Youth Literacy

In Barnes & Noble tonight, I overheard the clerk ask a young man if he had a Barnes & Noble card. He replied "No" and she asked him if he would like to sign up for one and he said "Nah, I only buy, like, one book a year."

Kick Ass Mix Tapes

Sometime yesterday I realized that I could recreate all my awesome mix tapes from the 90's using RealRhapsody. I asked Healy to send me the playlists for some tapes I made for her in high school and then I set about recreating MY FIRST MIX TAPE EVER. I actually did not make this mix tape; I got it from Cathy Westbrook who drove me to school when I was freshman and she was a junior. She had gotten it when she was a freshman from her "big sister". It is simply titled "Junior Retreat Mix". Hearing this tape for the first time was a major formative musical experience for me and influenced much of my musical tastes. RR has all but 5 songs (starred).

"Forever Young" - Alphaville *
"Hotel California" - The Eagles *
"American Pie" - Don McLean
"Peace Train" - Cat Stevens
"You’ve Got A Friend" - James Taylor
"Southern Cross" - Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
"What A Wonderful World" - Louie Armstrong
"Desperado" - The Eagles *
"Only You" - The Yaz
"As Tears Go By" - The Rolling Stones
"Where Everybody Knows Your Name" - Gary Portnoy & Judy Hart *

Side B
"Only The Good Die Young" - Billy Joel *
"Lola" - The Kinks
"Superman" - R.E.M.
"The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)" - Simon & Garfunkel
"Come Dancin"' - The Kinks
"Margaritaville" - Jimmy Buffet
"Joker” - The Steve Miller Band
"I Melt With You" - Modern English
"Three Little Birds" - Bob Marley & The Wailers
"Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" - Bob Dylan
"And She Was" - Talking Heads
"Red, Red Wine" - UB40

I Said Rock, Bitch!

"I understand that scissors can beat paper, and I get how rock can beat scissors, but there's no fuckng way paper can beat rock! Paper is supposed to magically "wrap around" rock, rendering itimmobile? Why the hell can't paper do this to scissors? Screw scissors, why can't paper do this to people? Why aren't sheets of notebook paper constantly suffocating students as they attempt to take notes in class? I'll tell you why - BECAUSE PAPER CAN'T BEAT ANYBODY! A rock would tear that shit up in 2 seconds. When I play rock/paper/scissors, I always choose rock. Then when somebody claims to have beaten me with their paper, I punch them in the face with my already clenched fist and say, 'Oh shit, I'm sorry. I thought paper would protect you.'"

-Stolen off another blog that I stumbled on by clicking "next blog".

Another Way To Make Work Less Like Work

I just discovered Real Rhapsody which combines Real Radio and an on-demand music service. Feel like hearing "Paul Revere"? Here ya go! In the mood for a little Southern Rock? No problemo! Op Ivy? Sure! That's just a little bit of what I sampled today. My new favorite song is Scissor Sister's "Take Your Mama". Scissor Sisters will be on SNL this Saturday (a rerun) and they play this song and a disco cover of "Comfortably Numb". Their costumes alone will make it worth it to tune in.

I've Got A Special On Lollipops & Ass-Kickings And I'm All Out Of Lollipops

I would love to be able to kick someone's ass. I don't have anyone in particular in mind; this is more of a general desire. I would like to be able to say "Oh yeah? C'mon, let's go!" and then actually go. I would like to be able to do windmill kicks and flip someone over my shoulder and crush a windpipe. I don't actually want to do these things, I just want to be able to. Like The Rock or Buffy. Unfortunately, if I was in a fight, all I would be able to do is bite and scratch and, if it was with a man, aim a kick at the balls. Should I take up martial arts or is this maybe a vein best left untapped?

The Taxi Driver Is Always Right?

Last night I took a taxi home from Georgetown. The driver asked me the best way to reach my house and I said told him to take the parkway. But he shook his head so I suggested K to 14th to Penn and he still didn't like that and said he wanted to take K to 7th because K wouldn't be crowded at that time of night. I said "whatever" and settled back. He hit K but stayed in the access lane and kept getting stuck behind cars. He turned onto 14th while casting me a look as if to say "you don't see me taking your advice" but didn't turn onto Penn and then got all huffy when we hit traffic between Constitution and Independence. I refrained from pointing out that, as the person who lives at the place we were going to, I just might know the best way to get there. And why did he ask in the first place if he just wanted to go his own long way? And to top it all off - he charged me three zones!

