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August 31, 2006

I'm quite talkative today

The web has been a very amusing place lately. And that's without me reading any news sites at all. So here is a very fluffy, almost totally world-events-free links post. In fact, it's all so trite that I hardly know where to begin...

  • I've never gotten into the Sims. It looks 1) too addictive, and 2) too dangerous for someone who is as much of a perfectionist about things like that as I am. But even I cannot a Sims rendition of the opening of RENT. People have a lot of time on their hands, but at least they use it to entertain me.

  • As long as we're talking about video games, here are instructions on how to make your original Nintendo controller into a remote for your television. Would I ever do it, even if our Nintendo ever broke and we had no use for our controllers? No, probably not. But it's still really freaking cool.

  • Being weighed sucks. There is nothing fun about it. Until now. Instead of numbers flashing at you, you can weigh yourself and find out "which celebrity you weigh". And can I just say that I love that two of the options are "Oliver Twist" and "Oliver Twist (After More)"? That's awesome.

  • And then there's the more disturbing side of the shopping world. This is the Babykeeper, so that you can hang your child in a bathroom stall while you go to the bathroom. I have a lot of issues with this. First of all, maybe by the time I have a kid I'll change my mind about this, but I'm not sure I'd like my 18 month old dangling above me and watching me pee. Second, and more importantly, I've been told over and over never to hang my purse or bag over the top of a bathroom stall door because of purse snatchers. I know that anyone trying to grab a baby that way is going to have trouble, but really. It just doesn't seem wise.

  • As long as we're talking about disturbing, how about some pickle juice sports drink? I'm serious. That's not a joke. Go pick some up at 7-11 and tell me how it is.

  • I'm obsessed with Wikipedia. I use it to search for almost everything. All the info compacted into a neat package. I don't have to read 30 different articles about something; I can just get the general picture instead. And everything is sorted so nicely by every possible way you can think of to look things up. And there are articles about and lists of the most obscure things. Including an entire article about toilet-related injuries. Seriously. Amazing.

  • When I saw a link to this page demonstrating how rice responds to different resonances, I scoffed. Hardly an interesting link, I was sure. But no, it's actually really entertaining, especially if, like me, you've always been vaguely interested in science but never really cared enough to do the work. Oh, yeah, and they link to a Wikipedia article, so I'm contractually obligated to think they're cool.

  • You know, it's so embarrassing to have a dinner party and have that ugly white toiler paper sticking out like a sore thumb in my otherwise impeccably designed bathroom. That's why I'm grateful that now there's Renova toilet paper in fashion colors like red, lime green, tangerine, and black. Thanks for saving my social life, Renova! (And for anyone who knows my aunt, please know that I'm working very hard to resist making a comment about her using black toilet paper right now.)

  • I have a fascination with funny t-shirts, probably because I refuse to ever wear clothes with writing on them (other than names of places I've been). I actually caved and bought a Ramones-style t-shirt with a BSC reference that several people have shown me, even though I've never even heard the Ramones. If you ever catch me wearing that shirt in public, I owe you money, because it's not going to happen. However, the obsession continues. Now I want this awesome Zack Morris t-shirt, even though the guy doesn't look like Zack at all. But if I can't have that one, then can I please have this button down shirt with the Easton (from Facts of Life) seal on it? PLEASE?

  • I have a ton more links, but I'm trying to wind down at this point. However, I am willing to bump something more interesting to the general public to share this website with scans of almost every BSC book cover as well as captures from the TV show and movie. Wow. Be still my heart!!

  • Last one. Something worthwhile. This week I saw several references to this article in the San Francisco Chronicle about gender identity in young children and school responses. On the days when I want to cry because the world looks bleak and I wonder if we're moving forward, even a centimeter at a time, things like this encourage me. I can't even imagine a gender neutral school existing when I was in kindergarten. I'm proud. Oh, and I'd like to move to San Francisco and enroll my kids there, too. But for now I'll stick with being proud.

