So, I know I said I'd update Monday through Friday, but work actually trickled down from the muckity-mucks last week, and I had to do it. But that's not the worst thing to happen last week, no, not by a long shot. One Typhoid Mary (I refuse to mention names) walked in last Thursday and sent a plague rolling down the stairs into the basement where us lower folks dwell, gollum-like, in our prison cells.
My art director was out at 11:00 am Friday morning, and I caught the bug amidst the stunning 80 degree weather Sunday afternoon. Needless to say, I spent most of yesterday languishing on my futon, watching a special on E about celebrity fashion faux-pas through heavily shuttered eyes.
I tried desperately to sew up a sweat jacket I've been working on for a month, but laziness crept into my joints and made the task impossible for me to complete.
I did my exercise today, though my husband would yell at me for it- I was a good girl Sunday and yesterday; today my muscles cried out atrophy! atrophy! and could no longer be ignored in good faith.
I'm hungry. I'm always hungier when I'm at work and I'm not sure why- I'm gunna go ahead and guess boredom, plain and simple.
Well, I'll leave you here, dear readers- hopefully I'll have another rant in me tomorrow, though the wires have been quiet of late. Only our pals Wolfowitz and Gonzalez have anything to fear these days- seems Bush's boys have lots to answer for.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Thursday, April 19, 2007
I Promise Not to Dwell on This
But how can I help it?
Images and video were released last night of the VT gunman Cho, made up in the finery of disaffected youth: khaki military style vest, backwards black cap, and gangster-style guns. His eyes peered through the audience, burning with bitter vinegar, and he held the firearms out at his sides, in a Christ-like pose. One can imagine how like a martyr he felt. How like a god.
Although I know no amount of pain or suffering can make up for brutally butchering a room full of innocent people, I cannot help but feel compassion for him. He was another voice lost in the system. They did try. They sent him to a counselor and signed him up for involuntary evaluation. I read an article that said that he had to be tutored because other students were afraid of him. The teachers even kept a warning system to alert each other if he did anything too weird when they were alone with him.
I wonder what he said to the women he sent emails to. I wonder what would have happened if they had responded instead of calling the police. No matter how sullen or friendless someone is determined to be, it is important to understand that everyone needs love and a sense of belonging or they cannot survive. I myself have much experience with this phenominon in people I meet while playing online games, lonely people to whom the online community is all there is.
I cannot help but believe he thought it impossible to let his parents or siblings know how badly he hurt, how alone he felt. You cannot have children if you are not prepared to listen to their cries of help. Not everyone has enough strength on their own to live the life they are told they are supposed to live. I heard a man NPR that writes and talks publicly about his dealings with cancer say something that seemed so true and sudden I burst into tears. He said, "We are only given those burdens that we can bear". I suppose when for whatever reason we cannot bear those burdens, this is the result. People are far too worried about their own lives, their own business, no one has the time or energy to devote to helping someone who obviously needs it.
I cannot forgive him for the way he handled things, but I do understand, in a way- now, in death, he has all the attention he needed in life, all at once.
Images and video were released last night of the VT gunman Cho, made up in the finery of disaffected youth: khaki military style vest, backwards black cap, and gangster-style guns. His eyes peered through the audience, burning with bitter vinegar, and he held the firearms out at his sides, in a Christ-like pose. One can imagine how like a martyr he felt. How like a god.
Although I know no amount of pain or suffering can make up for brutally butchering a room full of innocent people, I cannot help but feel compassion for him. He was another voice lost in the system. They did try. They sent him to a counselor and signed him up for involuntary evaluation. I read an article that said that he had to be tutored because other students were afraid of him. The teachers even kept a warning system to alert each other if he did anything too weird when they were alone with him.
I wonder what he said to the women he sent emails to. I wonder what would have happened if they had responded instead of calling the police. No matter how sullen or friendless someone is determined to be, it is important to understand that everyone needs love and a sense of belonging or they cannot survive. I myself have much experience with this phenominon in people I meet while playing online games, lonely people to whom the online community is all there is.
I cannot help but believe he thought it impossible to let his parents or siblings know how badly he hurt, how alone he felt. You cannot have children if you are not prepared to listen to their cries of help. Not everyone has enough strength on their own to live the life they are told they are supposed to live. I heard a man NPR that writes and talks publicly about his dealings with cancer say something that seemed so true and sudden I burst into tears. He said, "We are only given those burdens that we can bear". I suppose when for whatever reason we cannot bear those burdens, this is the result. People are far too worried about their own lives, their own business, no one has the time or energy to devote to helping someone who obviously needs it.
