Overwhelmed

Trying desperately to not have a cold, finish 3 papers, and decide whether I am capable of doing NaNoWriMo. Strangely, I can breathe better this morning than last night, and the drugs should have worn off by now. I have taken tons of vitamins. I have kept myself hydrated. I am drinking juice. I have had eight or nine hours sleep the past two nights. So maybe I am not going to have a cold after all. It's a dangerous line my body is walking. We'll see what happens. If it were up to me, I wouldn't go to work today. But then, it is nearly impossible to find people to cover day shifts, and they most likely will NOT take pity on me and let me not come in. I just have to disinfect myself and try not to breathe. Sure, that's a piece of cake, not breathing for four hours.

Remember when I had the stomach bug a couple weeks ago, and I said, "Don't go to _____ for lunch"? Yeah. Don't go there today either. In no way does this equate to a real and useful warning, because I am a semi-anonymous blogger. So if you live in New Orleans and work in the CBD, you'd better not go out for lunch at all, just to be on the safe side. Your waitress could be me.

Edited to add: OH NO! The cat just sneezed four times in a row. We have the SAME COLD. Poor us.

Ugh. How Mundane

So I am pretty sure I stood right next to my lame ex-boyfriend at the bank just now. I say "pretty sure" because I glanced sideways, thought, "Eek! Is that...?" and then stared down at my deposit envelope and tried to look very busy writing $500.00 in the blank spot, so as not to have to pretend friendliness. He was accompanied by a somewhat unfortunate-looking dumpy short girl (the girlfriend he got after me is a somewhat unfortunate-looking dumpy short girl), and there was a truck parked outside that I realized, in retrospect after I escaped, could have been his vehicle. This is what happens when you forget a pen in your bag. You have to go inside the bank to use theirs. And SEE WHAT HAPPENS.

Anyway, I didn't look, so I am not even certain it was him. I figured, why confirm the distasteful proximity? Much better to deposit and depart. Here is the thing. I am not usually bitter about ex-boyfriends. Usually I'm just like, "Oh, good to see you, what are you up to, blah blah." Because I'm happy without them, and they might or might not be happy without me, but either way it is not my problem. And talking with someone you had fun with recalls to you the fun moments of your life, such as when your friend and your ex stood in the Wendy's in Canal Street and shouted drunkenly about how there was a "PYYYYYYRAMID OF SHIT" in one of the toilets in the bathroom, and made friends with a homeless man, while you felt the glares of the other customers on your back and wished you were less sober. OK, that was a different ex who I also occasionally see around New Orleans, but it was a fun moment.

This ex, though... it was one of the more bitter breakups I've had, namely because this person said and did a number of sheisty things and then tried to take the moral high ground. It makes me appreciate, though, how valuable a thing it is to have someone who is similar to you in ways that matter. In a lot of ways, the beginning of my relationship with this ex was similar to my relationship with Mike: we realized we were both into sci fi, into creativity, and had a lot to talk about. The difference, as I soon found out, was that while this guy and I shared a lot of superficial interests in common, when it came to the deeper things like morals, maturity, and beliefs about relationships, we could not have been further apart. Now, this happens. We can't be expected to discover everything about a person right away. It's why dating sucks, right? The thing that pissed me off about this person in particular-- to the point where two years later I am too disgusted to turn my head four inches and confirm that it is indeed him standing next to me at the bank counter-- is that he misrepresented himself. Or well, it's more than that. It's that I am pretty "out there" about who I am. I'm the kind of person who will throw abortion, feminism, geek talk, and philosophy out there on a first date just so, you know, the other person has a chance to turn and run if they don't like my vibe. Because that is who I am. So my issue with this guy is really a combination: 1) that he pretended to be all bohemian when he was extremely conservative, and 2) that he knew who I was right off the bat and thought he could "deal" with it because he liked me so much. That is way different from Mike loving me but "dealing" with my inability to do the dishes. It is more like saying "We like the same movies! Yay! And, well, I'll learn to deal with everything you believe in and hold sacred." Whatev. No biggie.

He represents all that I hate about lame fake people. And I hope he chokes on his deposit slip. So there. (If, um, he were to, for some reason, eat it.)

What's So Unpleasant About Being Drunk? You Ask a Glass of Water

I am either feeling drained from a long day of flying, or coming down with something. This is shaping up to be another crazy week, with Halloween on Tuesday, several papers due Wednesday, and Mike's birthday on Thursday. Oh, and if I really am going to do NaNoWriMo this year, that also starts Wednesday, and there is some outlining I need to do. I said I was going to get a head start on my classwork this evening, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I am just so useless that all I can do is curl up with a book and hope I get home from work early enough tomorrow that I can bang out a few papers.

