It’s raining, I’m coughing and watching “The Office” since I have the DVD boxed set - of the original BBC version.

I am now in possession of 2 of 3 key ingredients for pie-making this weekend: real bourbon vanilla extract and lots of nice pecans. All I lack is the heavy cream, but that’s getting purchased tomorrow.

Apparently, you know you’re a Democrat/liberal if you can refer to one of your friends as “my Republican friend.” I have more than one friend who is a Republican, but only one with whom I engage in these crazy conversations/arguments. Tonight, my Republican friend and I were driving to Trader Joe’s for the third time in two weeks - he’s addicted to the granola and juice drink thingies, while I am trying a little bit of everything since I experiment like that - and he started off the conversation with the statement, “Muslims are crazy. I bet that most, like the greatest percentage, of the violence committed in the name of religion or God is performed by Muslims.”

Of course, when I started to poke at him with questions (which is my argumentative strategy - finding out where my opponent is coming from and then tearing away at that foundation if I can…) he had to narrow down that statement to reflect what he was actually trying to argue: that, in modern times, specifically post-September 11th, the majority of violent acts committed in the name of religion have been committed by Muslims, of whom the majority are fundamentalist Muslims who are all suicide bombers or shooting at U.S. planes or blowing up hotels to kill both innocent people and “infidels.”

Actually, he started off by saying that “the biggest percentage of violence in the name of religion” is committed by Muslims… about which I had to correct him on right then and there since Islam is the most popular single religion in the world and any percentage of that huge number (1.1 billion) is going to be a smaller percentage number just based on the size of the “sample group.”
Fifty people out of a hundred = 50 percent.
Fifty people out of 1 billion = .0000005 percent (right? 5/1,000,000,000 = .00000005 X 100 [to arrive at percent] = .0000005%)

With over 1.1 billion adherents, Islam is the world’s most popular single religion. Following Islam, Catholicism, Hinduism, Protestantism, and Buddhism round out the top five. However, there are almost 2 billion Christians in the world - divided into several subsets of Christianity. Almost one billion people (one-sixth the world’s population) are agnostic, atheists, or indifferent to religion.

Anyway - after that whole mathematical debacle, it was time to get into the nitty-gritty, and since he was discounting all historical violence committed by other groups in the name of their religions or because of a difference in religion (such as the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Holocaust, etc.) stating that only modern events counted, I had to take a step back since the scope of his argument was getting soooo narrow that his view could’ve been collapsed even smaller and an argument could be fought stating that - I don’t know - all bearded Muslim men over the age of 40 living in an agricultural society have an 85% chance of committing murder in the name of Allah in the next 37 days. Or something equally ridiculous.

When I brought up the fact that the fundamentalists of any religion can’t be used to describe, much less judge or draw conclusions about, the main religion as a whole, the point was disputed. I mentioned the Branch Dividians and other fun cults/sects that committed strange and violent acts in the name of God/religion… but according to my friend, those can’t be counted since they are too cult-like. I explained that the fundamentalist Muslims ARE, basically, the Branch Dividians of Islam. That sort of violence and hatred is not something that the religion of Islam supports or endorses… if that were the case, the world would be MUCH more f’ed up since over a sixth of the world’s population would be adhering to that mentality and ideology.

His retort was, “Well, if they’re the minority, where are the moderates stepping in to keep them in check?” and I replied with, “Where were the moderates who should’ve stepped in during the Holocaust or where were the moderates who should’ve stepped in during the Crusades?” Given a choice between quietly going about your business and NOT being killed, or speaking your mind and risking murder, torture, etc., it’s a RARE human being that will stand up and “do the right thing.” That’s why there are heroes and martyrs.

I’m going to have to read this article more fully later - check it out and see what you think…

There’s also a pretty clear outline of what exactly a “holy war” is on the BBC’s “Religion and Ethics” site.