I cannot forgive him for the way he handled things, but I do understand, in a way- now, in death, he has all the attention he needed in life, all at once.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Therapeutic
So my therapist told me many things last night, the most important of which was that I should keep a journal. Well, here it is.
Yesterday was a wash at work, not much to do, really. We've been slow for about 3 weeks straight, so much so that my art director has taken to carpentry-all of a sudden everything has a raised platform or a rolling shelf.
I'm sure that all of you reading this have had moments where you sit at your desk and wonder- how did I get here? What was I thinking when I was a senior in high school? I remember what I was thinking- I want to do art for a living, but I don't want to languish away in a 4 year art school only to become freshly minted boil on the back of society, creating avante garde heaps of garbage featuring religious figures and food.
So what are my choices? Ah, graphic design. These days, graphic designers without the extra wonder twin ability to make web pages IN CYBERSPACE are becoming less and less useful to companies who can get their secretaries to create something in Word. Not only that, but designers are a dime a dozen, they pop out of technical schools faster than companies can hire them, and so you have a glut of money-hungry 20 somethings who will take less and less just to have some kind of job so they can pay the college loan hounds breathing down their necks. Not exactly a good combination for job security.
I should have been a writer, should have majored in English and written pithy and lofty papers on the connection between and relevance of religious figures and food. Then again, I think I could enjoy a staff writing position for the Gloucester County Times just as much. I try to stretch my creative writing muscles by writing poetry, but the mood really has to strike me. I would love nothing more than to write about video games, and I have made strides in this general direction, but I can't help feeling that I need to do something BIG if that is what I really want with my life.
You know what I want with my life? I want a job I can do from home to spend more time with my friends and family. If there are steps I need to take before I have kids and I can't work long hours every day any more, I am ready to take those steps. I want to make a magazine, that's what I want. I know printed media is going down the tubes, that's ok, I'll come up with something. I want a magazine about video games that doesn't look like a Highlights. I want it to be grown up and funny. I want it to be what I would read if I was looking through the magazine section at Barnes and Noble.
I can do it. I just have to figure out how.
Yesterday was a wash at work, not much to do, really. We've been slow for about 3 weeks straight, so much so that my art director has taken to carpentry-all of a sudden everything has a raised platform or a rolling shelf.
I'm sure that all of you reading this have had moments where you sit at your desk and wonder- how did I get here? What was I thinking when I was a senior in high school? I remember what I was thinking- I want to do art for a living, but I don't want to languish away in a 4 year art school only to become freshly minted boil on the back of society, creating avante garde heaps of garbage featuring religious figures and food.
So what are my choices? Ah, graphic design. These days, graphic designers without the extra wonder twin ability to make web pages IN CYBERSPACE are becoming less and less useful to companies who can get their secretaries to create something in Word. Not only that, but designers are a dime a dozen, they pop out of technical schools faster than companies can hire them, and so you have a glut of money-hungry 20 somethings who will take less and less just to have some kind of job so they can pay the college loan hounds breathing down their necks. Not exactly a good combination for job security.
I should have been a writer, should have majored in English and written pithy and lofty papers on the connection between and relevance of religious figures and food. Then again, I think I could enjoy a staff writing position for the Gloucester County Times just as much. I try to stretch my creative writing muscles by writing poetry, but the mood really has to strike me. I would love nothing more than to write about video games, and I have made strides in this general direction, but I can't help feeling that I need to do something BIG if that is what I really want with my life.
You know what I want with my life? I want a job I can do from home to spend more time with my friends and family. If there are steps I need to take before I have kids and I can't work long hours every day any more, I am ready to take those steps. I want to make a magazine, that's what I want. I know printed media is going down the tubes, that's ok, I'll come up with something. I want a magazine about video games that doesn't look like a Highlights. I want it to be grown up and funny. I want it to be what I would read if I was looking through the magazine section at Barnes and Noble.
I can do it. I just have to figure out how.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Unbelievable Tragedy
After I heard the news of the terrible massacre that happened yesterday, I went online to read about it and was greeted with chilling statistics: the highest body count ever in history on a school campus was in Texas, and made by a gunman on a tower sniping students below. He killed 16 before the police shot him down. The highest body count not on campus in a single incident happened when a man drove his truck into an eating establishment and then shot and killed about 23 people.
The cowardly wretch in this case killed 32 before he blew himself into oblivion. 32. That's double the next highest. On NPR yesterday, I heard an eyewitness account from a janitor, speaking in the rolling colloquial tones of Virginia, describing how he had seen a body in a pool of blood on the floor, approached to try and identify it, and looked up to see the gunman himself, with an automatic handgun, in a hat, hooded sweatshirt, and blue jeans. This seems to be the uniform of the bad people of our times, as opposed to a black top hat, cape, and twirling mustachio. The gunman shot at our janitor, and missed, but the narrator described feeling the bullets whizzing right past his head. He ran, and was able to get downstairs without taking any injuries. The tale shocked me.
