Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in magnadudle's LiveJournal:

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Saturday, November 17th, 2007
11:37 pm	New BED!! I went to Macy's today for one of their awesome one-day sales. I lost track of what all was discounted what amount - 20% off of 50% and then 10% off that or some crap. Basically, walked completely into a trap while "prince-checking" beds-in-a-bag. Or is it bed-in-a-bags? Whatever, bought a $300 Bed in a Bag for like $114 that I wasn't going to spend in the first place. Complete trap. BUT! There is a good side to this! I got a real-live 10-piece matching bed set! This goes well on my beautiful mattress and boxspring that I got in February and the bed frame that I got TODAY. How's that for procrastination? I've got 2 months left on my lease and finally have a whole freaking bed that doesn't look all half-assed. This is a big deal for me. So let me explain what an idiot I am when it comes to sales. I bought the Bed in a Bag (10 pieces), 2 sham pillows to go in 2 of the pieces, 2 Euro-size pillows to go in the Euro shams, some music-themed gold Christmas ornaments for Aaron (they were just a little too perfect and I was on the cell phone with him killing time before I bought the pillows), and some Clinique eye makeup remover because I ran out and the Wal-mart brand makes my eyes swell. Will all of this merchandise make my life slightly better? Yes. Still, it was completely unnecessary. Now, the bed looks great with one exception: there's a small spot in the middle of one of the crisp white sheets. I'm kind of in this weird guilt stage about the whole purchase which might actually keep me from returning it. Does that make ANY sense? I pulled it out of the bag (which had been locked by a store sensor until I bought it) and went "Oh no! Oh well, serves you right for buying all that stuff. That's what happens when you spend money!" I am an idiot. Before you lose respect for me, yes, I will take it back tomorrow. And, actually, I will probably call Macy's beforehand to see if I can take the one piece that's messed up rather than the whole bag. I'll have to go to Tyson's Corner on a Sunday as it is, so I don't want to be lugging the whole Bed in a Bag with me. Ridiculous. I've also decided to use the free samples I got from Clinique. I never do that until I absolutely have to because they always give you samples and the sample sizes never measure up to each other. You'll have like a year's supply of body lotion with two days of the moisturizer that takes 6 days to work. I'm just going to use them up, decide if I like them, and then go back to my current project of using all of every product I found when going through my room. It's a pretty slow project, but I've gotten rid of shampoo bottles from when God was a baby. Be proud. So I'm glad I've got the new bed - new frame, new pillows, new sheets, new comforter. I'm like my niece! I've got a Big Girl Bed! I'm so PROUD!! You should be too. Current Mood: whimsical (Comment on this)
Monday, April 9th, 2007
11:41 pm	As they got closer to the DC questions, I knew it... You're Georgetown University! A bit of a lapsed Catholic, you still pay lip service to the faith, depending on who you're talking to. At the same time, you're more interested in politics than religion and can't help but be swept away by patriotism from time to time. While you aren't that soft-spoken, you still seem like a good candidate for diplomacy. Though you love bulldogs, you'd never admit that that's what they're called. Take the University Quiz at the Blue Pyramid. (Comment on this)
Monday, March 26th, 2007
7:53 pm	Hey Hey, Check Me OUT! Your Political Profile: Overall: 35% Conservative, 65% Liberal Social Issues: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal Personal Responsibility: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal Fiscal Issues: 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal Ethics: 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal Defense and Crime: 75% Conservative, 25% Liberal How Liberal Or Conservative Are You? I seriously think this is what Katrina did to me... (Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 28th, 2007
1:33 pm	Oh Pronouns. Silly, Silly, Pronouns... Here's a quote from today's New York Times: “They are at such a level you expect the best from them, and if you don’t live up to it, people notice,” said Todd Hale, a senior vice president of consumer and shopper insights for Nielsen, the market research company. So "THEY" means Whole Foods and "YOU" means the consumer. The consumer expects the best from Whole Foods. Okay. So if YOU don't live up to your own expectations of WHOLE FOODS, people notice? I never thought my failure to provide the best quality in organic and locally-grown foods was so noticeable... (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 14th, 2007
12:33 pm	Mi Cafe I'm drinking coffee at work (because it's free and there's nothing to do in the office besides drink coffee and write in my blog) and I can't decide whether I'm ironicly mature, incredibly immature or a pirate. Arguments for each: 1. I put coffee in my hot chocolate. 2. I put hot chocolate with marshmellows in my coffee. 3. I'm stirring it with a knife because there was nothing else and I'm drinking it with the knife still in the cup. It's delicious so that's helping to ease some of the confusion. (Comment on this)
Friday, December 29th, 2006
10:07 pm	You'll think I'm horrid. That's okay. I really enjoy seeing people in wheelchairs take walks. I know this is terrible but hear me out. The thing about it is that people in wheelchairs go on "walks" more often than I do. I'm not talking about actually walking of course since if someone is in a wheelchair, this is impossible or at least difficult and a terrible thing to turn into a spectator sport. I'm talking about a walk in the sense of going out for an un-pre-determined period of time to go an un-pre-determined distance of sidewalk or bike trail to spend quality time with yourself or a friend or relative and breath really really deeply of the delightfully fresh air. There's air everywhere, we just don't realize it that often. Whenever I go walking on the bike trail, I always see people in wheelchairs going along as well. I always think "What's the point?" and then I realize they're probably exercising their arms. Then I realize the wheelchair is motorized and it makes me much happier because this person is just out enjoying their time. Walking for fitness actually makes me walk less which is why I like to see people in wheelchairs out on walks. I'm all like "Oh, I'm going to go for a walk" and then I walk like 6 miles two days in a row and I'm so sore because I overdid it and didn't stretch so I don't go walking for like 3 weeks. There was once time, however, when I went for walks with my family, when I thought the whole point of walking was to go visit Gramma or see the owner of this local restaurant that's like a mile from my house. A few years back, I would go walking at night with my sister to just talk. It was so nice. We would literally just talk. And we lost weight. And it was great. So I see these wheelchair-bound people who are out on their wheelchairs, just wandering, thinking about whatever you think about when you're breathing really deep and internally debating and I'm like "Wow, I bet if I didn't have legs I would appreciate walks so much more." Actually, that's not what I think. I think about the alternative. Like if I didn't have legs or didn't have use of my legs, I would probably be sitting at home in my bed ringing a bell until my sister really hated me, doing crossword puzzles and watching the news 24 hours a day. I'd probably look all forlorn out the window and think about how my Olympic career was now but an impossible dream and how I don't want to join the Special Olympics because that's what everyone would be encouraging me to do because they think all invalids are like deaf, blind, and retarded and would want to put me in the same place as all kinds of disabled people. I would be bitter, but intellectually bitter. I'd argue with anyone who came into my room and put flowers in the far corner so I didn't have to look at them until they were dead. It would not be good. It makes me hopeful but disappointed in myself when I see wheelchair-bound people on walks. Sure, they've had to give up a lot by being in a wheelchair, but they can still enjoy the pleasure of fresh air and solitude. And I'm sure they thought of it themselves. Because even if you lvoed someone very much and knew them very well, there's no way you can advise a person in a wheelchair to take a walk to clear their minds. It seems really insensitive no matter what. Maybe that's why I like to see them out so much. It makes them seem like they snuck out of the house of their own accord (ie, they're really independent, stubborn, and mischeivious) with no real purpose in life (so they must be pretty Zen about life in general which is an amazing feat considering their situation). I hope if I'm ever in that kind of situation I do something as random and pointless as taking a walk. Even if I'm in a motorized wheelchair. And I hope doctors recommend that in such situations because in many ways I think it helps people to get down the road to recovery. And don't worry, I still know it's horrible. Current Mood: rejuvenated (Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 13th, 2006