Enough of that for tonight. I am coughing and need to down some more lemony yellow death with delightful chalky aftertaste (TheraFlu for colds and severe congestion.) I performed two nasal irrigations to prevent sinus infection from happening, so at least I have that on my side.

Also - I got an email today stating the following:

Our Associate Dean is recommending to the FSU Office of Admissions that you be admitted to our master’s program to begin Spring 2006. Your official letter of admission will come from that office.

Wooo-hoo!!!!!

So the only thing that remains to be seen is how to get the financials in order by the deadline. I’ll be printing all sorts of stuff tomorrow night. Tonight, I actually emailed myself some work from work since my computer here has a scanner and cool software that I don’t have at work - yet, anyway. I’d best finish that off while I am feeling creative and fired up.

This weekend, I have some major site maintenance to do since I received an email today from someone notifying me of several broken links throughout the site. I’ve been lazy. Boo. Hiss. Time to fix everything. Sometimes, though, it means basically starting from scratch

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I am listening to monks chanting. I am hoping it will calm me and help me fall asleep again. I have a Winamp playlist of “insomnia songs” - it includes monks chanting, rain falling, some Satie, Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven, Delibes and the mother of all relaxation music (I’m almost embarrassed to say), Enya.

It seems that the maximum period of efficacy for Theraflu “severe congestion” formula is approx. 4 hours since I downed a cup of lemony death at around 10 and was able to fall asleep, breathing clearly. Now I am awake, unable to breathe.

Birds are chirping and I have to take the early (7:45) train to work since I have an all-day seminar that begins at 9.

In the meantime, I just found a poem by William Butler Yeats (rhymes with “dates” not “eats”) called “Beggar to Beggar Cried”:

‘Time to put off the world and go somewhere
And find my health again in the sea air,’
Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck,
‘And make my soul before my pate is bare.-
‘And get a comfortable wife and house
To rid me of the devil in my shoes,’
Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck,
‘And the worse devil that is between my thighs.’
And though I’d marry with a comely lass,
She need not be too comely - let it pass,’
Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck,
‘But there’s a devil in a looking-glass.’
‘Nor should she be too rich, because the rich
Are driven by wealth as beggars by the itch,’
Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck,
‘And cannot have a humorous happy speech.’
‘And there I’ll grow respected at my ease,
And hear amid the garden’s nightly peace.’
Beggar to beggar cried, being frenzy-struck,
‘The wind-blown clamour of the barnacle-geese.’

Dear Diary: today is not going to be fun.

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From eMedicine.com:

“Rhinitis is defined as inflammation of the nasal membranes and is characterized by a symptom complex that consists of any combination of the following: sneezing, nasal congestion, nasal itching, and rhinorrhea. The eyes, ears, sinuses, and throat can also be involved. Allergic rhinitis is the most common cause of rhinitis. It is an extremely common condition, affecting approximately 20% of the population. While allergic rhinitis is not a life-threatening condition, complications can occur and the condition can significantly impair quality of life, which leads to a number of indirect costs. The total direct and indirect cost of allergic rhinitis was recently estimated to be $5.3 billion per year.

Pathophysiology: Allergic rhinitis involves inflammation of the mucous membranes of the nose, eyes, eustachian tubes, middle ear, sinuses, and pharynx. The nose invariably is involved, and the other organs are affected in certain individuals. Inflammation of the mucous membranes is characterized by a complex interaction of inflammatory mediators but ultimately is triggered by an immunoglobulin E (IgE)–mediated response to an extrinsic protein.

The tendency to develop allergic, or IgE-mediated, reactions to extrinsic allergens (proteins capable of causing an allergic reaction) has a genetic component. In susceptible individuals, exposure to certain foreign proteins leads to allergic sensitization, which is characterized by the production of specific IgE directed against these proteins. This specific IgE coats the surface of mast cells, which are present in the nasal mucosa. When the specific protein (eg, a specific pollen grain) is inhaled into the nose, it can bind to the IgE on the mast cells, leading to immediate and delayed release of a number of mediators. (Editorial comment: Ooooooh. Sexy.)