Are we to make our institutes of learning fortresses, complete with SWAT teams in full uniform prowling the campus, ready for action? What is it that is missing in our society, what plague that creates these monsters? Some people would say that some people are just born bad. Maybe you could blame it on a chemical imbalance, who knows? and at this point, we will never know for sure. But I can't help but wonder what his friends or parents ignored that could have changed this whole situation. How does a person amass an arsenal in secret? What pain in his soul could only be mended with the destruction of everyone in his path?
Every day in the media, massive tragedy is spoken of in mildly sympathetic tones, read off of thousands of pieces of paper in thousands of television journalist's hands. Violence is nothing more than a daily occurrence on a bulleted list. Teenagers are raised by television and video games, taught nothing of moral standards by their exhausted parents, who must work as long as their bodies can handle just to pay their hefty sub-prime mortgages and credit card bills. There is no time. No time to tell them no, no time to explain. Our generations water themselves down in terrible school systems and weary tenured teachers. The sense of community has been wiped from the face of America, it's each man for himself. The search for the American Dream continues, but the people who are searching lack the tools and tenacity of our fathers.
Something must come, some alarm buzzing on a global scale. We are slowly devolving. Somehow, our collective pride must be lowered a notch, and we must perceive others as being as important to us as ourselves.
The cowardly wretch in this case killed 32 before he blew himself into oblivion. 32. That's double the next highest. On NPR yesterday, I heard an eyewitness account from a janitor, speaking in the rolling colloquial tones of Virginia, describing how he had seen a body in a pool of blood on the floor, approached to try and identify it, and looked up to see the gunman himself, with an automatic handgun, in a hat, hooded sweatshirt, and blue jeans. This seems to be the uniform of the bad people of our times, as opposed to a black top hat, cape, and twirling mustachio. The gunman shot at our janitor, and missed, but the narrator described feeling the bullets whizzing right past his head. He ran, and was able to get downstairs without taking any injuries. The tale shocked me.
Are we to make our institutes of learning fortresses, complete with SWAT teams in full uniform prowling the campus, ready for action? What is it that is missing in our society, what plague that creates these monsters? Some people would say that some people are just born bad. Maybe you could blame it on a chemical imbalance, who knows? and at this point, we will never know for sure. But I can't help but wonder what his friends or parents ignored that could have changed this whole situation. How does a person amass an arsenal in secret? What pain in his soul could only be mended with the destruction of everyone in his path?
Every day in the media, massive tragedy is spoken of in mildly sympathetic tones, read off of thousands of pieces of paper in thousands of television journalist's hands. Violence is nothing more than a daily occurrence on a bulleted list. Teenagers are raised by television and video games, taught nothing of moral standards by their exhausted parents, who must work as long as their bodies can handle just to pay their hefty sub-prime mortgages and credit card bills. There is no time. No time to tell them no, no time to explain. Our generations water themselves down in terrible school systems and weary tenured teachers. The sense of community has been wiped from the face of America, it's each man for himself. The search for the American Dream continues, but the people who are searching lack the tools and tenacity of our fathers.
Something must come, some alarm buzzing on a global scale. We are slowly devolving. Somehow, our collective pride must be lowered a notch, and we must perceive others as being as important to us as ourselves.
Monday, April 16, 2007
You heard me right- it's snowing.
After a wet weekend frought with wacky World of Warcraft playing, I opened my eyes at 6:00 am, took a wonderfully warm shower, went downstairs to let the dogs out and start my coffee, looked out the window, and blanket of white covering the back lawn looked back. Is it just me, or is April 16th a little behind the times weather-wise? I bundled my lunch together, put on my heavy top coat and gloves, scraped my car, and headed off to work to greet- absolutely no one. Nobody was here yet. I won't deny thoughts of flight entered my mind. I could pretend I'd never been here, could pretend my car broke down. But alas, I have never been comfortable with or good at bending the truth, so here I sit.
Today is a full week. I have work tonight, so that makes my day 8am-9pm, then I have therapy tomorrow after work, 8pm-9pm, then the basic design class I teach, 8pm-10pm on Wednesday, then Thursday back to therapy, then Friday just regular work hours. Saturday I work 9-3, Sunday is the day of rest.
I know it seems crazy, but amongst all of this, I intend to write an article about the state of electronic Role Playing Games today, and I'm also trying to follow a master list of core beliefs and goals daily. As long as I have things to work towards, I can make it through the toughest of times.