1:04 am	Mi Broha My brother likes to talk politics. Normally, I would not have a problem with this because, you see, I was raised in an area of the country where people are well-educated and tend to talk politics. Of course, I have since moved to an area of the country that is not as well-educated and discovered that everyone likes to talk politics. Regardless, I majored in political science. I have spent a good deal of my life talking politics and allowing other people to talk politics. No problem. The issue with my brother is the same that any sibling has with another sibling. It’s fine for everyone else, but not when he does it. You know how other people can leave a front door open by accident and you just calmly close it but when your brother does it you’re screaming and telling him he could have killed you because you woke up with the sniffles and he knows that and he did it on purpose in order to kill you and somehow the open door relates to the morning when he left his dish in the sink and that time when you were seven and he ate the last brownie that he knew you wanted and ever since then Mom’s liked him more? It’s kind of like that: my brother likes to talk politics to me. This is the very reason I avoid eating cereal when my brother is home from school. Somehow, whenever I’m at these particular points in our kitchen either directly in front of the cereal cabinet, the fridge, or the bowl cupboard, Andy remembers that he’s incredibly passionate about European Politics and the War on Terror. Each time, he fails, somehow, to remember that I am incredibly passionate about African Politics and the War on Poverty. Nevertheless, cereal time is a good time to confront Maggie on her political beliefs. I argue that this is a breach of my Constitutional Rights. Cereal Time is a sacred undertaking. It involves following the magnetic rope that attaches my belly button to our snack cabinet and absentmindedly opening the door, staring at the cereal, thinking that we have more of a variety than I thought we had, and then closing the door and following the force to the fridge. There, I open the door, see that there is nothing in there, close the door and open NOT the bowl cupboard for all of you who thought this was going predictably but the glass cupboard where I think a glass of milk will be nice since we do have milk. I check the fridge again and we do have milk. Then I cancel the glass idea and get some cereal. Cereal can be eaten at all hours of the day or night. It’s not cold and not hot, it’s not light and not filling. It’s perfect. You can’t fill up on cereal. You just have enough. It’s a time for just me, the bowl, and Sugar Bear or Fred Flintstone or the off-brand characters like the lion on the Kroger frosted flakes. One could argue here that I’m about as far from African Politics at this point as possible. I mean, Cereal Time is quite all-American. Really. Too much cereal? Add more milk. Too much milk? Have another bowl. This is precisely why my people fled the Potato Famine. This and the All You Can Eat Buffet. And Superman. And the Brawny guy. And French Fries. They still wanted potatoes after all. But seriously. I’m not thinking about Africa or Politics or Poverty. Perhaps this is why Andy serves the purpose of reminding me of all three through his targeted questions and teasing and references to European Politics. Europe? Really? Who wants to think of Europe during Cereal Time? Just the mention makes the milk taste warmer and thus unpasteurized and goat-like. Baa. There are no goats in American Cereal Time! And the War on Terror, good gracious! You can’t talk about Terror when you’ve got Tony the Tiger upside-down at a 45 degree angle in your hand! Frosted Flakes have that certain je ne sais quoi which is French for “We will survive a nuclear Holocaust with no problem.” I can’t think of the War on Terror when I’m taking a scrumptious bite of crunchy brown sugary stuff. It’s really such a tragedy because, especially with Frosted Flakes, they’re going to be soggy by the time I say “Andy, good God, I don’t care. Please just leave me alone.” Of course, Soggy Frosted Flakes aren’t the end of the world. Well, if they are, I’ve lived through countless worlds at this point thanks to my brother. But don’t you think that if Frosted Flakes are present at the end of the world, they’d be in their crunchy state? Seriously! Because if they’re all blown apart into little molecules, won’t molecules look like small misshapen brown pieces coated in a kind of dust? There isn’t milk at the end of the world! If there is, I’m sure whoever spends their last precious few hours milking a cow or delivering bottles on a Mac truck is going to be REALLY pissed off in the afterlife. There’ll be no moisture of any kind. Especially for the lonely Frosted Flakes that will hurdle through the universe. In any case, my brother is by all accounts a very private and driven person. For this reason, I rarely have any idea what he’s doing or where he’s going. Thus, I’m always caught offguard when his to-do list involves telling me what my opinion should be about the European Union and the Bush Administration. If I could overcome the force of Cereal Time, I’m sure I could hightail it out of the kitchen since it all seems so connected to my brother entering the kitchen and talking politics. No matter what time of the day or night. I wonder if I should stop eating cereal but that would be stupid. Mom buys it by the truckload. It seems only fair that I ought to be ensuring a steady rotation and obeying the forces of nature that drag me from one cabinet to another. But of course, even though I am 23 years old and, for all professional and tax purposes, an adult, somehow I cannot keep my eyes on the prize and eat the cereal while my brother rails incessantly on what he assumes I think. No, I have to yell back to remind him that, though we both studied Foreign Affairs, we studied completely different regions and subsequent issues. Then he laughs and tells me I’m stupid and I remind him that I am not stupid, he is actually the stupid one and all I want to do is eat my damn cereal and if he would just shut up because I don’t care about Europe, I could do that before it goes soggy. Then he laughs again. Then I yell again. Then, inevitably, one of my parents comes into the kitchen and tells me to stop yelling at my brother and asks me why I have to get him started on politics. Then I duck and shovel some soggy cereal into my mouth while I yell at that parent that they always take my brother’s side and they weren’t there at the beginning so they have no idea what’s going on but he started it. Andy laughs and he leaves. The parent involved sighs and shakes their head. My little sisters leave the room to call their friends. I finish my cereal and rinse the bowl before putting it in the dishwasher to the tune of my parent scolding me on not getting my brother started. At the end of it all, I’m left in the kitchen alone, staring at the cereal box I need to put away, wondering if it’s really worth it to collect the proofs of purchase to get the toy that, if this was a just world, would come in the box with the cereal. I guess this is just how my brother and I talk politics now Current Mood: indescribable (Comment on this)
Sunday, November 19th, 2006