    Posted to Links at 10:37 PM | Comments (1)

    August 30, 2006

    Proof that sunny days make a big difference

    Here's how I know I made the right decision yesterday: I already feel empowered to make some changes in my life. I don't need to fall apart because I failed. I feel awful about letting some people down, but instead of dwelling, I'm already ready to get back to seeing Cindy regularly and working on this, and I'm not counting rabbinical school out of the picture. I'm still willing to believe that I have a future. I didn't feel that way yesterday, but today I have hope.

    That's big. Especially when you consider how I handled getting a job offer I wasn't ready for a year ago. This time, I feel ready to keep moving, or start moving, and find the tools so that this doesn't happen again.

    Posted to Hardly Working & Mental Health at 01:31 PM | Comments (1)

    August 29, 2006

    This is the 4th draft. The slightly less angsty version.

    Yesterday I ate a banana, a granola bar, and a piece of toast. I drank nothing. Then I had a nervous breakdown.

    And today I called in and quit my job.

    So what have I learned here?

    1) 19 months to get over anxiety about working should be used trying to get over anxiety about working, not just convincing yourself you're "healthier" because there is nothing in your life that will give you an anxiety attack.

    2) I can make a good decision for myself more quickly and not let things escalate to the point they did last time.

    3) That doesn't make me any less disappointed in myself.

    4) Always specify to your family that you don't want them to tell people about your new job until you say otherwise. And don't go to professional development days with your grandma.

    5) Never cancel an appointment with your therapist just because your boss says to. If you've been waiting a year to start seeing your therapist again and have as many issues as I do, TAKE THE DAMN APPOINTMENT.

    6) Loud music really can fix almost anything temporarily.

    I feel pretty awful right now, but I would appreciate it if people don't offer me a lot of encouraging words. I appreciate the sentiment, but I really need to take care of my issues before I can accept any sort of kindness about this. The only reason I'm posting about this at all is that I posted about getting the job and this will hopefully prevent a lot of people from asking me questions about how it's going. I love your support, but right now I need to wallow. Lorelai Gilmore taught me that.

    Thank goodness Xena (FINE! Lucy Lawless) is going to be singing on that new celebrity American Idolish TV show tonight so I have something horrifying about someone else to focus on.

    Posted to Hardly Working & Mental Health at 12:51 PM | Comments (3)

    August 25, 2006

    Torture, angsty theater kid style

    In the last 24 hours, I've completely fallen in love with the cast recording of the Off-Broadway (Lippa) version of the musical The Wild Party. I had never heard it before, but I've been listening to it on repeat for the last seven hours or so (yes, I'm serious). I absolutely love it. I was so disappointed when I realized that it's no longer playing anywhere. I do love Idina Menzel despite my disinterest in Wicked, and the music is so much fun. Finding out that it's six years old and that it's essentially dead is the equivalent of finding out that they no longer make my favorite tennis shoes.

    But there's one thing that makes it even worse--I'm 99% sure that when it was playing here in Minneapolis, Lauren wanted to go see it and I had no idea what it was so I brushed it off.

    Oops.

    Posted to Mindless Entertainment at 01:33 AM | Comments (4)

    August 21, 2006

    Maybe my grandma and I will start playing Mah Jong together now too. Ha!

    I made it through my first day at my first job in 19 months. I only had like 2 moments of minor panic and only like 10 instances in which I felt that I didn't fit in. I think that's a record for me.

    Of course, this can be balanced out by the GIANT panic attack I had last night about riding the bus that resulted in my mom driving me to work today. Hm.

    Overall, though, I'm glad I decided to do this. Beyond that, I'm not stupid enough to write about the job publicly.

    Oh, yeah, one last tidbit. I now hold the same job as my grandma. We're both assistant teaching (I think that's what I'm doing--no one has told me an official job title) in toddler rooms at Jewish preschools.

    Which means that I'm going to be at an inservice with my grandma on Monday. Weird. Very, very weird.