Bias

A very interesting article in The Washington Post Magazine about the Bias Test (link coming tomorrow) pointed me to Project Implicit where I registered to participate in their research. So far I have found that I have a strong automatic preference for John Kerry over George W. Bush and a moderate automatic preference for athletic people of intelligent people (that one was a little surprising). Looking forward to finding out what other biases I have.

Say What?

Just got this email:

Everyone - lodging has been procured! The house sleeps 18, has full everything (including hot tub). Cost will be split equally among the guests(except for The Man) but the total for 4 nights is only $1950, so cost to you will be easily under $200 for the weekend for lodging. See evite for specifics and link to the property.

You're kidding, right?

Fun With Dictionaries

Inauguration Defined

The United States of Texas

This woman does not care about America, she only cares that people know she is an American. Correction: that she is a Texan and then an American. This is a person who put George W Bush in the White House. Take a good look - this is the enemy.

1" Of Snow Cripples Nation's Capital!

Benefit to inauguration discovered - the streets will actually get plowed.

Vegetarian Jerky Is Like Meatless Manwhich

Primal Strips do not taste like jerky. They are moist and smell faintly of fish. Not reccomended.

Annoying Co-Worker II

Here is something that AC-W does every day and it is only a matter of time before I snap. She is often the first person here and she lays in wait in her office for the next arrival. When the next person gets to work, after they (me) don't call out hello immediately she cries out "Hello, hello!" in a sing-song voice. When the new arrival replies back "Hi" or "Good Morning" or, in my case, "Grunt" she then says "Sounds like......E!" as though she is a game show participant. I know who I am! Why is she telling me something that that I have know my whole life?

Goal!

My boss is really big on the goals thing. He has yearly, quarterly and monthly goals for both professional and personal life. He types up a nice, neat list of them and has them laminated. I am not that far thinking (although maybe I should be). My goals tend to be things like "Don't yell at anyone." or "Don't get too drunk." Now I need to come up with a list of my 2005 professional goals. Then we will have a meeting to discuss our entire department's goals and make sure they all coincide with each other's and the company's mission. Then we will laminate.

Yellow Is The New Black

I haven't worn yellow since about March of 1992. That's when our Dean of Students announced that seniors no longer had to wear the yellow uniform oxford or polo shirt. Yellow really only looks good on babies, as demostrated by me here in October of 1974. I don't think I wore yellow after that until I started at Visitation in 1988. Wearing yellow every day for nine months out of the year for almost four years didn't really endear the color to me. So imagine my surprise when I walked into Bannana Republic and fell in love with a yellow satin blouse. I resisted but a few weeks later I caught myself seriously considering a pair of yellow leather gloves. The sales lady told me that yellow was all the vogue and all the new Chanel was yellow this year. This managed to put me off a little longer and then Debbie showed up to dinner with the sweetest yellow sweater and I was consumed with jealousy. Is 12 years long enough to hate a color? Should I forgive that 1/6 of the color wheel?

Statute of Limitations

About a year ago, a guy I went to kindergarten with moved back to DC. His family had moved away when we were 5 or 6 and then his parents moved back a few years ago. His mom and my mom became friendly again, based solely on the fact that he and I had known each other when we were 5. I find his mother brash and annoying so when he moved back and she put us in touch with each other, I wasn't really looking forward to meeting up. I put it off a few times and then one time we met for drinks and spent a total of two hours together over a year go.

Since then, I have managed to miss every phone call, not reply to any emails and always decline evites. Despite this, I am included in invitations to everything from hockey viewing parties to plays in Baltimore to birthday parties for people I don't even know. I could continue to ignore these emails if it weren't for the deluge of reply alls that follow each one. The pseudo-intellectual, think-they-are-sarcastic, not-so-witty reply alls. They clog up my inbox; I once got 10 in 2 minutes.
Then I started getting evites from people I didn't even know. I started to wonder if this was some sort of running joke with his friends - invite that E girl to as many things as we can until she breaks. On Wednesday, I got one such evite. The text in the email read:

Dr. Dan and the Doomsday Debauchery

For those of you who don't know me, I'm Anna Rose, Dan's best friend in DC. I am planning a super secret surprise 30th birthday for Dan. Click the evite for details.

I deleted the email and continued on my merry way. Then today, I received an email that read:

Hey everyone, it's Gene. I've managed to hack into Anna's Evite account (well, she gave me the password) to bring you this important party message. Anna has asked me to advise you all to buy your Airline tickets as soon as possible. The Airlines are done their "Fare Wars" and the prices are going back up. Personally, I'm going to purchase the round trip fare from United, from Dulles to New Orleans for $271. Plane leaves at 5pm on the 19th. Have at it, and happy shopping!

