Suck it vagrancy!

Kmart and I got an apartment!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is beautiful. And in a great location. And close to a grocery store. And buses. And nightlife. And my boyfriend. And coffee shops. And clothing stores. And SO far from my work but I don't even care! WAAAAH!!!!

One of my greatest fears.

Mrs. Hannigan

Even though mom blocked that part off
I still remember the dazzling orange hair
The decaying, exasperated face
of a rotten woman who lived a crooked life
She had pastimes, of course
for hot money and making young girls squeal
often interjecting sinister tunes
between malicious looks and exchanges
The name alone is said high in the nose
where nasal tones make perfect sense
Her screams delight abandoned children
their playful tricks her demise

2/05

The gift that keeps on giving (to you).

Want to know how to present yourself with an endless amount of FREE presents that you are guaranteed to enjoy when you need them most? Here's exactly what you do. Listen closely.

Load your ipod or music player of choice with random, sometimes terrible, yet incredible songs. We're talking one-hit wonders, chart toppers, stuff you listened to (on the radio) when you were 13. These are the files that are in your itunes library, but you always make an excuse when someone scrolls over them, such as "oh yeah my little sister downloaded that." And don't just dump the entire artist's career onto your 'pod, but rather pick one single song, a guilty pleasure perhaps, that will make your face break out into a huge smile when the shuffle gods grant you this little slice of musical heaven.

These should be songs you think you're over, but you're totally not. For example:

• All Saints "Never ever"
• Hootie and the Blowfish "Let her cry"
• Ace of Base "The sign"
• TLC "Don't go chasin' waterfalls"

i.e. songs you shouldn't have and shouldn't enjoy, but you do...and you do.

Use me, use me, go on and use me.

The thing about being a professional intern is that you have to be prepared to be heavily underutilized.

Sometimes entire days will go by where I am not given even one task, such as a brief to write up, a meeting to attend, a staff member to observe, or even some edits to go through. A good intern will use this freedom to pitch story ideas, make up assignments for themselves, spend an entire day scouring the news, reading poynter.org and learning everything she can about journalism. But that situation isn't always applicable.

For example, you work for an organization that edits its publication a week before it gets printed, and it's almost time for the holiday break. Well you can't pitch story ideas because all the publication schedules are sewn up for the rest of the year, and the paper is tight for space as it is. The Web site editors are so busy and overwhelmed that they can't add anything else to their editing schedule. You've been reading the news for the past four hours, and frankly, that's enough.

So where does that leave me? Well, here. I think I'll start with Wuthering Heights.

I love this.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2006

Catholics protest "immaculately transmitted rash" comic strip

Cavalier Daily
The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and others are complaining about two "Quirksmith" comic strips that recently ran in the University of Virginia's Cavalier Daily. One has the Virgin Mary and Joseph talking about an "immaculately transmitted" rash. The second, titled "Christ on a Cartesian Plane," depicts the Crucifixion with a parabolic graph superimposed on the figure of Christ. The newspaper and university have received 2,000 letters about the cartoons.

Friday, December 07, 2007

Drawing a line

The Internet makes everything move faster. A comics controversy that began not long ago on a few blogs quickly spread to thousands of people and ended up in over a thousand complaining e-mails and phone calls by the time it made Fox News on Thursday evening.

It is unfortunate that so many people took offense to Grant Woolard's "Quirksmith" comics from Aug. 23 and 24, but we are operating under our comic censorship policy articulated in April, and will not be apologizing for the comics. We decide about censorship and apologies based on those standards, and not based on how many e-mails and phone calls we get.

Some critics have pointed out what they claim is a double-standard in our comic apologies. First of all, the apology referenced by most of the complaints -- an apology for a Nov. 29 "Schizophrenic Bosnian" comic -- was made by different editors, and thus we cannot speak to the motives for it. Secondly, earlier this year, we recognized the possibility for a double-standard in comic apologies, and developed a clear, specific standard delineating what content warrants censorship and apologies and what does not.

Another important thing to remember is that The Cavalier Daily is a college newspaper intended mostly for an 18 to 30-year-old audience. The vast majority of complaints we have gotten, however, are from people outside Charlottesville and that intended audience. The Internet changes our audience greatly, but it should surprise no one if our writers and artists would be more irreverent than those for mainstream newspapers.