    Posted to Hardly Working at 08:20 PM | Comments (0)

    August 19, 2006

    The #6 will be my new best friend

    Starting Monday, when I begin my new job, I have to take the bus to and from work every day. I have a serious fear of riding the bus. Of all my fears and anxieties, I'd put it in the top five, easily. Part of this seems to be related to having AS or some other wonderful result of my genetic material, because Koby and my dad have the same fear. We've discussed it exactly once, and we independently had the same reasons for hating the bus. How do you know when to get off? How do you make sure the bus is stopping? What if you aren't paying attention? What if you're slow putting in your fare and the person behinds you gets upset? How do you get off without tripping over yourself in the aisles? Do people really pull that little cord or is that just something they do in the movies? What if the bus is ten seconds late, giving you the opportunity to have a full on mental breakdown over the possibility that the apocolypse has arrived or you've accidentally misread your watch and all the clocks in your house since waking up that day? And yes, I'm absolutely serious about those fears, especially the last one. I also personally have a fear of strangers, especially teenage boys, followed by grown men, followed by teenage girls, followed by anyone older than my parents. Anyone who wants to make conversation with me is scariest of all. I've ridden a public bus in Minneapolis only once, and on the way there, we were surrounded by shady men, and on the way back, we somehow missed the last bus of the night and ended up needing to hide out in Daytons until we could find a ride. I was with someone who was pretty street savvy for a suburban kid, especially since we were about 14, but I was terrified anyway, and I don't think she was particularly thrilled either. However, as much as my fear and hatred of all things buses may be passed on genetically, I also had a scarring experience in kindergarten that will forever mold how I think of buses. I was going home after school with my friend Ryan. We sat together on the bus, and he fell asleep. Despite the fact that I knew several other kids on the bus, I sat quietly in my seat and said nothing. When we got to his street, his twin sister and older brother got off. As I remember it, his sister may have even said something to me about telling their mom Ryan was asleep. I can't remember whether I tried to wake Ryan up or just sat there in a panic, doing nothing. Either way, when the bus route ended, there I was, sitting in my seat with Ryan still asleep next to me. The bus driver was very nice and drove us right back to his house, but the fact that I have such a vivid memory of this event tells me that genetics can't be the only reason that buses terrify me. By the way, I have almost no fear of subways. Trying figuring that one out.

    Posted to Mental Health & Nostalgia at 04:06 AM | Comments (6)

    August 18, 2006

    Ways to Cure Your Boredom

    The crazy links have been practically throwing themselves at me this week. I'm not even going to bother with a little intro that amuses only myself, especially since I have a lot to say about each individual link.

  • I'm really fascinated by sand sculpture and ice scultpure. I can trace this back to the summer of 1989, when my summer babysitter took me and my brothers to the Aquatennial sand sculpture contest and then got us turtle sundaes at some restaurant that I've never been able to exactly recall. I've only been to the contest a few times since then (including in 2002, when there was precisely one cool sculpture). But I did indulge in looking at these pictures of the amazing 2006 Canadian Open Sand Sculpture Championship. Wow. My favorites are this one and this one. Too cool.

  • To say that I'm a Target fan is putting it mildly. I grew up in the land of Target. When I first talked to someone who had never been to a Target, I almost died of shock. Now several of my friends are employed by Target. And I don't think I've ever gone into Target without spending less than 45 minutes and $50. Which is why this blog, Slave to Target is my new best friend. I mean, how else would I have gotten to see a little parade of people wearing Target shirts riding Target-embellished Segways?

  • I hate spending money on laptop cases. I don't have a work laptop that I need to carry around with me; I'm fine with putting it in whatever bag I have around and carrying it carefully. Laptop cases are so ugly. Until now. And I'd love them even if the blue one didn't look eerily like Cookie Monster with teeth.

  • You know that optical illusion where you're supposed to see a goblet or two people's faces? Now you can have a goblet carved to match your own face. I don't know why. It's actually a little creepy. But I'm enamored. Especially with the idea of using a little baby's face. Creeped out, but enamored.

  • Another thing that I'm not sure why I love: a shot glass measuring cup. Why would I need this? Don't I always know which size measuring spoon I need before I start? Is it any easier to reuse this shot glass over and over when cooking than to reuse the spoons? It makes no sense. But I want to hug it.