And I realized, these people, who I don't even know, expect me to fly to New Orleans for a birthday party for someone I have seen once in the last 25 years! How do I get off this fucking merry-go-round?

I Wanna Be A Pop Princess

Not really, I just want highlights like Mandy Moore. I'm a little embarrassed to be using a teen idol as my beauty icon but the girl has good hair. I'm thinking something like this or like this (but short, of course).

I'm concerned that my hairdresser won't do it, proving once again that it's not really my hair. He wants to dye my hair a cool red, i.e. purple, which I'm sure would help me with the ladies if I was so inclined but will probably turn off the gents even more than my cropped do already does. This raises the question, "Does my hairdresser think I'm gay?" Is that why he's been cutting my hair progressively shorter each time I see him? Is going to bald me and then fix me up with a girl?

I Never Got To Go To HFStival...

Yesterday at noon, one of the last two rock stations in the DC area switched their format to Latino programming. While I am happy to see the radio industry answering the call of a new demographic, was it really necessary to kill rock and roll? DC101 becomes progressively more Top 40 every day and I have recently found myself turning to WHFS more and more. This is almost as bad as when WAVA went gospel. Will DC101 go country now?

Thomas Kinkade to the Rescue

BI'75 recently sent me this card. We proceeded to send them to everyone we know. All this light sharing inspired me to ask BI'75 she would give me $100 to ask a National Gallery docent where the Thomas Kinkades were. She said she would give me $10 and I was willing to do it for that price but I didn't see any docents. Then I decided that I wanted to go to a NGA event and ask Rusty Powell in front of DC's art elite where the Thomas Kinkade room was. This brought up the question "What is the difference between a performance and a dare?" The answer - very little. Later that day, while grocery shopping, I came across a display of Glade candles decorated with TK's "art". Naturally, I had to buy one for my dad - I chose the French Vanilla with a snowy, city scene. Today I came home to the sickly-sweet smell of fake vanilla. Someone was burning the TK candle! Apparently a stuffed cabbage experiment had gone wrong and only Thomas could help. Now our house smells like an Irish whorehouse.

Bend Over, District

Not only will we be losing tax revenue if the Local 25 strikes, we have to spend a huge chunk of our homeland security funds on Bush's inauguration. Why is the city that had the lowest percentage of votes for GW paying for his inauguration? Courtland Milloy has a few things to say about DC footing the bill for Bush's Party

At least DC's restaurants are getting better. BI'75 and I had dinner with her college friend, Dave Choi, last night at Logan Tavern. I had the Crab & Shrimp Mac 'n Cheese. God bless the chef who thought that one up.

After that, we paid our usual Tuesday visit to the Lounge only to find it crammed with the 109th congressional staff. I could only stomach one beer surrounded by pearls and red neckties and we had to leave.

Automation

I can auto-dial from Outlook now. All I have to do is click-click-click and off I go. This is extremely helpful as I often misdial numbers as reading them from computer. I think this has to do with dialing with my left hand and my left hand being useless. I could always just move my phone so that it is on easily accessible by my right hand but that is way less cool than auto-dialing.

Om

I touched my toes for the first time ever today. Om!

Started my second round of Beginner's Yoga at Georgetown Yoga. I did a six week class before Xmas but, as someone who has never exercised ever, I decided to take the Beginner's class one more time just to make sure I get it all. And I touched my toes! For the first time ever! And not just a wee touch, I wrapped my fingers around my big toes and hung out for a while. I'm so flexible. I'm like a rubber pretzel.

I-Day Approacheth

The Local 25 is taking care of it with the best protest of all. If we are going to lose millions of tax dollars, at least it will inconvenience the GOP.

Annoying Co-Worker Strikes Again

We all have co-workers who drive us crazy. I certainly have one. But when I go to complain about her, I can never articulate just why she annoys me so much. Here is a perfect example

I was on the phone with a client and I was telling her how I was so sorry that I was late in delivering the names she had requested but that my email had been down on the day that she sent the request.

(We could send emails but not receive them and all the emails that were sent to us on that day were lost forever. We knew this was happening and were not sending any emails internally. My boss had forwarded me the email, knowing that I would not get it. So I really have two annoying co-workers. Back to the first.)

I finish on the phone with the client and go about my business. A few minutes later Annoying Co-Worker IMs me:

Annoying_Co-Worker: is our email down?
E: no
E: not that i know of
Annoying_Co-Worker: i though i heard u say that
Annoying_Co-Worker: no problem
E: no, i was talking about something that happened a month ago
Annoying_Co-Worker: oh

She is in another room! Why is she listening so closely to my conversations? I also wonder why she told me "No problem." Is she forgiving me for having a conversation in my own office?