The mediators that are immediately released include histamine, tryptase, chymase, kinins, and heparin. The mast cells quickly synthesize other mediators, including leukotrienes and prostaglandin D2. These mediators, via various interactions, ultimately lead to the symptoms of rhinorrhea (ie, nasal congestion, sneezing, itching, redness, tearing, swelling, ear pressure, postnasal drip). Mucous glands are stimulated, leading to increased secretions. Vascular permeability is increased, leading to plasma exudation. Vasodilation occurs, leading to congestion and pressure. Sensory nerves are stimulated, leading to sneezing and itching. All of these events can occur in minutes; hence, this reaction is called the early, or immediate, phase of the reaction.

Over 4-8 hours, these mediators, through a complex interplay of events, lead to the recruitment of other inflammatory cells to the mucosa, such as neutrophils, eosinophils, lymphocytes, and macrophages. This results in continued inflammation, termed the late-phase response. The symptoms of the late-phase response are similar to those of the early phase, but less sneezing and itching and more congestion and mucus production tend to occur. The late phase may persist for hours or days (Editorial comment: crap, crap, crap!!!)

Systemic effects, including fatigue, sleepiness, and malaise, can occur from the inflammatory response. These symptoms often contribute to impaired quality of life.”

SO that’s how I’m feeling today. All this plasma exudation is exhausting. Those poor mast cells in my nasal mucosa, though. I don’t know what to do about them. I am craving fast food. I can’t taste a thing… so I want crap. I think I’ll go get a can of Manhattan clam chowder and see how that suits me.

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My friend Theresa called me this evening to share the details of her crappy day.

However, I think it wasn’t that crappy because she may have SAVED THE WORLD! You see, on the way home from dance class she realized that she forgot her coat and some dude was tailgating her and she was all like, “Dude! Get off my ass!” and was getting ready to slow down when - SUDDENLY! - some huge beast jumped out of the New Hampshire woods and hit her little Toyota Echo with its ass - or rather, its ass was hit by the Toyota.

Theresa pulled over and the tailgater sped by. Theresa, thankfully, was OK - a little shaken, but OK. She doubled back to see what she’d hit, terrified that it was some family’s HUGE dog or a bear… and there was nothing there. Whatever the beast was, it was large enough to be unfazed by a collision with a car and merely urinated out of fright since Theresa’s windshield was covered in some transparent liquid.

Now - here’s what we decided. The beast wasn’t a dog since a dog would’ve been injured by a collision with a car. It wasn’t a moose since it wasn’t THAT big. It wasn’t a bear because it wasn’t that big either. And it wasn’t that fast, though bears have been known to book… but not like that on a highway at night.

Had Theresa not been watching episodes of “Buffy” earlier, she would have missed this altogether - but it was determined by our scientific panel (that’s Theresa and me) that the mysterious beast was a werewolf.

That’s right. This evening, Miss Theresa saved the state of New Hampshire, and quite possibly the United States, from invasion by werewolves with bladder incontinence issues.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have taken two decongestant tablets before talking to Theresa. Perhaps this conversation didn’t actually happen. I’ll have to rely upon any comments from Theresa in this forum to vouch for the veracity of this tale.

(I wrote more earlier, before the medicine. Check it out…)

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My goodness gracious! My fellow commuters are a veritable gold mine of fiction fodder!

Today, the train home was PACKED - more so than I’ve ever seen. In my car, there were some interesting characters. First, there were the passengers in the row behind me, discussing SuDoku and explaining it to a gentleman in their midst who had no idea what this new fad was.