  • This past weekend we went out with our friends Stuart and Mary (hello Mary! comment once in awhile, wouldja?), and afterward, we ended up playing online, especially at YouTube. And they were kind enough to tell us that Lazy Sunday, the SNL sketch better known as the Chronicles of Narnia Rap, has become a web phenomenon. They tracked down and showed us the first response, from the west coast, Lazy Monday, aka the Color Me Mine Rap. And then the "midwest" (think IN and OH, not MN and WI) response to that, Lazy Muncie. I'm going to stop there, because those were the only ones I found funny, but if you want to see more of the responses, check out the links at the bottom of the Wikipedia article on Lazy Sunday or do a search on YouTube. Seriously amusing.

  • Stuart also made me watch a YouTube video called Where the Hell is Matt? When Stuart told me about it--a guy doing a stupid dance all over the world--I was skeptical that it could be entertaining. However, I have to admit that as I watched, all I could keep saying was, "Wow, that's so cool!" After that, I went to his website and read up on the details of his trip. Very very cool.

  • As long as I'm linking to YouTube videos (which makes me feel very dirty), I have to share a link to the campaign video of Vernon Robinson of North Carolina. I have to tell you have I have made exactly zero effort to find out if this is legitimate or not, and my source for it is sarcastic enough that I have no idea if I may have missed some indication that it was a joke, but if it's not a joke (and it doesn't seem like they're claiming that it is), I'm seriously frightened.

  • This one is a quickie. A bike that's a treadmill. Or maybe it's a treadmill that's a bike. Who knows. All I do know is that I don't get it at all.

  • And finally, one with a completely unrelated backstory. Back in high school, when people seemed befuddled by my very existence, I used to explain who I was by telling them that in my house, the music on the stereo was a combination of Neil Diamond, Black Sabbath, PDQ Bach, and Kitaro. That seems to sum up how I ended up this way pretty well. Other things that explain me include: learning cool math tricks was considered a reward for me; I used to write essays for fun; I built pretty elaborate (for a kid) two story dollhouses out of legos and made furniture for them and then just stared at them instead of playing with them; and I took a summer school course on tesselations because they fascinated me. And now someone has combined two of my great childhood loves to produce a Lego recreation of an Escher work that I spent a significant portion of my childhood staring at.

    Posted to Links at 07:44 PM | Comments (1)

    August 17, 2006

    It's only been 19 months since I last worked... I can get used to it again.

    Guess who has a job! No, not her. Not him either. ME.

    It's not necessarily the kind of job I was looking for, but it does allow me to work with kids in a Jewish environment on a part time basis with low stress where there's controlled chaos and I can be busy nonstop and wear jeans and a hoodie. Plus, I get to be around adorable little munchkins with chubby little legs and tummies and faces that I want to eat. And it essentially fell in my lap.

    Hm, come to think of it, maybe it is the kind of job I was looking for and I just didn't realize it...

    Thanks Mir!! See you Monday!

    Posted to Hardly Working at 11:34 AM | Comments (2)

    August 11, 2006

    The Tale of the Underwear Tag

    I've been neglecting this website lately. The reason for that is that just about everything I've had to say has been a little too personal to share. I don't plan to ever use an online journal to air my angst again, although the drafts of previous attempts entries sitting in my Movable Type control panel suggest that 3 am is a time of day during which I don't have quite enough self control to follow through on that. At least I have had enough self control not to post them, though.

    Anyway, because of this, I haven't said much around here lately. But today I was telling Lauren a story that she declared worthy of being shared on the internet. I personally find it amusing, but not quite that entertaining. However, I feel like I owe something to this site. I hate letting it sit, ignored. So here's my story.

    Currently, I wear a brand of underwear that has little tags on the left side--my left side. I've been wearing this brand of underwear for somewhere around six years now, and since the day I bought my first pair, it has irritated me to no end. Not because it has a tag, although I'd rather it didn't, but because the tags are on the left. And I have a very good reason for that.

    When I was little--I'm going to guess around five years old, because I actually remember this--I was having a hell of a time with my underwear. I could not for the life of me tell the front from the back. Nearly every day I put them on backwards only to have to take them off, turn them around, and put them back on. When I complained to my mom about that, she told me that the way I could tell was that the tag would be on my right.

    Now, I don't know if she meant that the specific underwear she used to buy for me had tags on the right or if she meant that universally, underwear tags were on the right and things have just changed, but I took it as the latter. Could have been a little kid thing, could have been an AS thing, could have just been how she really meant it. Who knows.

