
bigger than a tweet
just now, multiple police officers were shot in baton rouge and at least two were killed. i am watching the news unfold and getting a small taste of what it feels like to live in the wild west, or modern-day mexico.
we have enough external enemies without fighting so violently amongst ourselves.
but, what can *I* do? what can any one person do to alleviate the extreme tension between law enforcement and communities?
i can choose carefully and thoughtfully whom i vote for.
i can be kind and pay kindness forward.
i can make my bed.
i can be vigilantly alert and aware of my surroundings, defusing tensions if possible and protecting myself when necessary.
but it's frustrating - to put it mildly - that none of what i can do really makes any difference.
i'm open to suggestions. what else can i - can any one person - do? leave your thoughts in the comments. maybe together we can come up with some concrete actions we can each take.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)