Many of the people who have written us from around the country have said that they were hurt and saddened by the comics. If so, they were hurt needlessly. Our intent in letting those comics be published was never to rouse every congregation in the western hemisphere, as some other organizations have managed to do with our comics. While it may have served those groups' political purpose to work people into a frenzy over our comics, we regret being thrust into the culture war in this way. It's not a conflict we mean to take sides in, and few left-wing groups on Grounds would agree that we are biased in their favor. Just because a comic appears in our pages does not mean that the editors agree with the point or even find it in good taste. It only means that the comic fails to meet specific criteria that warrant censorship. We purposefully designed those criteria as loosely as possible to allow artists and writers the most latitude in expressing themselves. It's a level of freedom that few other types of publication are able to offer, and it's something we're proud of.

One of the most unfortunate parts of this whole saga is that University President John T. Casteen, III and other administrators have been subject to a barrage of e-mails and complaints about a matter over which they have no control. Those upset who complain Casteen may as well be writing to the Sultan of Brunei. The Cavalier Daily is completely independent of University funding and oversight -- which is the only way we can guarantee the freedom of our staff from censorship. Either those contacting him don't realize this, or they hope to entice the administration to clamp down. Fortunately, we value our freedom too much to allow non-journalists to censor our writers and artists. We will distribute The Cavalier Daily by hand on pieces of notebook paper before we ever allow that to change.

I hate goodbyes.

Most people that hate goodbyes as much as I do have trouble bidding those they love farewell because they find it depressing and emotionally difficult and they feel some sort of great loss.

I, however, just find them awkward. What do you say when you can't tack a "see you in two weeks!" on the end of it, or a "I'll catch you Saturday night, right?" I mean it's weird! I've been moving around a lot lately and I've found that it's especially difficult to say goodbye to coworkers as an intern. So not only are you leaving their organization, but you're probably never going to come back, and you're even moving of the state, so you're really not going to see them again.

Usually I regress to the classic "good luck." You say thanks so much for everything they've taught you, you thank them for their friendship, then you say "good luck with [whatever they're doing]" or "best of luck, you."

If it were up to me I would have lots of little gatherings with one or two people each and just hang out with them one last time, where you actually do something like mini golf, or dinner, or, you know, scaling a mountain. Then you have an activity to focus on, and don't have to worry that there might be someone at your gathering who doesn't know anyone else. And the best part of my small gathering plan? At the very last second, you turn around, start running away from your friend(s) as fast as you can, and scream over your shoulder "bye I'll miss you!"

Then you're done! Life would be so much easier if goodbyes could just be like bandaids.

you know you're really loved when...

A Saturday night conversation between myself and the cook that works at my dorm. Scene: I am walking through the food line.

Cook: You're new here!
Me: Nope, actually I've been here four months.
Cook: One month? That's not too long.
Me: No. Four months.
Cook: Really? Well I've never seen you.
Me [stammering]: Um, well, I guess I'm not that memorable?

You've got to love the Christian ladies dorm for really making you feel at home.

you'd think they'd let me go to the bathroom.

So we all know how much my dorm LOVES construction.

Nevermind the fact that I was woken each day this morning by deafening scraping outside of my door (a man was redoing the entire wall in the stairwell, thus preventing anyone from using the stairs for multiple days), but now, we can't even go to the bathroom without going to a different floor. And this is why:











Please observe: random bags of whatever all over the floor and mysterious canvas sacks covering each toilet. How am I supposed to go to the bathroom on top of a sac? And furthermore, why on the baby jesus's beautiful earth would they do this construction in the MORNING when people are getting ready for the day?!

I shake my fist at you, metro.

For someone that loves public transportation, I can honestly say that I am mad at it today.

First of all, the D.C. metro blasts heat out of side vents, located on each seat, even though the trains are already sweltering from the multitudes of bodies filling every crevice.

Secondly, today at least 150 of us piled onto the escalator up to Dupont Circle, standing two-by-two, only to be shocked when it stopped, mid-escalate! So our sweating bodies, about to faint from the heat of the metro, the weight of our bags, and the snug fit of our coats, hats, mittens, and scarves had to lumber up the entirety of the escalator (about 160 steps) behind a barely moving, extremely exhausted, cane-carrying senior citizen.

Metro! Please do not make an elderly man trudge up an escalator at the rate of 3 steps per minute! And while you're at it, please do not turn us into bumbling, torrid monsters with your freakish heating practices!

Confessions of an overeater.