One woman - with short permed hair, fuschia lipstick, more gold jewelry than Mr. T and a huge brown cowl neck sweater - explained the basic premise to him, and then proclaimed that her sister-in-law is “the champeen” of the game. She wasn’t even trying to be funny by pronouncing it that way. I think she’s one of those people who learned to speak ONLY by listening and therefore has no concept of phonics and the fact that the word ‘champion’ has three syllables and not an “e” in the bunch. I’ve known people who thought that the word “bastard” was pronounced “bastid” since that’s the only way they ever heard it said by their parents. Be forewarned - the SuDoku champion resides somewhere in Northern New Jersey!!

I was seated next to a nice Hispanic lady who was reading a women’s magazine and who started laughing outright at one point when another woman in the front of our train car was talking. When I say in the front of our train car, I mean the FRONT - first seat by the exit doors, about 11 or 12 rows up from where I was sitting. Anyway, there was a group of people who all work for the same company, apparently, and the one lady - who had very tightly permed orangey-red hair - was all dressed up. Her co-worker asked her if was dressed up because she had an important meeting or… ?

She responded, in a unnecessarily loud fashion, that she was dressed up to flirt with her boss because he’s a hunk. Then she repeated that he’s a hunk and a millionaire, thus, a hunky millionaire. The ladies in the group started giggling and, “You go girl!”-ing. She THEN revealed that he’s 72, and a hunky millionaire and that she’s gettin’ a piece. All this, loud enough so that everyone aboard that car can hear. The lady next to me just couldn’t hold it anymore and turned to me and said, “Ay dios mio! I can’t believe it! She’s telling everybody her business! So loud!” I shook my head and said, “Some people apparently don’t believe in keeping things personal.”

Ha ha. Funny. Here I am blogging away, revealing details of my life on a daily basis, yet I berate that woman for not keeping her life personal. Then again, I don’t talk about details regarding work, or too much personal stuff.

I am getting sick, by the way. The allergies are hitting me hardcore. I have developed an annoying itchy throat and cough overnight. I was sniffly and gross all day today, and I have that nastiness in the back of my throat that comes from post-nasal drip. Nothing tastes as it should and I am forced to drink lemon-lime seltzer water with ice since all forms of sweetened drinks only increase the ick in the back of my throat and plain old water doesn’t taste very good when your nose is all stuffy. This SUCKS. And it’s NOT a cold and it won’t go away after a week or so. CRANKY CRANKY. WAH WAH WAH.

It’s seasonal allergic rhinitis (plus watery eyes) and it’s here for the long haul, most likely through Christmas and/or New Year’s. Or until I go to the allergist and get a new prescription for Zyrtec… wait a minute. I think I still have some refills on my prescription from July. And I can still get those! I’ll just wait until the insurance kicks in on Dec. 1. I have no sick days as yet, but we do get Thanksgiving and that Friday off, then I have a four-day conference the following week that will be sort of light on work and heavy on dinners out with various business associates, and before I know it, ‘twil be Christmas.

I wore my wrist brace almost all day at work, so I’m feeling a bit better in the carpal tunnel department, at least. I would like to continue knitting so I get my stuff done, but alas and alack, can I risk it? Should I? DARE I??

Forget it. Dude, I feel like arse. I am going to get into bed and read and drink some seltzer. Drinking fluids and bed-rest are good advice no matter what the nature of the illness/infirmity, even if it is only allergies.

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A brief interlude while at work:

Getting on the train this morning, I was on line behind a rather large (rotund, not tall) woman wearing bright orange velvet pants with a floral pattern embossed throughout the velvet.

My though on seeing this was, “Wow, her ass looks like a bad upholstered couch from the 70s.” That said, if I actually found a couch upholstered in that fabric, I would buy it in a heartbeat. Pants in that pattern are NOT flattering.

Secondly, I napped on the train - dozed, really. I had my head propped up on my carpal tunnel hand and it was rather painful, so I leaned my head a little more to the left… and ah. It came to rest against the window. My hand was released from its painful ministrations and I thought to myself, “A window is never too far away.”