12:54 pm	People Are Like Ducks... When I was 15, I went to a bend in a river in West Virginia full of underwater springs that make the water blue. The little swimming hole is thus named Blue Bend. Go figure. My friends and I were sitting around on a day off from our summer camp, eating cookies or something, talking, and watching all the people - typical West Virginians and very wealthy people from camp or the nearby Greenbriar Resort. A two- or three-year-old was running around nearby with her parents so my friend gave her a cookie. She ate it and ran back to her parents, laughing. Then she came back over and asked for a cookie so my friend gave it to her. The parents were paying little attention to the child - whose face, hands, and bathing suit were covered in chocolate - since there was a whole group of teenage girls hanging out who were apparently just babysitters placed conveniently for people who wanted to run off to the water or the bathroom or wherever they kept going. So my friend gave the kid two cookies and had pretty much reached her little kid threshold when the child reached a sticky hand for a third. Suddenly becoming a nutritional nazi, my friend closed the box and said "no" gently to the child. The child insisted. My friend said "NO" a bit more strictly. The kid reached a sticky hand out and tried to grab the box. My friend recoiled from the choclatey hands and screamed "NO!" at which point the child started crying loudly. This got everyone's attention, so my friend opened the box and gave the child another cookie. Two cookies later, we were all looking franticly for the parents and trying to keep supersonic ear-drum-bursting screeched from making everyone look at us like we were in cahoots with the terribly irresponsible teenage mother. The parents were nowhere. The kid took the opportunity to lunge for the box of cookies, covering my friend in chocolate in the process. The parents were within eyeshot so my friend stood up with the cookies and started packing, the child sitting Indian-style and screaming on the ground in front of her. It was at that moment that genius struck me and I came up with the following quote: "People are like ducks: if you're nice to them and you feed them, they'll come back and poop on your deck and then you have to deal with their shit." It's absolutely true. I learned it from geese at camp which seem pretty at first but cover the ground with their green poo after about five minutes. They also bite. But I saw the applicability of the quote in pretty much everything from then on: children, boys, nerds at school that I took under my wing, students, roommates, kids I coached, and the people I've served in various work positions. At first, all of these people seemed like really cool projects and missions in life. They seemed like worthwhile causes that would enrich my life in ways previously unimagined. Little did I know. At first, you want to give. You want to "help" and "serve" and all the other gooey things you can do for people. It's so "touching" or "romantic" or some other such bullshit. You like people or maybe you love Jesus or filling up your resume and it all seems like such a great idea. Then you realize that people who want help either want help because they're in a developmental stage that will not end in five minutes or they just keep wanting help. At that point, it becomes not so cool. Like geese, people are pretty at first. They hug you, they smile, they thank you and tell you that you are in their prayers. Then they come back. This is when they tell you that you didn't fix quite everything for them but you were helpful. They have a snack - whatever you're feeding the ducks that day - and they contemplate hanging out on the deck before leaving. They just need one more question answered or thing done and you are still in their prayers. They'll be back, they say, so that you know what is going on and how everything worked out. It's the nibble and leave stage of the people/ducks analogy. Then they come back for the third time. This is where they actually poop on your proverbial deck. These are the ducks that don't eat fish or other duckfood: they ONLY want what you are giving out. This is how they plan to survive, even though you only go outside to feed ducks once a day or so. Or maybe just on the weekends. You see, you actually didn't help them at all the first time you "helped" them. They didn't do what you advised them to do in the first place but that's your fault because you didn't think of everything. There is still another problem or they still have to do things like write their own papers or drive to the store or make their own phone calls or get their own job. You only helped a little bit. Your participation was pretty much pointless or was detrimental because now that the problem is solved, their ex-boyfriend called the other day to borrow money and they gave him all of their money and now they can't pay rent and you didn't think of that, now did you? You're dumbstruck. This person who was young and cute or old and sweet or pious and poor has suddenly become a very ugly duck, spreading the poop around on your beautiful deck with dirty webbed feet, carelessly quacking in the meantime. They're yelling at you and rolling their eyes and sucking their teeth about the whole situation you've put them in. You stare wide-eyed, wondering why the hell anyone would ever want to help people who needed help in the first place. Once they leave, you hate them. You hate that person and every other person who graces your presence with their puppy dog eyes and sad story. You hate helping people and smile sarcasticly at anyone who praises what you're doing. This is the point where you become pretty Republican about the whole situation. This is the point where you're standing up with the cookies and yelling at the crying child. You want to just fail the kid or cut them from your team, if you're lucky enough to be in that sitation. Otherwise, you want to close your doors, screen your calls, filter your emails, or get transferred to another office. Why can't people help themselves? Why can't kids get their own treats from someone else? Why can't students do their homework, stop fighting with their boyfriends, and ask intelligent questions that are within the parameters of your job description? Why you gotta be cleaning shit all the time? But what I've learned in serving other people is that if you're dealing with shit all the time, you're probably only making room on your deck for more ducks. There's nothing you can actually learn from the situation. Your personality is probably such that you're never going to leave public service. You like people, even though you know that at some point they're going to become ducks. You have faith that for every one of them that stubbornly stays at your deck as if it's the only one on the lake, there is at least one that flies away and eats fish it catches on its own. Okay, maybe for every five on your deck there's one. But still, that's something. And maybe some of your ducks will grow up and build decks of their own! Then they can take care of the other ducks and understand why you almost hated them for so long. They'll visit your house and do cute things that ducks can do like walk up to your children and eat popcorn. They'll see the other ducks and shake their heads and "tsk tsk" before they fly away. Maybe! It could happen! Though probably not. I guess the only thing for service-minded people to do is just be greatful they have a deck for the ducks to poop on. You've got enough of your own stuff figured out that you can listen and help and do what you've gotta do to make sure this person doesn't come back for at least a while. That's good news, right? Right? Current Mood: cynical (Comment on this)
Saturday, November 18th, 2006
3:13 pm	A "Little Person" if You Will I'm watching my neice, an adorable little creature with bright blue eyes, two tiny bottom teeth, and a love for the Boston Red Sox and kicking people in the stomach. She's not all she's cracked up to be though - she can't even walk or feed herself. She's damn lucky we've decided to take care of her for the alst few months. Well, since raising babies is a very new science (I read magazines and watch TV so I'm well informed of how groundbreaking research is being published everyday on the merits of heated baby wipe dispensers and their effect on IQ), I'm always a bit wary of taking care of the child. She doesn't crawl so I can't chase her and she eats, plays, poops and sleeps on a pretty regular cycle so I don't have to answer a lot of "Why?" questions and play hide-and-seek all afternoon. It's a tough job. Just now, my Gramma and I, who have been playing with the baby since she woke up about an hour ago, were trying to figure out whether or not the baby was hungry. I had just poured myself a glas of orange juice, and not wanting to actually feed the child with real food that would be messy, I decided to check and see if she would like some juice. She sipped out of my cup, got it all over her foot, and cried when I took it away. She's such a baby. But she liked the orange juice. I left the room to put about an ounce in her bottle while Gramma tried to stop her crying for the orange juice I had taken away. As I stood over her a moment later, looking into her eyes getting bigger and smaller as she gulped down the orange deliciousness, I thought to myself "Wait, isn't this orange juice fortified? Doesn't it have extra calcium? Might it be TOXIC for a