I went to the grocery store last night and bought many organic items, and Im making sure I recycle all the plastic, metal, glass, and cardboard I use. One of my many goals is to practice what I preach in the environment department, and Im going to try to keep a record here from time to time of my successes.
Off to work now, perhaps I'll be able to check in later for any comments- keep them up, kiddos!
Today is a full week. I have work tonight, so that makes my day 8am-9pm, then I have therapy tomorrow after work, 8pm-9pm, then the basic design class I teach, 8pm-10pm on Wednesday, then Thursday back to therapy, then Friday just regular work hours. Saturday I work 9-3, Sunday is the day of rest.
I know it seems crazy, but amongst all of this, I intend to write an article about the state of electronic Role Playing Games today, and I'm also trying to follow a master list of core beliefs and goals daily. As long as I have things to work towards, I can make it through the toughest of times.
I went to the grocery store last night and bought many organic items, and Im making sure I recycle all the plastic, metal, glass, and cardboard I use. One of my many goals is to practice what I preach in the environment department, and Im going to try to keep a record here from time to time of my successes.
Off to work now, perhaps I'll be able to check in later for any comments- keep them up, kiddos!
Friday, April 13, 2007
What happened to prioritizing?
You flip on the morning news, and I don't care what coast you live on, or which news channel you watch, but you see and hear nothing but Don Imus Don Imus Don Imus and I can't help but wonder- why does this story deserve a solid week of front page news?
Sure, America has positioned itself as the most moral and stand-up country in the universe, which is absurd, but really, I think there are better things to talk about. Yes, what he said was insensitive, and perhaps he deserved to be fired from his network job, and maybe join his fellow free-speech shock jocks on satellite radio, but all of that information could have been reduced to a single 5 minute blurb. Is Don Imus the VOICE OF HIS GENERATION? I think not.
There is still a war. Global warming is still happening. People in Africa are still dying of aids and starvation and being massacred in civil wars. It sickens me the way Iraq stories are presented: A suicide bomb went off in Parliament today. No AMERICANS were killed. Oh, well thank goodness. I was worried for a second there.
Anna Nicole Smith was on pills. You think? Britney Spears is in rehab. For what, for shaving her head? for suffering through numerous PUBLIC divorces and getting pregnant and hearing 100,000,000 comments about her weight and looks? getting pictures taken of her crotch as she exits a limo plastered all over Good Morning America? You'd be in rehab too.
But none of this trivia is news.
If you want to hear anything about what decisions are actually being made about the running of the country or how World Bank Pesident Wolfowitz is cutting aid to impoverished countries because of corruption when he went and got himself involved in salary negotions for known friends of his, you have to go to talk radio, or by goodness- READ NEWSPAPERS.
It seems to me very few people actually try to find out more about the world than the talking heads on tv spoon feed them in the 15 minutes between their showers and morning coffee. People don't vote, and if they do vote, they are uneducated votes along party lines or by name recognition alone.
Priorities, people- celebrities come and go, public figures say stupid things, and make and ruin careers in a matter of days. Big things are afoot that will affect you and your children, and you won't even know.
Sure, America has positioned itself as the most moral and stand-up country in the universe, which is absurd, but really, I think there are better things to talk about. Yes, what he said was insensitive, and perhaps he deserved to be fired from his network job, and maybe join his fellow free-speech shock jocks on satellite radio, but all of that information could have been reduced to a single 5 minute blurb. Is Don Imus the VOICE OF HIS GENERATION? I think not.
There is still a war. Global warming is still happening. People in Africa are still dying of aids and starvation and being massacred in civil wars. It sickens me the way Iraq stories are presented: A suicide bomb went off in Parliament today. No AMERICANS were killed. Oh, well thank goodness. I was worried for a second there.
Anna Nicole Smith was on pills. You think? Britney Spears is in rehab. For what, for shaving her head? for suffering through numerous PUBLIC divorces and getting pregnant and hearing 100,000,000 comments about her weight and looks? getting pictures taken of her crotch as she exits a limo plastered all over Good Morning America? You'd be in rehab too.
But none of this trivia is news.
If you want to hear anything about what decisions are actually being made about the running of the country or how World Bank Pesident Wolfowitz is cutting aid to impoverished countries because of corruption when he went and got himself involved in salary negotions for known friends of his, you have to go to talk radio, or by goodness- READ NEWSPAPERS.
It seems to me very few people actually try to find out more about the world than the talking heads on tv spoon feed them in the 15 minutes between their showers and morning coffee. People don't vote, and if they do vote, they are uneducated votes along party lines or by name recognition alone.
Priorities, people- celebrities come and go, public figures say stupid things, and make and ruin careers in a matter of days. Big things are afoot that will affect you and your children, and you won't even know.
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