Lastly, I noticed that my cuticles were nasty and dry. I happened to have a little tube of Caswell & Massey rose-scented hand balm with me. I applied that to my hands and was enjoying the lovely scent of roses that wafted from my hands. While dozing away, I remembered that the scent of roses is usually linked with the appearance of apparitions of saints. And I wondered if anyone on the train was a crazy Catholic who would smell my hand lotion and think that they’d just missed or somehow experienced a vision of a saint… and that I’d see it in the paper the next day, “Retired schoolteacher sees St. Therese of Lisieux aboard NJ Transit train…”

Or something.

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Interesting. Don’t know exactly what it means, but it’s interesting.
Scientific American: Graphite Found to Exhibit Surprising Quantum Effects

10:20 on Sunday night. I finished knitting one of my Christmas gift scarves today. My carpal tunnel is paying me back and I just spend 5 minutes or so soaking my entire left forearm in icy cold water in the sink to bring down the inflammation. I might get an ice pack and hold that on it while I read in bed. Don’t ask about the logistics of reading while icing the wrist; I’ll figure it out.

Tomorrow, my boss will be back at work after her vacation. Lots to catch up on and lots to do for me, I’m sure. I am really looking forward to it, though. Also, I will be mailing in my order to Lands’ End for a new winter coat… it’s black and quilted and down-filled and rated for temperatures down to -20 fahrenheit. It’s not too puffy, though, which is important. I hate feeling like the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man just to keep warm. Granted, it’s not the most stylish thing ever, but sometimes a girl has to sacrifice fashion to stave off chilliness.

I honestly have nothing interesting to report. Nothing at all happened this weekend. I did nothing. I put together my Christmas list and found some great recipes for Christmas cookies. ‘Tis the season for my inner Martha Stewart to really f’in shine!!!

Next weekend is the weekend I start my copious amounts of baking. First, the caramel pecan pies for gift-giving to friends and for family enjoyment for Thanksgiving. This means I will be taking a trip to the local warehouse-type store to get huge quantities of pecans (they come in 2 pound bags and two pounds really isn’t that much… the pies are heavy!) Then I will be going to Trader Joe’s (again) since I read in their newest flyer that they have real bourbon vanilla extract there (as opposed to the fake “vanillin” flavor used in most supermarket vanilla extracts) and it makes all the difference in the caramel pecan pie when I’m making the caramel. Mmm. The flavor is incomparable. My parents brought back some bourbon vanilla from Mexico last year and I used it in last year’s batch of pies; I swore I would never use the regular stuff again.

If time allows, I will start on the Christmas cookies. I have a few standards but I want to add to my repertoire. I make these fun chocolate peppermint pinwheel cookies that are a pain in the ass to make, but are soooo supremely tasty, it’s all worthwhile. I make the cookies now, I freeze them, and they keep nicely until Christmas Eve Day… which, incidentally, is my name day (Christmas Eve - EVA… not for that reason, but it’s funny.) Polaks honor their saints’ name days - not so much us first generation kids, but my parents do. They celebrate their name days with more gusto than their birthdays.

I’m in the mood to watch some Pride and Prejudice. It’s one of the better choices for viewing when I plan on falling asleep soon because the music that plays repeatedly over the DVD menu is a pretty innocuous and almost enjoyable piano and violin bit. When I lived in my apartment, I remember waking up at 3 or 4 in the morning one day to the constant repetition of the DVD menu music from “Chocolat”, which my roommate had fallen asleep watching. THAT was almost unbearable… accordion, fake Frenchness… ugh. It’s a very important thing to me.

NON-annoying DVD menu music is the way to my heart.

Well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. But I place great importance on weird things… seemingly unaware of this, my friends think that a guy has no chance with me if his spelling or grammar suck.

Strangely enough, it’s not true. I’m a stickler, but only in my case and in the case of published works and email from my superiors. The ONE thing that automatically disqualifies a guy from even being my friend is having an annoying speaking voice.