I love my mom.

One of my favorite stories about her is that she was once invited to two Thanksgiving dinners, one at her grandmother's house and one that was to occur shortly after at her future in-laws' house. Being the sweet, adorable lady that she is, she resolved to eat two feasts, in their entirety, right in a row (so as to not offend either host). Then she did.

Let me give you the dimensions of my mother:

She's about 5'4, weighs around 125. So basically, she's a teensy little pipsqueak.



So what does this have to do with my overeating? Well my mom has always been able to pack it away. She can basically eat on command, and because she lifts weights and bikes all the time she's in great shape. Clearly, some traits I inherited from my mom and some I didn't. For example, I got her insatiable ability to eat lots and lots of food without getting full, but her devotion to exercise seemed to get left by the wayside for me.

I'm pretty much always hungry! And on the rare occasion that I get full, give it about half an hour then I'm ready to go again. I know people who get full after small portions of food, then they put their fork down and - bam - they're done with what they're eating even if it isn't gone. Then they're satisfied for hours. What the frick is up with that?

home.

"Intimacy is a luxury when you're young, and as you get older, it becomes a necessity without which life is unbearable." —GK

I totally agree. When I'm around people that I don't feel close to, it is such a different experience than when I'm around good friends.

What I'm most excited about, on the topic of my future move, is surrounding myself with people that really like being around me. I miss my friends. And trust me, I fully get that anyone can have friends like that wherever they go, but I just haven't been in a place long enough since college to be able to make that happen. I had a great friend in SF and a great friend or two in DC, which was wonderful, but honestly, it's not enough. I want to feel like I'm a part of something, of a unit. I want to feel like I belong.

I guess it's the same thing as having a home. It's convenient, it's familiar, it's comfortable. You can let your guard down in your house, or your apartment. It's the same with friends. When you're with really great friends, you should feel home.

Don't worry. I'm not going to join a gang or rush a sorority. I just want Teeth shows back. And Kristin. And Dave and Nick. And Metro transit. And Uptown. And freezing cold weather. And my beloved cloud bed. I want you back Minneapolis! C'mere!

101.