    All I know is that to this day, every single time I put on a pair of underwear the tag on the left, I'm reminded of the fact the world makes little to no sense.

    Luckily, I'm used to that feeling.

    Posted to Nostalgia at 12:33 PM | Comments (1)

    August 04, 2006

    Geek time!

    I am an IDIOT. Our computer, Janine Kishi (which I named back last August, before I even got onto this big BSC kick), has been having problems for awhile. In March, she started shutting down randomly. The problem was, at the time, I was flying back and forth so much that there wasn't one chunk of time long enough to bring her in to be repaired. The shutting down issue stopped, but after that, she kept getting very hot and making loud whirring noises she hadn't made before.

    Anyway, our warranty on Janine runs out in two weeks, so this morning we finally brought her in to get taken care of. I backed up everything on her in March when the problems started happening, and then backed up everything new in June before we moved. The other day, I burned myself another disc with everything new since June.

    And then I proceded to bookmark six more great things for future links posts last night. Oops. Luckily, I managed to remember where to find two of them, but the rest are lost for the week, and possibly forever.

    Anyway, so here I am jumping back and forth between our two emergency laptops, and I'm going to post the links that I do have. They'll have to do for now.

  • I absolutely have to lead off with these instructions on how to make your own digital picture frame. Basically, you frame the LCD from an old laptop and hook the power button and wireless card up on the back. Then you use Slickr, the flickr screensaver, to display your pictures. Looks simple enough that even I could do it. It does, however, seem like it would be quite heavy, as well as a little big. So if that deters you, or if you're lazy, you can just get this wireless/flickr using frame from thinkgeek, or this one, which uses the memory card from a digital camera rather than linking to flickr. I don't know which way we'll be going, but you can bet that we'll be doing one of these things.

  • I've now discovered the most pointless geek-toy ever. Do you remember those cheap 50 cent toys from childhood where a little figure was standing on a box, and if you pressed down on the box, the figure collapsed? Well, now you can attach one to your computer and rig it up to your favorite friend on a messaging program so that every time your friend is available, the little guy stands up, and when he or she is away, the little guy collapses. Stupid and pointless, yet highly entertaining.

  • On a much more pathetic-but-amusing note, a waitress in the town where Lauren and I spent a lot of time this past year carded someone and saw her own face looking back at her. This probably wouldn't have amused me if it hadn't taken place in Westlake, the same place where we once saw a wealthy woman wet herself at dinner and a drunk girl pull her skirt over her head and do cartwheels in the street.

  • I think it's been made pretty damn clear that I love organizing my books. My love of LibraryThing knows no bounds. But now I can turn my book collection into an actual library. Seriously. With a little date due stamp for the cards and everything. And I can do the same for my DVDs or my CDs, too. This would have been my dream birthday gift when I was 8 years old...

  • It's taken me so long to get around to this entry that by now, everyone has seen this, but I just don't care. Watch what these guys did with 8 treadmills! It's really amusing and makes me feel like I'm back in 1997, which is a very welcome feeling. I feel a little dirty because I'm pretty sure this is the same band that's featured in that new JCPenney commercial or whatever, but it's too enjoyable not to include it.

  • Last night I had an away message up that said (roughly--I don't remember because my away messages are yet another thing I forgot to back up), "I hate Jell-o. If God wanted peaches suspended in midair, he'd have filled them with helium." My friend Mel asked me where that was from, and when I told her Sophia said it on Golden Girls, her response was to tell me that Golden Girls is an oft-watched show for lesbians. She gave me that link, but I also did a search on the terms "lesbians", "reruns", and "golden girls" and found a lot of quick summaries that explain it more simply. Really, who woulda thunk? Do us lesbians really love Dorothy that much?

  • And finally, an attempt to answer the 25 most important questions in the history of the universe. Many are boring. A few, though, like "Who's the voice of the 'you've got mail' bite?" and "Which is most likely to win: rock, paper, or scissors?" are worth reading.

    That's it for this week. Fewer links, but longer explanations. Until Janine gets back, the rest will have to wait.

    Posted to Links at 12:55 PM | Comments (0)

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