WhatsUp28

Sunday November 23, 2003 -- 9:00am
I spent a lot of time yesterday cleaning up and making small adjustments to this web site. I also spent a lot of time in the woods, some of it somewhat frantically looking for yellow dots on trees in the dark. I seem to always get into strange situations while on pleasant nature-walks or hikes. Ask my friend Michelle sometime about our adventures looking for the Leatherman's cave in Connecticut, or our decisions to try the "more challenging" side of the Ape Caves. I believe we made it back from that one about 5 minutes before the park rangers were going to start looking for us.

Of course, I enjoy these adventures immensely.

Thursday November 20, 2003 -- Happy Birthday to my beloved Maddie Rae!!!
I've been in the dumps all week, for no apparent reason. The weather, maybe? Who knows? I did, however, manage to buy some groceries and do laundry, which are two things I traditionally have a difficult time with. I hate it when I'm poopy for no reason. It freaks me out, and I panic. I had a good afternoon at the after-school program though. The kids are starting to be better about doing their work, and I had fun with some of them learning traditional Israeli dances. You want a good laugh: get a bunch of middle school boys dancing.

I haven't updated anything on this website in approximately a million years. I intend to dedicate some time to it this weekend. You are hereby warned.

Monday November 17, 2003 -- HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO DEEEEEEEEE!!!!
3:00pm
Well, I was just having such a nice weekend, that I couldn't quite allow it to end. I played hooky from work today. As punishment, I now have a stomach ache. I don't know why I didn't want to go to work, but it worries me a little. I think it was just a combination of realizing that I would have a boring day & not sleeping well. Plus, my schedule is so busy at work now that it's hard to find a day when playing hooky wouldn't cause major difficulty. Gotta make hay while the sun shines, right?

Friday November 14, 2003 -- 6:50pm
Stupid Winter. Normal people go to Florida or Jamaica in the winter. Where do I go? Newfoundland!!! Maybe it's not Winter that is the stupid one. Hahaha

True Albany Story:
I parked in the park. It's freezing and my fingers have turned an alrming shade of Dead Body Yellow (coming soon to a Crayola box near you). I get to my apartment and unload, ready to continue down the street to Bomber's for a huge burrito o' protein. I realize I left my cash in the car... back in the park. Under normal circumstances, I would have said to Hell with it and found something in the house to eat, but, well, there IS nothing in the house. So I had to go back to the car and grab the cash before going in the opposite direction to Bomber's. (None of these destinations is more than a block away, but it's COLD!)

I get to Bomber's and, because I am starving, order a huge burrito and an enormous plate of nachos. The total comes to $11.36. Because I wisely emptied my change into the bin thing in my car this morning, I have exactly $11 on me.

I told the girl I was 36 cents short so she should cancel the nachos. However, she was in the middle of asking me whether I would like sour cream or salsa in exchange for the guacamole I didn't want, and was clearly perturbed by my interruption. She looked at me like I had a miniature kangaroo waltzing on my head.

"Don't worry about it! Salsa or sour cream???"

Translation: "Can't you see I'm very busy, you pathetic weirdo with a kangaroo waltzing on your head???"

"Uh... sour cream!"

So, a happy ending for everyone and the 4th example of Lark Street Poverty Tolerance I've personally experienced during the past year.

It's a nice place. Too bad it's always Winter.

Thursday November 13, 2003 -- 9:45am
Well, today ought to take care of any leaves that had a notion of lingering. High winds are expected, and it was, in fact, more challenging than usual to keep the Baby Blue Soccer Mom Superoo on the roads this morning. I thought back on my poor little Escort and felt nostalgic and thankful at the same time. I enjoyed that little car, but it didn't handle well in the wind... or snow... or rain... or, well, sunshine.

In other news, I went to the world's most depressing training workshop yesterday. What's truly depressing about it is that it's NOT the world's most depressing workshop, since the problem is so much greater elsewhere in the world. Still, I learned the happy fact that every hour in the US, 2 teenagers become infected with HIV. 1 of them lives in New York State and is more likely to live upstate than in the city. Meanwhile, denial runs rampant, perhaps even more of an epidemic than the virus itself. I can't believe how conservative educators are forced to be by politicians and PARENTS when it's our children that are in danger here! Gak.