baby? Should I have gotten some kind of special baby orange juice for this creature?" Then I shrugged because the baby likes the orange juice and even if it's poisonous, at least she likes it and I don't have to figure out which kind of pureed vegetable she would like to put all over her face. The very notion of "special BABY orange juice" kind of makes my neice seem like an animal - like she needs some weird organic version of normal people food to exist. The notion is true though - it's all over Parents Magazine I'm sure that babies shouldn't have real orange juice or other adult food. It's been proven, I'm sure. You know every baby born before baby juice was invented didn't survive until adulthood. I know I didn't. I was born in 1982 when parents used laundry detergent that was not hypoallergenic and baby wipes were used fresh out of the package - cold. They gave me normal juice when they felt like giving me juice and now I can't read. It's kind of sad. I'm glad there's special baby juice now to solve that problem. But it seems I've messed my neice up terribly by giving her adult orange juice. My bad. (Of course, my sister might actually deal with some upset stomach later for this kid. Not that she'll behave differently - all the baby does is cry anyway - but whatever. Just know she really really likes it now.) I'm the best aunt in the world. Today, it's adult orange juice. Five years from now it'll be a slingshot. Ten years from now maybe some ice cream. Fifteen years from now, probably some white wine at Christmas. Don't you wish you were my neice? Well, except for the ruined degenerateness she'll suffer now that I gave her the wrong orange juice. Whoops! Current Mood: apathetic (Comment on this)
Sunday, November 12th, 2006
8:47 pm	A Moment in My Life... My father sat down on the couch a few minutes ago and figured that, since I had my laptop on my lap, I probably wasn't too interested in the television. Since there is very little on tonight that I am interested in or able to watch (Extreme Makeover:Home Edition makes me cry too much to watch alone in a crowded house without frequently explaining my tears and losing elements of the sad story in the process), it turned out that he was right. Not that that should be an automatic remote control handover, but I surrendered it. My father scanned through the on-screen guide and said "Oh Friday, is that the movie with Ice Cube?" (which was awkward) before settling on an Animal Planet show called Prehistoric Park which is where these British people fight computer-animated giant centipedes and feed saber-tooth tigers while describing how they roll around in their sunny, grassy enclosures. If I got paid for playing pretend like that, I still don't think I'd do it. A little too Dungeons and Dragons for me, not enough funny jokey Sesame Street elements to it to make a target audience and a purpose very evident. In any case, Dad gets through watching, stands up, and walks away with the remote control all the way on the other side of the couch. Here is the conversation that occurred: ME: Um, I believe it is simple etiquette to surrender the remote control when abdicating your posiion as Couch Comando. DAD: Oh, I'm sorry. (He throws the remote control at my leg) ME: Um, I think we can hand over the remote control without throwing it. DAD: (holding his three tall fingers up at me) Hey, read between the lines. ME: What? Where did you learnt hat kind of language? DAD: Hey, I was a kid once! ME: Just once? (He chokes on his drink, walks out of the room) ME: Oh, did you want to get your plate and take it into the sink or are you trying to relive that one time you were a kid? Read between the lines? READ beTWEEN the LINES? Was I just told to READ BETWEEN THE LINES by my FATHER? What is this world coming to? i mean seriously... And how the hell does my DAD know who Ice Cube is? Current Mood: confused (Comment on this)
Thursday, October 12th, 2006
1:33 pm	Another 10 Nails in the Coffin of Feminism I surrendered my Feminist card the day I got my nails done to make me feel better. That is why I feel I can no longer consider myself a Feminist. I remember it distinctly: It was a cold and sunny day a few years ago and I was a Sophomore in college. I was stressed out and called my mother which is, quite inexplicably, my normal reaction. My mother has always been wrong on everything since I was about 13 years old so I have no idea why I continue to call her in times of need. As I understand, one day she will become smart again but that will not be until I have children of my own. Fair enough, but until that day comes, she's wrong about most everything and only upsets me more when I call her. In any case, I had quite a bit of homework to do since I was taking 18 Writing Intensive hours at the time and other things were going on that have since faded from my memory. My mother, who has raised 5 strong girls and one strangely not completely unhinged boy, said "You know what you need? You need to go get your nails done!" Well, this seemed like the single most ridiculous thing anyone could have said at the time. I am a chronic nailbiter and have ben since I was 5. I have managed to break the habit a few times in my life but the effort is always destroyed once I read, watch a movie, or have to deal with stupid people. Only one of the four nailbiting sisters has broken the habit though even she "evens them up" from time to time. I had no nails to get done so why would I go into a nail salon? "Oh Maggie, get fake ones! You'll feel better! And I'll pay for them!" I only said okay because she was hanging up and it was the only word I could get in with my audible sigh. And I only walked all the way to my car and went to the mall because she was paying and I was proving her wrong. Or so I thought. It was no Legally Blonde nail salon. There was no plump woman with bleached hair eating a donut and talking about her dog. Instead, I sat before an Asian man in a mask who made my cuticles bleed and said very little that I could understand. Still, I got short, natural-looking beige nails that I loved for three weeks before they fell off. I resolve to always manicure them, to never bite them again, to love and keep my nails happy and healthy, like a new puppy. Then I read a book and bit them all off but that's not the point. In many ways I was so ashamed of my nails because I liked them so much! Here I was, a person in college, studying Judicial Process and African Religions, a thinking human being, and my day was made better by a set of acrylic nails! I loved to type (until Week 3) and to tap on anything at all. I loved talking with my hands, even reverted to a habit of finger-spelling half of my sentences which I had developed in 6th Grade when I learned sign language! It was so childish and I was so embarrassed. I've gotten my nails done twice a year since then, once last September right after Hurricane Katrina, and then again the night before my first Thanksgiving away from my family. Then two weeks ago I got them again! It's horribly shameful! What kind of person am I? What kind of world do we live in? I think about these things EVERY SINGLE TIME I tap my fake manicured nails on a surface and smile to myself. Okay, maybe not EVERY time but enough! See, once upon a time, I was competing with my sister to see who could go the longest without shaving their legs. What happened to those days? And I used to let my hair air-dry all the time. And my socks never matched and I never wore make-up and didn't even wash my face everyday. This wasn't fifth grade, my friends, this was high school and college. Then came that fateful bad day when I felt better after I got my nails done. Where could I go from there? Victoria's Secret of course! And then I went to WAL-MART! I bought groceries and ate a plastic container of fruit as I strolled through the store, presenting the empty container at check-out because I am a good citizen! And then I went back to school, expecting to get back to the books I needed to read and the papers I needed to write but ran out to show my boyfriend my new nails. "Aw, Sweetie, they're real nice" is all I got which makes good sense but the girl in me was like "Oh, he just has no idea!" WHAT? They're peices of acrylic shaped through some God-unkown method which turns pink powder-plus-acetone into a hard substance that remotely resembles nails! Whose idea was this? Why the hell would anyone in their right mind do that to their nails? Especially with all the dangers and the handicaps of fake nails! You can't open a soda can, you slam them into doors, and if they come off too soon, you RIP THE ENTIRE NAIL OFF. I've seen it happen - my friend in high school was roughousing with some on and her pinkie nail completely came off! It took four months to grow back! So how can I argue that women should be respected when we are so easily placated by beauty products? Especially when I am not immune to the phenomenon. I like to think I'm a very complicated human being - and in so many ways I am - but man, do I love to type things when I can watch my pretty nails dance across the keyboard! I volunteer to take dictation from people when I've got my nails on - for free! Dispicable. So I've had this inner debate about whether or not I'm a feminist and I never knew where it came from, for many years. Then I looked down at my nails and smiled and recoiled: That's where it started. I felt like I had blood on my hands, like I had killed my strong-womanhood. But sometimes I realized that it was a crime of passion and I'm glad the bastard's gone. I have great nails now and somedays that's all that matters. Current Mood: bouncy (Comment on this)