If a dude’s voice is too whiny or nasal or high-pitched or “soft” or Harvey Feirstein-like or if he stammers or stutters (those are just ones I have already experienced) I will NOT be conversing with him again. Conversation, as you might imagine, is very important to me. Therefore, an annoying voice prevents me from being able to enjoy getting to know someone and, thus, ends any relationship before it even starts.

Cruel, cruel Eva. I know. It’s the bed I made, though, and I’m prepared to sleep in it, even if I end up sleeping alone for the rest of my life… weep, weep, sob, sniffle.

I kid. Sort of. But only a little.

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Sometimes, random words pop into my head. Today’s random word is:

Dithyramb

In ancient Greece, hymn to the god Dionysus, choral lyric with exchanges between the leader and the chorus. It arose, probably, in the extemporaneous songs of the Dionysiac festivals and was developed (according to tradition, by Arion) into the literary form to be found, for example, in the dithyrambs of Bacchylides. In its later development by such poets as Philoxenus and Timotheus it became freer in its meter and more musical. The tragedy seems to have come out of the dithyramb, but the dithyramb was also cultivated after tragedy was invented.

Yup. So that’s today’s bit of edumacation.

On my walk back to the train station after work today, I walked by a woman who looked like she had two prosthetic legs. She was walking sor t of strangely, but not stiffly enough for prostheses. Upon further inspection, it turns out that she was wearing opaque tan tights. NOT a good fashion choice, ladies. Opaque black? Sure! Opaque purple? OK! Opaque brown? All well and good. But opaque tan tights are the exact same shade of sickly brown-beige that old school prosthetic legs are and it doesn’t look attractive on anyone.

Only a short while ago, I returned from a shopping trip with my mother and younger brother. We went to find him a suit to wear to his friend’s wedding tomorrow. Shopping with my mother is always a trying experience. Rather than giving you any sort of concrete criticism/opinion like, “That suit is too large” or “Those pants don’t make your butt look good” or “That color is wrong for you”, she opts for very vague comments that mean, ultimately, nothing.

For example, she decided she did not like the suit that my brother and I both preferred to the other suits. Paul asked her why she liked the other suit better. Her response was, “It makes you look younger. You know? Fresh and young.” This is not exactly what you want to hear when you’re 23 and buying a suit. You don’t want to look young.

My comment was that I felt the second suit (a Kenneth Cole) was more structured and modern-looking and that it fit him better overall, had a better flow of fabric along his back, and that he looked more comfortable in it. He agreed that he liked it better as well; my mother sulked for a while because I think she enjoys acting like a petulant nine year-old sometimes when she doesn’t get her way. But he got the suit and some nice shirts and some really nice ties. I have to pat myself on the back here - I excel at helping my male friends and relatives find ties to match their shirts and suits.

Anyway, he got the suit. We returned home and a war broke out since my father feels that the sleeves of the suit are too long and this became a representation of our collective female tendency to “Screw Up Everything.”

There was lots of shouting and insults flew betwixt my parents. I took the suit into Paul’s room and asked him if he wanted me to come with him to the store to exchange the suit, or if he would just go with my parents and be done with it. I ended up staying home in case his girlfriend needs someone to pick her up from the station… and here I sit. If they return home before his girlfriend calls, I can go and color my hair. If she calls before they return, I am doing that, I guess.

However, I can finish reading “Middlemarch” in either event and then I can spend part of tomorrow watching the companion BBC miniseries of “Middlemarch” which just arrived from Netflix today - both DVDs! Yay!

Since my sister works at the bookstore and is able to take advantage of the book loan program, I have asked that she borrow one of two books for me so I have something new to read - “The Beatles” by Bob Spitz and “The Historian” by Elizabeth Kostova.