There are donuts. I have to go. I have my priorities!

Monday November 10, 2003
-- 9:20pm
Having learned a little bit more, I have to revise my previous conclusions about time travel. Turns out time happens at different rates in different places, depending on gravity and whatnot. So "travel" to the future is possible. I just haven't worked out all the kinks yet. I'll have to get back to you.

-- 12:45pm
I am sorry to report that the Albany Powers That Be have already put up a substantial number of the Annual Dumb Holiday Lights in the Park items. Yes, I noticed that the festive holiday dolphins were up. I'm sorry, but what the bloody hell do dolphins have to do with the holidays?

This stupid Annual Dumb Holiday Lights in the Park thing is the bane of my existence (now that I don't work for an idiot anymore). First of all, they are stupid. Dolphins? Dolphins. Secondly, swarms of people with too much money and/or time on their hands pay assanine amounts of money every year to drive through the park looking at these lights, leading me to the most annoying thing aout the Annual Dumb Holiday Lights in the Park thing, which is that you can no longer drive or even walk through the park after dark unless you pay some jerk in an elf hat! This is highly irksome and is going to have a very negative effect on my already abyssmal parking situation, not to mention my nightly ritual of frolicking unrestrained about the park.

Sunday November 9, 2003 -- 10:00am
Here's where my head's been lately: It takes the light of the sun 8 minutes to reach us here on Earth. So the sun we see is actually the sun as it was 8 minutes ago. Mars is farther away from the sun than the Earth. So if we were standing on Mars, we would be seeing the sun as it appeared even longer ago - for the sake of argument, let's say 10 minutes ago. So, theoretically, if one were able to travel away from the sun at a rate faster than the speed of light, one would be perceiving the sun as it was longer and longer ago.

Translate that to any event. If you could travel away from the actual occurence of an event at a rate faster than the speed of light, you would watch that event go in reverse. However, you could not participate in the event - only watch it. That makes for a hitch in time travel.

What if you traveled toward an event at a rate faster than the speed of light? I guess you would watch the event unfold until the moment that it actually occured - at which point you would have to BE the event, or exist at the exact point of the event. As soon as you passed beyond the event, it would begin to go in reverse. I don't see how you could get into the future. You can only get to the real present of an event.

So that's what I've been thinking about. Is it any wonder that I drink?

Saturday November 8, 2003 -- 3:30pm
Pardon me. I've got nothing to say.

Monday November 3, 2003 -- 1:10pm
One summer when I was in Newfoundland for a while, I actually ate so much that I got turned from food. I remember the exact meal during which I reached capacity. It was pork chops. (This was in my pre-vegetarian days, obviously.) I very clearly remember lifting the fork, bite sized chunk of pork skewered on the end, up to my mouth, chewing the pork, swallowing it, and realizing that the food in my body had piled up so high that this piece of pork was going nowhere. That was it. I put my fork down and lost my appetite for about 2 years.

Today I have hope that a similar thing is about to happen with my appetite for sugar, which has become completely uncontrollable over the past couple of years. I was just eating a granola bar, flavored with maple and brown sugar, and it was too much for me. Too sweet.

Anyone who was a former museum co-worker of mine that is reading this has probably just fallen from their chair in shock.

Saturday November 1, 2003 -- 10:00am
Be forwarned: Retailers have apparently decided to forgo Thanksgiving this year and skip right over to Christmas. Today, the morning after Halloween, I went to my favorite corporate haven of popular culture, hair products and prescription medications, in search of tape and maybe a few post-Halloween bargains or Autumnal decor. The store had been open for exactly 32 minutes and every single Halloween item was gone! Vanished! In its place, garland, shiny wrapping paper, hundreds of little colorful lights! Behold: Christmas.

I guess if one wants post-Halloween bargains, one must shop for them pre-Halloween.

Friday October 31, 2003 -- 11:00am
Hah! As suspected, there was foul play involved in the alleged suicide attempt of my office plant. Before the plant itself even regained consciousness, I had discovered a clue. Several little poops littered the top of my computer. Mice! Fortunately, they can't have found anything of much interest to nibble on and have not returned.

It's Halloween, so Boo and stuff.