Sunday, September 24th, 2006
11:08 am	Is this really my life right now? I'm living in the basement room (long story but suffice it to say I finally got my way) right below my grandmother (short story: she's 91 and she has moved in with us). Very rarely do I hear anything from the room upstairs even though the floor is paperthin. When I do hear something, it's generally moving furniture (my mother's favorite hobby) or someone screaming to my grandmother that she has a phone call (Gramma does not often wear her hearing aid and she is amazed that people notice - it's not my eyes, it's my strained vocal cords and reaching my repeat-threshold that tips me off). As I was reading this morning, I heard what has to be the weirdest little snippet of conversation. My grandmother is the youngest of seven children - six girls and one boy - and they all look ridiculously alike. I mean, there are slight variations but the coloring, the wrinkling, and all the features are pretty much identical. They all finished college and in many cases professional school and they all live or lived in different, interesting parts of the country. They were all very pretty, very Irish, and very New England so who is really keeping track of which one is Elizabeth, Mary, Agnes, Frances, or the other one? Not me. Gramma also has a lot of pictures, something that has driven my mother crazy because, as full of clutter as this house is, she is very critical of other people maintaining their own collections. Gramma brought all her pictures here and, since she falls asleep all the time, we and our Aunt Bettina (mostly Aunt Bettina) have been trying to frame them or put them around her bedroom the same way she had them around her spacious 5-room house with extra hallways for picture-hanging. One of these pictures is of a very pretty young woman, taken in probably the 1930s, maybe the 1920s. It's one of those professional pictures that people don't get anymore unles they're posing in front of a series of fluorescent Northern Lights rip-offs in blue or pink and therefore ruining any kind of respectability they once had. I want to become a photographer just to bring people back to the day when they stopped their lives and took a nice picture of just themselves. Just... SIT. Your grandkids will want to see this picture without sucking in their gritted teeth and wishing you had not had access to the almart portrait studio on that fateful day when you were either wearing paisley and a big collar or your oversized Tweety Bird t-shirt or one of those pleated denim skirts that never should have happened in the first place. By virtue of my grandmother's age, she was lucky enough to have a picture of either herself or her sister at a young age in this beautiful 8 x 10 sepia-colored (yeah I own a digital camera and iphoto and checked out the different photo finishes, what?) photograph in a matching wooden frame. It's beautiful. And of course we have no idea who it is because it's one of these seven sisters and whenever you ask Gramma, she's either asleep, thinks you're asking about the Red Sox game or says "Fine, fine, I'll be right in." At one point, I asked Gramma if the picture was her sister Ag (who was blind, always kept a dish of Jelly Belly's in her living room, and died watching a Red Sox/White Sox baseball game that I was attending in Chicago, causing her last and very ironic words to be "What a way to go, watching the Red Sox win." Like I say, she was blind). Gramma said "Fine, fine, I'll be right in" and I was proud that I had guessed right until a few days later when Gramma had her hearing aid in and I said "Where should I put this picture of Aunt Ag?" and Gramma very defensively said "That's not Aunt Ag, that's me!" So last night, my sister Katie came over. I fully recognize that most of my friends feel the same way about my family as they do about my grandmother's: Andy's the only boy, Maggie's my friend, and the rest of the sisters are either teachers or twins and I don't really know how to keep the names straight. Katie, as I say over and over, is the one with the house and the baby. She's the one with the house that was near-condemned when she bought it but has been fixed up and is beautiful except for the outside and the other half which is an apartment that is by all standards "just passing." They're still renovating but they have to sell her old car or something first. Oh, and kick out the tenant upstairs who drinks her weight and her rent in alcohol pretty much every night. Anyway, Katie has a new appreciation for all things classic and tasteful and wants them all in her house. She has beautiful old (read: heavy and dark-wood) furniture and is on the lookout for things that will match it all the time. Since she had her baby, she's gotten rid of her old crappy clothes and has been re-born in a new celebration of taste. So Katie sees this beautiful picture on the table and says "I want that for my house." I said "Go ask Gramma" because Gramma is on a mission to give her stuff away before she dies and hopes to give it to my mother, the six of us, and my Uncle John and Aunt Bettina so the other kids who don't have time for her will only have crappy stuff to pick through and, ideally, will never know the difference. Katie looked awkwardly at me since she has been too busy (read: employed) to run Gramma to her favorite consignment shops and the Green Grocer over the last few weeks and get constant encouragement to "just take it for your apahtment." Gramma will give anythign away except her wheeling walker which helps her move about .0005 mph faster than she does on her own. Thank osteoporosis for that one. Katie was weighing whether she should ask for the picture since it the sentiment might be too precious to tread. "Well, who is it? Aunt Fran?" she asked. "No," I said, "It's Gramma." "What?" "Yeah. It looks like Aunt Fran but it's actually Gramma. She told me. Go ask her. She'll let you have it." "I'll think about it. Well, she's asleep. I'll wait." "She's always asleep, wake her up. She'll let you have it." Katie, of course, was too nervous to ask and I've given up on doing things for other people who would use the helping hands at the end of their own arms if I wasn't around so she went to Mom and asked Mom to ask Gramma for her when Gramma was awake. This would take some careful planning on Mom's part but it brings us all, finally, back to this morning and how my mother takes direction. I'm lying in my bed reading my book when I hear someone walk into Gramma's room. MOM: Mom, is this a picture of you? GRAMMA: Yah. MOM: Hm, I thought it was Aunt Fran. Allll right. And she walked out of the room. Katie's going to get the picture for her house. Mom's going to tell her Gramma said it was fine. Gramma's not going to ask for it because she's got tons of pictures in various stages of getting put on the wall and she really only cares about the Red Sox game anyway. No one involved is ever going to know how the question was posed since Katie wasn't there, Gramma doesn't care, and Mom asked in her usual fashion of asking permission and sees nothing wrong with it. I never say "if only I could be a fly on the wall" because I'm fully aware of how insane and yet boring the vast majority of people are. Is this really my life right now? Current Mood: content (Comment on this)
Saturday, August 26th, 2006
10:05 pm	Sometimes I Think I Must Be Insane I'm watching some USA back-to-back-to-back episodes of Law and Order:SVU and I really like this show. I think this ought to show up on a background check though because, man, you have to be insane to like this show. Who comes up with this stuff? Sometimes I think I should really be a detective because it seems so awesome. At the same time, roadkill makes me kind of squeamish so looking for dead bodies seems like a job to avoid. And I like Mariska Hargitay's more recent haircuts and make-up choices. She looks kind of like a redneck man with the mini-ponytail and dark lipstick makes her mouth look too small. Bad idea. (Comment on this)