I also have the RSS book that I should be highlighting and taking notes on. But I am not in that mood. That’s a tomorrow afternoon thing since my weekend is going to be entirely devoid of anything exciting or interesting or even mildly entertaining. I will be home with my father all weekend, essentially, and no good can come of it.

Thus, solitary creative endeavors which require intense concentration and note-taking and typing - and which proceed best when accompanied by a 1,327 song playlist in WinAmp on “random” and “repeat all” - will be my bread and butter for the next two days.

For the moment, I am going to make myself some hot chocolate with marshmallows and await the return of family or phone call from brother’s girlfriend. If my services are not needed, hair-color modification will commence. I don’t know why I enjoy putting volatile chemicals on my head so often, but I do.

That’s a lie. I know vaguely why. I can explain later when I’ve had a chance to mull it over and put it into words. Perhaps I will write about that while I’m waiting for the color to process and have 40 minutes of sedentary time…

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Since it’s Veteran’s Day, the train this morning was practically empty. However, two highly entertaining German tourists boarded at the station after mine.

They were young ladies in their early to mid-20s and you’d think they’d just boarded an international space station instead of a NJ Transit commuter train. Mind you, they did not appear to be from an “East Bumble-Burg” portion of Germany so they were probably just very excited to be traveling as the locals do. It’s a very European method

So, as they’re searching for a seat (there were plenty, so I guess they wanted a particular view - or that perfect orange vinyl to sit upon) they’re talking very excitedly and quickly in German. If I knew more than airport German, I’d probably have been able to gather the gist of their conversation, but I don’t. After they paid for their tickets, they asked the conductor to take photos of two of them sitting in the orange seat and smiling. Yes, that’s right. Just sitting on the train. The conductor (one of my favorites - I always get his train in the morning) obliged them with not one but TWO photos each on TWO digital cameras.

It was just funny. My “daily grind” was a tourist attraction.

I got here a little while ago and decided to break open my box of Trader Joe’s Jasmine Green Tea. I’ve basically gone through a box of Trader Joe’s Organic Mint Melange Tea within 3 weeks. Imagine my delight upon pulling out the little wrapped teabag and seeing that the back of the teabag has a quote from Clive Barker on it:

“…She had that brand of pragmatism that would find her the first brewing tea after Armageddon.” - Clive Barker, Weave-World

Tea with Clive Barker quotes. How awesome is that?

Update @ 11:37 a.m. - The Yoga and Pilates class was rescheduled to start on Dec. 2 since the instructor’s mother is ill and then the holidays get in the way. Boo-hiss. It took a lot of nerve for me to walk downstairs and enter that room all by my lonesome. However, I did it - I met the instructor (who is more Nutley than Naropa**, for which I am thankful), and I think it will be OK.

And I ask: “Where mah damn bidness cards?”

___________________________________________________
** Nutley, NJ has been the butt of humor in episodes of “The Simpsons” and other such fun. It’s about as close to the stereotype of New Jersey residents as you can get while actually in the state of NJ. Otherwise, the New Jersey stereotypes are more representative of certain New Yorkers. LJ, Aaron and I have a sort of inside joke thing going based on “The Simpsons” humor and also resulting from when they were apartment hunting back in the day and looked at a place in Nutley which was populated by obese mutants resembling people from the movie “Deliverance.” They decided that Nutley was a mutation. I don’t have much against Nutley considering that my shrink (ha! ha! how appropriately and strangely funny) is there, as is a Starbucks I like to visit since my friend Erin works there.Naropa, in case you don’t know, is private liberal arts college/university out in Boulder, Colorado that’s based in the Buddhist religious tradition, as opposed to a Jesuit or Jewish or Roman Catholic tradition. Any hippies I’ve ever known have dreamt of going there or have actually attended since it’s a sort of Utopian university goal for those who have strong spiritual and social conscience issues/reservations about attending a public university or a private one that’s profit-driven (ummm… that’s like ALL of them, including my alma mater.)