1. This summer is the fist time I have felt totally independent.
2. I don’t wear a lot of makeup but I LOVE blush.
3. I recently discovered the joys of 2 percent milk.
4. I have always wanted to date someone in a band.
5. As luck would have it, my boyfriend is a drummer!
6. I was a very, very loud child.
7. I seem to have almost no memory of some of the most seemingly formative events of my life.
8. I have tendencies to only list things about myself that involve food, possibly because I’m eating lunch.
9. I have really high standards for people that I love.
10. I really enjoy reading books, yet my heart leaps for joy when I finish one (probably because I love accomplishment).
11. My motivation level at my past two internships has been close to zero.
12. I often focus on what’s next so much that I forget about what’s happening now.
13. I really don’t like any sort of Asian cuisine or fish.
14. At any given time I’m usually worried about something catastrophic that really isn’t a big deal.
15. Even though I have a degree in journalism I really don’t enjoy reporting.
16. I always told myself if I were to have a career change it would be to become a nurse, like my mom.
17. The sucker I’m eating tastes like soap because there was soap in that drawer.
18. I love scary movies but I can never find anyone that doesn’t mind them enough to watch with me.
19. My greatest fear in my life is my mom dying. Live forever, Jeannie!
20. I sometimes wonder how I could ever find a husband that would live up to how much my family loves my brother-in-law, but then I remember I don’t really care.
21. I have always wanted to live in NYC.
22. I truly do believe that I am not as smart as the average person I talk to from day to day.
23. But I think I make up for it in other ways.
24. I have a really difficult time sharing things sometimes, mostly with food and mostly if I don’t have a lot left.
25. I generally don’t like to take a twosie without sufficient reading material to accompany me.
26. Nothing satisfies me more than finishing a journal.
27. I’m a little apprehensive about the next one though, because it doesn’t lie flat.
28. My boyfriend is in better shape than me and I’m totally ok with that.
29. I really do believe that I can be funny sometimes.
30. I plan on writing a screenplay in the year 2008.
31. I have never traveled beyond the U.S. and one Canadian state.
32. I plan to remedy that soon-ish.
33. I am very quick to forgive people and try to never hold grudges.
34. I am pretty much hungry all the time and rarely get full.
35. If I do get full, give it 30 minutes then I’m ready to go again.
36. I absolutely love making lists.
37. I recently got a free shirt out of a free stuff bin at my dorm and I love it.
38. My heart pounds out of excitement at the thought of purchasing a new notebook.
39. Sometimes I stick things in my journal to fill up the pages so I can get to the next journal faster.
40. I love straws.
41. My heroes are my sister and brother-in-law. I wish I were married to them too.
42. I have really high standards for bosses, and am quick to find faults in even the good ones.
43. Money is not a factor in my job choices.
44. I sometimes have a temper but I’m working on it.
45. On Wed. afternoons I can barely even concentrate because I get so excited for the Chron’s weekly free dinner.
46. I am absolutely addicted to g-chat and have no shame g-chatting at work.
47. I think the time to go cold turkey should be when I start at mpr.
48. I’m secretly scared I won’t get to start at mpr.
49. I was recently forced to endure a 12 hour job interview, 6 of which I had to witness the interviewer get wasted in a bar.
50. I have a deep, deep love and admiration for Saturday Night Live.
51. Please don’t tell my boyfriend, but I think that there is one man that was put on this earth for me and his name is Shia Laboeuf.
52. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I would have swam one more year.
53. I want to write and film shorts.
54. I don’t know the first thing about writing a screenplay but I’m starting to learn.
55. I love letting noodles hang out of my mouth until I’m completely ready to suck them in.
56. I have a hard time wrapping my head around how people can work for 8 hours straight, minus one hour for lunch.
57. I really really love my new shoes but they make my feet smell atrocious.
58. I love tv, but only good tv.
59. Back there when I said I only love good tv that really wasn’t true.
60. I’m on a football team and I’m the worst one but I’m totally ok with that.
61. Some people might think I’m absent-minded but I’m actually hyper-responsible.
62. I love public transportation and have never owned a car.
63. I used to feel really uncomfortable hanging out alone for long periods of time.
64. I want cute, black, artsy glasses.
65. I don’t have a favorite type of flower.
66. My favorite store (for everything) is Target.
67. I’m really disappointed in the way my older brother treats my younger brother.
68. I have no idea what to do about it.
69. One time I surfed and didn’t even fall down.
70. The most relaxed I am is when I’m watching tv and writing.
71. I do not understand how people like the taste of sparkling water.
72. I cannot wait to have a baby because I’ve been looking forward to wearing maternity clothes and having cravings for as long as I can remember.
73. But don’t worry I don’t want to be preggers for at least 8 years.
74. I don’t like coffee or anything that tastes like hot, dirty water.
75. It makes me sad to think I might have to own/use a car someday.
76. I would never, ever have an affair!
77. Sometimes I think about my old friends and wonder how they are doing. Then I look at facebook.
78. I think, if I have a daughter, that I shall name her Allie because I’ve never met an Allie that isn’t a tough nut.
79. I don’t want to live with a boy until I marry him because it seems like that’s going to be one of the best parts. Or one of the hardest parts.
80. I love pool but I’m really bad at it.
81. The feeling of buyer’s remorse often looms over me after purchasing clothing.
82. I like my rooms and office spaces to be very clean and organized.
83. Seems like one of the best parts about being a doctor is the scrubs. I’ve always wanted to wear those puppies to work.
84. I freaking love a good romantic comedy.
85. I really wish I had long hair but it absolutely will not grow.
86. I can’t remember the last time I dressed up for Halloween.
87. I have terribly high expectations for my next job. I really hope it’s fulfilling.
88. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, toot, then get really scared that I’m not the only person in the room and that someone might hear me.
89. Every day I think about my cloud bed and our glorious reunion.
90. If I could pick any movie to live in it would be Newsies.
91. I don’t believe in soul mates.
92. One really important aspect to my happiness in San Francisco was “Felicity”.
93. I wish, wish, wish that I could have sweeping bangs but my cowlick is such a cock block.
94. I like my freckles, though some might say they look like mini face poop stains.
95. I have to wear high heels to a company Christmas party in two weeks and we’re just really going to have to see how that goes.
96. I miss being a host!
97. Garrison Keillor loves washing the dishes so I have decided to love it too.
98. I got on the Phish bandwagon really, really late.
99. I now have a full weekend off every week for the first time in years and it’s so nice!
100. I am moving in 11 days and this excites me greatly.
101. Sometimes I just have to run really fast, even if I’m just walking down the hall at work.