Sunday, August 20th, 2006
11:06 am	Heavens to Betsy, I'm back in Lynchburg Not really big news that I came back home. I've been on the East coast for over two weeks at this point. It's great! It's boring! And I'm realizing I'm insane. Today I went running with my sister Kelly which means I died about four miles ago and walked most of the way. Sometimes I want to be one of those people who throws up when they run just so I can look cool. Like when I'm running with my fifteen-year-old sister, I would like to provide some reason for slowing down that she can't argue with me about later. Instead of "I'm fat and normally lazy" I would prefer to say "Well, I was working so hard my abs contracted and I threw up the breakfast I didn't eat because I was going running." That excuse has more of a ring to it. Or not. Whatever. So what have I done since I've been home? NOTHING. My suitcase is still in my room, most of my clothes are still packed or in piles, and I've been too lazy to update my resume which scares me because it might be seen as lying to the federal government if I apply to jobs and still have "present" listed as the timeframe on my FEMA job. I need something random to do like organize my dad's paperwork so I can throw that on my resume and not look like a bum. I hate resumes because I hate selling myself. I'm a good product until you try to fill me up with bullshit ingredients. It's like a bottle of tea tree oil and you buy it because it's Tea Tree Oil and then you read the container and it's all like "INGREDIENTS: Water, Partly-Hyrogenated Oil, Citrus Oil, Animal Fats, Natural Flavoring, Tea Tree Oil, Red #6 and Yellow #5." I like introductions better than resumes. "This is my sister Maggie" sounds better to someone than any possible combination of words on a resume. Resumes just suck. And they turn people into punks. You're like "I think I'll volunteer today at the animal shelter" and someone's like "Oh, that'll look really good on your resume" and you're like "Right, but I have to clean up dogcrap all day long and keep the ER on speed dial since I'll probably be bitten." It works for everything. My favorite conversation in recent years which I had pretty often was: Maggie: I think I'll join the Peace Corps. Random Person/Friend: Ooh, yeah, that'll look really good on your resume. Maggie: Right, because there's nothing I can do for the next two years that'll look quite as good as pooping in a hole and getting diseases not heard of on this continent since the Oregan trail. Honestly, people are stupid. And at TFA, people were like "Yeah, I really wanted to teach and volunteer. TFA looks really good on your resume." And I would just stare at them like "Did it occur to you that you have to deal with KIDS all day?" Kids are fun but not for everyone and they're certainly not fun for everyone in TFA. Those people want to be Senators and Presidents even after they've grown up and realized that Senators and Presidents are all assholes and morons. Do you WANT to be an asshole or a moron? If not, do you want to be SURROUNDED by assholes and morons day in and day out? That's what I thought. People are idiots. I don't know why I tolerate them. I'm going to shower. Current Mood: thirsty (Comment on this)
Sunday, July 23rd, 2006
9:25 pm	Here's something pointless: The trial of Saddam Hussein. I find it almost completely pointless. It's not because he doesn't deserve to answer for his crimes. I believe he does. I believe he's a horrible human being who did horrible things for no discernable reason. When I say horrible, I mean seriously inhumane. Terrible. Insanely horrid. Unimaginable. The whole thing. See, I've never killed someone. I've never found myself in a position to kill someone. I've never seen someone die (Thank God) and have never been party to another human being's death. Normal life is hard enough. I couldn't sleep at night if I accidentally ran over someone with my vehicle or was nearby when someone jumped off a bridge or something. I don't carry a gun, I don't put myself in situations where I need self defense, I just like to live my normal life with my family and friends and my routine. It's a good life. So you can understand why I would consider someone who shot one of his colleagues in the head at point-blank range because the colleague disagreed with him to be a little bit, oh, horrible. That happening once is enough. But the crimes against humanity? The violating of international treaties and keeping your own people starving? The gassing people? The destruction of the Bedouin's native lands? Mass graves? Seriously? I mean, one murder is enough, right? The whole eye-for-an-eye thing actually works for me. You killed this guy on purpose so we're killing you on purpose. Choice leads to consequence (assuming the malicious intent and knowledge of the consequence, etc). I like it. It's a good ending. But see, there are too many victims from a dictator's actions for there to ever be justice. You kind of have to remove him from power, make sure he never gets back into power, and help the people move on with a good government. You don't waste time and money putting him on trial and wondering whether or not he killed this additional group of 500 people. Especially when all the witnesses agree what happened and the mass grave is there and the "evidence" submitted at trial comes in the form of history books and directives from the dictator to carry out these crimes. It's not like we need to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt. If I'm not mistaken, we're killing the guy no matter what. He's got to go. He ought to die. Seriously. Don't let there be any room for his followers to find him and put him back in power a la Napoleon and numerous Third World dictators. You've got to kill the guy. He's earned the death penalty in how many states? And this guy is being tried in a region of the world where your hand gets cut off for stealing. One would think he'd have been taken care of already. But no. He's on a hunger strike and we're giving him a feeding tube so we can put him back in a courtroom and have him sit Indian-style facing away from the judge when he doesn't feel like talking. If he's Public Enemy #1, kill him. Get him gone. It's the same result either way. I just feel like if we keep him alive and pretend that justice is ever going to be done, it's a sad attempt at giving the families of his victims false hope. The message to each Iraqi family who lost a son or mother or sibling is "Don't you worry. We're putting him on TRIAL! There'll be JUSTICE for what happened to your lost loved one!" Great... It's like all the people down here who think that if they sue FEMA, somehow the hurricane will never have happened or if they can sue the coroner, the gruesome deaths of family members will be undone or if they sue the oil company, they can move back into their houses that were destroyed. They're fighting and fighting and reliving and reliving and at the end, they'll get a check and go to Disney World or pay off their mortgage and then feel empty again because shit happened and it's not going to unhappen. You have to get away from the source of the suffering or get rid of it and then you have to look inward and start getting over it emotionally. Nothing's going to undo what Katrina did to the people in Louisiana and nothing's going to undo what Saddam did to the people in Iraq. Horrible things happen in this world and they can be natural or man-made. But you can't follow a hurricane until it's a drop of rain and keep yelling at it: you have to figure out where you're going to start putting your life back together. And you can't keep a dictator alive until he's some hunger-striking courtroom spectacle for the ultimate point of telling him that what he did was bad. He knows that. He's aware. And he was aware when he did everything bad he did. He's proven it time and again. And we don't like him and the Iraqi people don't like him but no one can move on a heal from his regime when the country's still in ruins years later. It's over. Walk away. Demolish the destroyed building; execute the deposed dictator. Then turn around and walk away because there's a lot of work to be done. (Comment on this)
Saturday, July 22nd, 2006