Wednesday October 29, 2003 -- 9:30am
Something dramatic happened in my office overnight. A plant I had on the window sill tried to end its life by taking a dive. It's currently in critical condition in the Plant Infirmary. Dirt everywhere. Very disturbing. Several other things also took dives from the window sill last night. I find this very perplexing. No one tried to break in (and why would they). I don't think anyone that wouldn't have cleaned up after themselves was in here. Very odd.

I'm feeling tired of my job this week. I guess that's not anything surprising. I always get to this point pretty quickly, which may explain why I have had roughly 15 jobs and as many addresses since graduating high school in 1991. The sad reality is that I still have no idea what I really want to be when I grow up. I like what I do, in theory, but in actual application? Eh.

Writer. Farmer. Two somewhat unrealistic aspirations. At least from the standpoint of my current financial situation.

It's dreary and flood-like out today, so I guess I should be happy that I am neither a farmer nor a writer. If I were a farmer, I'd be out working in the cold rain. If I were a writer, I'd have stayed in bed and would be completely unproductive today.

There. Who says I'm not an optimist? :)

Saturday October 25, 2003
-- 7:30pm
For the record, while the brochures at the front desk caused me great dismay, the smiling face that greeted me was just as wonderful as ever.

There, Marie. You happy now???

-- 6:40pm
This must be what it feels like to have a teenage child. The rejection. The complete and cavalier disregard for all that you've worked for. The glaring mistakes you can do nothing about.

Yup. I went to the museum today. The only truly good thing about visiting there is seeing the actual teenager I have parental feelings for. She's the best. I'm such a jerk for not spending more time with her. She seems to be doing well though, and I have none of those "Oh, she's fine without me - boo hoo" feelings about her. The goal was to make her be fine without me or anyone else. I'm really proud of her for ... well, everything.

My hero is a 16 year old kid. Pretty wacky, huh?

Anyhow, the museum still has a stunning ability to make me feel depressed and angry. I wanted to bring Steve to see it, because it was/is important to me, and because of the awesome fish tanks. He wasn't as noticably impressed as others that I've brought there, but he may have been picking up on my vibes, which swung into high gear negativity mere moments after we walked in.

Honestly, there have been some neat improvements. Mainly, all of the painting that's been done. The walls were always so boring. They've put fun paintings in the stairwells, on the columns and everywhere. Good move. Love it. The planetarium and the space leading up to it looks awesome. The planetarium guy is doing neat things with the shows, which spared me from the insanely boring "Spirit of Discovery" show I could recite to you on demand, and which clearly delighted the children in there. Ironically, the planetarium may now be the only actual art going on in the museum. Whatever.

The bad things were, for the most part, typical of the "Next Generation" of the museum. Disregard for the original vision and plan for the place, disregard for the dictates of grant agreements, ignorant disregard for fire codes, and poor planning. Or no planning. It's hard to say, not being there. All I know is there was a lot of empty space where there used to be stuff.

By far the most painful and irritating realization was the one I discovered upon reaching the front desk. One of the last things I did before leaving was develop about 8 themes for birthday parties. I did this, because we'd determined that birthdays were our big money maker. The "emergency planning" team had, after careful consideration, decided on this. I didn't randomly decide to provide myself with hours and hours of extra work, interestingly enough. I managed to write and prepare materials for all of the new theme parties before my last day there. Well, apparently they've all been thrown out the window. It's not a big deal, I know, but I feel like I've been slapped in the face by my 15 year old daughter. I feel like she just walked out of the house dressed like a tramp, muttering racial slurs and promising to campaign for George W. Bush.

Well, I guess I can take comfort in the fact that most teens survive their rebelious years and go on to embrace the values of their parents. Maybe in 10 years the museum will be on solid footing and making sense and we can put all of this behind us.

For now, I think a policy of Extreme Avoidance is in order.

Friday October 24, 2003 -- 6:40pm Happy Birthday to Nicolas, you old hag!
Also, please bid a warm welcome to the planet to Miss Melody Burrows, first child of my cousin Steven and his wife, Kim. Steven and I grew up together, 3 hours apart, and I remember him as a blonde-bordering-on-albino little freckle-faced kid who used to threaten not to be my cousin anymore when I called him "Stevie Weavie." Now he has a kid. Weird.

I think I had something else to say, but it got lost between thinking it and actually opening this program. Oh, bother.