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Yes, I used w00t.

When is the last time you watched this gem of a movie? From the days when Disney possessed some original thought? (OK, fine - Pirates of the Caribbean is Disney, but it broke the mold…)

For those of you who might’ve missed it or who are too young to remember the seminal children’s films of 1986, there is additional information all over the place online, and this site provides screen shots and a synopsis.

Note: The soundtrack is beyond awful, but it IS 1986 after all.

WATCH as Sarah Jessica Parker plays an army brat! MARVEL at Pee-Wee Herman playing the voice of an alien robot spaceship! REVEL in the wonders of Canadian child actors whose careers basically consist of this movie and two episodes of “Murder, She Wrote.” ENJOY that dude from “Head of the Class” (the teacher) playing the scientist treating little David like a lab rat!

I love this thing. Thank you, Netflix, for helping me remember the love. Netflix also provides RSS feeds to subscriber’s queues, so you know that craziness is going on the movies page (with the rest of the site redesign.)

Tomorrow is my first yoga/pilates class at work. I’m pretty nervous about it, actually. I really don’t function well in groups when exercise is involved, but this is very much a conscious effort to follow the words of Eleanor Roosevelt:

Do one thing every day that scares you.

I am absolutely, unequivocally a night person.
I’ve been able to get up in the mornings and do the whole “bright-eyed and bushy-tailed” thing at work just because I like it so much and enjoy going there, but my mind doesn’t really get up to speed until later in the day/evening/night/early morning. Also, I find nothing glorious about the morning.

“Morning people” revel in the beauty of the sunrise and birdsong and watching the day begin. Here’s a bit from a morning person writing on Flak Magazine:

The quiet, early morning with the sun low in the trees is the definition of peace. Every sound is muffled, all movement is lazy and there are no sharp edges. Nothing has gone wrong yet in the day; there is only optimism and opportunity.

Being out-and-about early in the morning is as great a joy as quietly sipping coffee on the sofa. It’s a different world, a comfortable world. Go to any grocery store at 7:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning and you’ll see what I mean. Voices are gravelly; everyone has an easy smile and a soft “good morning.” We move at about 70 percent of afternoon speed. There is no bustle. There is no hustle. We don’t sigh dramatically or jangle our keys impatiently while standing in line to check out; the speakers don’t squawk with price checks and clean-ups on Aisle 9. Sometimes the shelves are still being stocked and boxes are stacked in the aisles, but we don’t mind. We dress for comfort and no judgments are made. We haven’t all showered and we’re in baseball caps and soft cotton. Our sweatpants and sweatshirts were not sold as an outfit, and our shoes have rubber soles.

Morning people don’t proselytize much because we don’t want you night people infringing on our world.

Hey, that’s fine by me. I don’t want the world of the morning person. “Optimism and opportunity.” I’ll grant them that - an unrealistic sense of optimism.

I vastly prefer evenings and late nights and moonrise and certain parts of the world shutting down and other parts just starting up. There’s greater variety of life at night. It’s when I have my best ideas and my best conversations and my best dreams. I’m just aligned with the moonlit half of the day, and that’s not a bad or morbid or overly dramatic thought.

I also don’t like coffee or most breakfast foods. I wonder if there is a connection. Nah. I like having cereal for dinner. Wait. So that might be a connection if I enjoy having the traditional breakfast foods in the evening when my brain is waking up. Maybe I have a really weird circadian rhythm.

Be that as it may, I have to conform with the world at large, and I really don’t have it that badly. I have to wake up at 7/7:30 to catch the later train. If I want to be at work earlier, I have to be up at 6:45. That’s really not bad when compared to other schedules; sometimes, though, it feels like torture for me. Just the actual waking up and opening my eyes part.

To that end, it’s time to settle in, read some, and drift off to sleep under my nice warm comforter since it’s grown bitterly cold over the last few hours and warmth = good.

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