2:09 pm	Do YOU Know I'm Playing Freecell Right Now? Here's the thing: I know how to do my job. I do it very well. So well, in fact, that I can train other people, organize and shred documents, answer two questions and handle someone's case in the same five minute span. I've done it. A lot. I'm freaking brilliant. See, there's only so much documentation necessary to request FEMA assistance. If everyone who worked at FEMA knew what kind of documentation we needed, people would be a lot farther along than they are. Since most of my colleagues don't really give a shit and continue to be paid by the hour, we are where we are and New Orleans still looks like a hellhole. So when my talents are not used or appreciated, I take classes online, read articles and movie reviews, and play Freecell. I play Freecell when I'm on the phone or just hanging out. I like Freecell. Supposedly you can win every game so that makes it more challenging. My curiosity means I want to prove that not all games can be won but my optimism means I want to figure out how to win even the most difficult. This is very boring information. Sorry. People come to me at my desk with a very simple request. I need rent, I need money for my personal property, I need my trailer removed. I can do these things in a heartbeat and most of this requires a simple statement from the person requesting assistance. Like "Dear FEMA, My car was sitting at my house in St Bernard Parish and was under 15 feet of water. I only had liability insurance on it so I'm sending proof of that with my title and registration. Thank you very much for your assistance." It's pretty easy. Of course, the person has to sit down in front of me and say "I'm a Katrina victim" and I have to say to myself "No shit, so am I" and then they say "I'm special needs" and I'm like "I've heard that before" and then they're like "I've been homeless since the storm" and I'm like "What's your application number" and then they want to talk and talk and talk and talk. So I open a game of Freecell and act interested in what they're saying. I continue to play Freecell until they're done talking about how FEMA only helps black people and we shouldn't be building Baghdad when New Orleans isn't back to normal. Then I hand them a sheet of paper and give them guidance on what they need to write and continue to play Freecell while they ask me if they should include in their letter the fact that they're homeless right now. I tell them if they're homeless, they need to go to a shelter and they go back to writing. And I keep playing Freecell. Basically, I'm an asshole. Honestly, I'm okay with that. Because what are the other options? Where will I go that I'm not an asshole? If I became a teacher, my students would think I was an asshole. If I got married and had kids, they would think I was the biggest asshole in the world. If I went back to graduate school, I would be surrounded by assholes and would therefore become one myself because everyone in graduate school thinks the world revolves around whatever they're studying. No matter what, I'd be an asshole. I like my asshole job and I like playing Freecell while I do it well. It keeps me from getting too emotionally involved and therefore helps the applicant because I'm so systematic. They don't know what they have to send in and if they think they'll get a reaction by including a massive pity party in a letter almost a year after the hurricane, that's how they'll try to get assistance from FEMA and it won't work. Thus, I don't provide a terribly warm or interested environment. As mean as this sounds, it's been a year. I'm a Katrina victim too. Many people down here are working their asses off. Many others are complaining their asses off. And then there's this select group that actually still needs assistance due to circumstances that were totally no fault of their own. For those people, I don't even consider opening the Freecell game. For everyone else, here's your pen and paper and here's what needs to be communicated. Otherwise, assume I know what I'm doing and convince yourself I'm doing something important to your case while you write your letter. We'll both be better off if I can just play this card game. (Comment on this)
Thursday, July 13th, 2006
11:08 am	This Baby is Really Freaking Me Out Apparently, cross-eyed babies with slow-talking mothers do not respond to smiles from strangers. Normally, babies at least stare back or they smile, laugh, and kick their little legs when a stranger smiles at them. I smiled at this baby and the baby stared back at me with... hatred or spite or indignation. It's the first time I've seen a baby with eyes that are not lit up with all the beauty of the world. I think this baby is not a baby. This baby is a demon child, born in the deepest recesses of hell, full of cooled magma, green slime, krpytonite, and Santa's blackest charcoal. I fear he exhales ash. I would like his mother to speak faster so I can be rid of the little demon child in my midst. In this circumstance, is it bad manners to start the whole "Power of Christ Compels You" procedure? I could be saving the world! Current Mood: anxious (Comment on this)
10:51 am	No seriously. I am looking at the most pregnant creature to ever embark on a morning walk to the FEMA center with a fat cross-eyed baby on her hip. Scratch that. I'm looking at the most pregnant creature on God's green earth. I don't understand how it happens. I think I could be pregnant for a year and not look NEARLY as pregnant as this woman. I mean, if she turns sideways, I think she would block a lane of traffic. It's absolutely insane. It's not that I hurt for her or anything, I'm just in shock! I can't feel anything - my nose, my knees. Holy crap. This woman is so freaking pregnant. And she just sat down at the desk next to mine and she talks really really slow and pronounces the word lawyer like LAW---YER and makes every statement like a very slow question. Wow. And the cross-eyed baby is literally going "ga-ga-ga-ga" which is always weird. WOW. Current Mood: shocked (Comment on this)
Saturday, July 8th, 2006
11:29 pm	Holy Hell... Did you know I've written more than 120 livejournal entries but only like three in the last two months? Incredible. Just incredible. Fascinating. Intriguing. Just. Kidding. Not that Incredible really. I've actually been busy! Busy, you say? Yes, busy! It's the best way for a Maggie to be! I have been busy: working at FEMA, working at my second job at Ann Taylor LOFT, setting myself back up with CUTCO to sell knives (and get a major discount on knives when I move wherever I'm going in a month!), finishing my Associates in Emergency Management, applying for jobs in various places around the country, and taking a Logical Reasoing and Writing test in Newark, NJ, of all places for Citizenship and Immigration Services, of all things. So, not too busy by Maggie standards but busy nonetheless. They're all interesting in their own right. FEMA is FEMA. New Orleans is New Orleans. Louisiana is Louisiana. I basically spend my days explaining why people are not eligible for disaster assistance while my coworkers accept all kinds of worthless paperwork and my boss finalizes his resume for when he goes back to Indiana in a few weeks for whatever job he goes to. We're done. Not that this place is closer to recovery but we're done. And we're almost gone. It's really nice. Ann Taylor is a great company to work for and I'll miss the discount and the comradarie when I go wherever I'm going. They're great clothes and great managers but it's almost two-weeks-notice time for this little Irish-American lass so perhaps this particular chapter of part-time retail is ending soon. It's been fun and very very part-time. I would describe my pay as "cute" and my discount as "awesome." It's so adorable when they remind me I have another $30 check waiting from last week. Aw, guys, that's so precious! Shucks, it's like a gift certificate for half a tank of gas! You shouldn't have... CUTCO has the best knives in the world. Everyone should own some. If you want to buy any, I'm your girl. I'm becoming active again so I can get a big set of good knives at a discount. And so my mom can buy people some good kitchen scissors. I love CUTCO knives. No kidding. Part of that is that I think I'm getting arthritis or something from typing all day long. Oh well. Whatever. Emergency Management is the best subject to ever come across my desk, especially after today's course on Livestock in Disaster. Apparently, after a major disaster in California several years ago, the mass disposal of livestock carcasses was a "grave concern" to the emergency managers of the region. Hahahahahaha. And I've decided I want to become trained to euthanize large animals like elephants. Not because I don't like elephants but because I'm sure that skill would be like the coolest thing to have on my resume. I'd probably put it under "Awards and Recognition" and carry my certification card around in my wallet. I hope I can get something with my birthdate on it so I can use it everytime I want to get into a bar. Seriously, a license from the American Zoological Association to euthanize large animals in case a circus train derails in my area would be so freaking awesome. You'd call me if you came across a renegade elephant! And the equipment I would be licensed to use would keep out even the most drunk and inbred New Orleans looters! That'd be so hot. Oh my goodness. There will probably be more drooling entries about this as I complete Animals in Disaster and Radiological Emergency Management. Just because elephants have very thick skin and, as with everything else I'm obsessed with, I'm sure large exotic animal euthanasia is a topic I can relate to EVERYTHING. Um, job applications are going well except that I got halfway through my Immigration Adjudications Officer test in Newark (where I had flown for one measly day) and discovered that I want to learn everything about applying for different immigration status in the US but I don't want to be a bureaucrat for the next year. Thus, I applied to teach at the same charter school as Francie in rural North Carolina next year. I'm talking to the people about it tomorrow so we'll see. If they hire me, I'll spend the next year teaching, probably coaching or directing, making fun of Francie, applying to graduate school, and writing a lot of short stories, plays, and essays that I've started on my computer in the last two months. Who knows where the hell I'll end up? I do know thes two things: I'm going to complete my Associates in Emergency Management, apply for jobs with the Gates Foundation and the United Nations, start work on a Masters, try to get published, learn at least one new language, and continue on the road to my Tae-Bo certification. Meanwhile, I've got to find a way to euthanize large animals. I've just got to... Current Mood: cheerfully ambitious (Comment on this)
Thursday, June 29th, 2006
10:41 am	I need... to leave... New Orleans... Recently I've discovered that for the life of me, I have GOT to leave New Orleans. I love the city itself, mind you. But when I say that, at this point, I pretty much only mean the buildings, the music, and the liberal alcohol-in-public laws. Now, the buildings are either destroyed, badly messed up, or way too expensive. The music can be bought on CDs, seen in touring concerts, or appreciated on visits back to the city at later points. The alcohol laws... well, they aren't making up for the people and the politics. I saw a shirt recently that says NEW ORLEANS: It's not the heat, it's the Stupidity. (Mind you, that's a Capital S in Stupidity for a reason) It's not just that I was teaching phonics to 9th graders. I felt horrible about that. Especially since most of my students were not even of 9th grade age. Most were 16, a number were 17, and a huge conglomeration were 18-20. A bunch had kids. I felt bad for all the pressure they were under and all the opportunities they hadn't been given. And rightly so! I mean, here were kids who were coming back to school until SOMEONE taught them to read. True, most of them worked harder at band or sports than academics but, you know what? At least they worked hard at something. The reason I need to get the hell out of New Orleans is that, the truth is, very few people in this city are actually working to get any better. That includes the politicians, the public, and the people I work with. As long as they have FEMA, they get money. And as long as they keep remnents of Katrina around, they'll have FEMA. Thus, my applicants have no motivation to get jobs and my coworkers - who are being promoted to long-term jobs with salaries and benefits - have no interest in learning the FEMA programs. I'm sick of living here. I'm sick of coming to intersections with unsecured stop signs and stoplights that work half the time, with drivers who either never lived here before or who lived here and are either stupid, frustrated, traumatized, or drunk at 8:30 in the morning. It's not worth it. The cops don't check if you're speeding unless you're black. They engage in blatant brutality against the people they do stop. They don't patrol the neighborhoods. And, of course, they blame everything on everyone else. I work in a job where people yell at me about what FEMA didn't do. Okay, great. New Orleans didn't have a City Emergency Manager. The whole city knew the levees weren't stable and had axes in their attics in case the place flooded, but somehow there was no Emergency Manager. That is a basic requirement of federal assistance. BASIC. And somehow, FEMA is still helping this area that won't help itself. Remember in September when they announced people who lived in Orleans Parish probably couldn't come back for six months? Right. And remember how we all came back 30 days after the first hurricane, 7 days after the second? When sink faucets were spewing black clouds of gas when you turned them on and the toilets were full of green water? Remember how they were closing the street to everyone but the military and they were going to start removing debris to make it inhabitable again? Yeah, six months would have sucked to be gone but I think somehow that we would have figured shit out. That's what I was doing anyway. The people who have come back here are so far behind in figuring their shit out, it's not funny. I watch other people cry in the grocery store all the time for the dumbest reasons. They just break down. And everyone stands there because we all do it too. I've done it. I HATE crying in public but it's not like you can sit and bawl to someone else who is going through it. And I'm a hell of a lot better now but a huge part of that is that I've decided to leave. And a lot of educated people are doing the same. I've talked to strangers in grocery stores or at my second job (at Ann Taylor LOFT) and people are just preparing to leave. When their leases end, when school's out, when the new job starts. They're just simply going. Jason's going to Denver, Austin, or DC. I'm going to San Antonio, Chicago, Newark, Philadelphia, DC or Richmond. A lot of people are moving to Portland, Oregan. You know why? Because anywhere is better than here. I started pricing handguns last week for my house. HANDGUNS. You know why? Because the people who have moved back a few blocks from me are people who don't work, who hang out on the street and vandalize the cars that are still sitting there since the hurricane. They have removed the wheels and baseball-batted out all the windows. Their houses aren't fixed and they don't have jobs and they've been through whatever hell they've been through and they have NOTHING ELSE TO DO HERE and NO ONE WHO IS GOING TO STOP THEM. Everytime we talk about these things, Jason and I start a chorus of "They don't have this problem in _____" and then we fill in a city where we may go next year. It's sad when you're choosing Newark over New Orleans. Well, it would have been sad a year ago, now it's just smart. This city and FEMA are about have a major Brain Drain. People are just leaving. Smart people. Educated people. People who know people in other states and cities and know that not everyone has to put up with a city that has no police, public transportation, medical services, reliable emergency service, or, oh, basic protection against a commonly occurring natural disaster. They're leaving because they want to. Because this has just gotten ridiculous. Now, my coworkers, who will be paid $40,000 plus benefits by the Federal government for at least the next two years, who weren't trained and are, in many cases, barely literate (I'm not kidding), will continue to stay. And they'll keep centers open for people who refuse to work and don't feel like providing rent receipts to show how they used the money. Or who use excuses like "Well, I spent that $6000 on food and stuff because a person's got to live" when they're explaining how they used their rent money. They'll send up worthless or misleading paperwork to ensure the applicant gets money because as long as that person is getting money, the people "working" at the centers who answer their cell phones in the middle of disaster interviews can continue to get paid by the hour and their superiors can continue to get paid salaries plus benefits. Because the people who know the FEMA program and have worked at disasters in areas that actually contribute to their own recovery (with things like firemen and police and other essential personnel that New Orleans has no interest in getting these things back to pre-Katrina levels) and WANT to get better - those people are leaving. And they're leaving this recovery to a local government that wants Katrina to keep going on and on and on and will keep it going as long as money is thrown their way. August 1st can't come soon enough. Current Mood: aggravated (Comment on this)