But it is all OK, because the new Tamora Pierce book was waiting for me on the doorstep in an Amazon box. And of course, lest we forget: the cat was waiting for me deep, deep under the bed. I was so anxious about him the whole ride home. This is the problem with having a good imagination... you can picture all the horrible things that might happen in vivid detail. He wasn't waiting in the window, so I dropped all my stuff and went through the apartment calling his name. He had eaten about half of the massive Tupperware container of food I left him. There was no cat puke or other surprises anywhere. There was just no cat. But I knelt down and saw the glow of round eyes behind my sweater storage box. He wouldn't come out. I ended up reaching down the crack between the bed and the wall and poking him. Then he popped out the other side of the bed. But he was purring within five minutes, and he seems no worse for the wear.

My kittiest is sitting right beside me as I type. He is one contented ball of white fluff.

Infinite Cats

I find this to be hilarious, yet strangely profound. Somebody took a picture of their cat contemplating a flower, then took a picture of the cat contemplating the picture of himself contemplating the flower. Then someone took a picture of another cat contemplating the first cat's picture on a computer screen. And voila! Infinite cats! They appear to be up to Cat #1,333. This is what you get when you add Geeks + Cats.

I would totally send Jolee in to the Infinite Cat Project, except it appears he's already there! Or, well, someone who looks just like him.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

I am in Rochester, NY for the next two days. My cat is home alone. I am FREAKED OUT. :-( I think I have separation anxiety. I am just going to vent this here because Mike says he is sick of hearing about the cat and if I mention him one more time he is going to cook him into mu shu jolee. (Um, OK, I realize this sounds slightly cruel to the uninitiated... we just have this running joke about him taking the cat to Five Happiness to have him cooked into Chinese food. Not that Five Happiness puts cats in their food, because they have excellent food, and besides, we know the family so we really ought not to make such jokes, but I digress.) Anyway, I left him with plenty of food and water. I know lots of people just say "whatever" about leaving the cat 2-3 days alone, and I know my family did it all the time when I was growing up, but I can't help but have horrible thoughts. At Christmas I am definitely hiring the petsitter... though it will be a waste of money, because I'm sure he will hide from them. Strangers make him shed and panic. But at least there will be someone who can peek under the futon and make sure he's all right. I am just worried he thinks we have left him forever and won't come back, like his other people.

OK. Now I'm taking a deep breath and doing something else. Oh, and no Thursday Thirteen today, because I was too busy getting up at the buttcrack of dawn and being in airports. If you would like to comment and list "13 Reasons Why Sarah is Overreacting and Jolee Will Not Choke on His Food, Get Electrocuted, or Drown Himself In the Toilet," it would go far to reassure me.

Tags: jolee

While I Was Out

Presented in a bulletted list, because alas, I must go to work in 10 minutes. This is what's been going on since Thursday:

• It is exactly 50 degrees in New Orleans right now. I love it!


• I made a nifty little project on multicultural adolescent literature, which can be viewed here (with pink light-up links!) if you're so inclined. This is my second all-CSS page, and it is very simple. Most people wrote a paper. I made a website. I'm a nerd.


• The Buffalo Sabres are 9-0. 9-0! Holy shit!


• The hot water was leaking when we ran the washer Sunday night. So we turned off the hot water. Therefore I am not showering this morning because it is 50 degrees and I can't bear the thought of it.


• Something went on in Uptown or Broadmoor at 6:30 AM that involved a LOT of sirens. My guess is someone was shot (again) or something burned down.


• I am in the middle of a stretch where I will work 8 days straight. This isn't something I would normally do, but I'm going to Rochester Thursday-Sunday and I needed to pick up some shifts.


• I decided to go for it and do NaNoWriMo again this year. Because, as I realized last week, life is short. I have a heroine and sort of a plot. I'm doing humorous sci fi. This story has been simmering in my head about a month now.

Please Stand By

I'll be back tonight, after wrapping up a project for school. And... it's fall! The temperature is, as we speak, in the fifties! So crispy.

Nine Weird Things About Me

OK, I have been tagged by Sadie for this one. And I never know who to tag on these things, so I won't tag anyone for now (but maybe I'll come back to it later when I have more time). Here are nine weird things about me:

1. Since other people have come out of the closet on this one, I don't know if it qualifies as weird anymore, but... I like to smell my cat too! His fur smells good, and very comforting. I really like to smell my cat Groucho (currently living at my parents' house) because he's an outdoor cat and his fur smells so crispy and nice just after he comes in from roaming in the grass. Mike will think this is gross and weird, but then, maybe if Jolee let him get close enough to put his nose in his fur he would get it... then again, maybe not. Haha.

2. Seven of the vertebrae in my back are fused together. It's because I had scoliosis.

3. I can recite the yellow opening crawl of all three original Star Wars movies. ("Luke Skywalker has returned to his home planet Tattooine, in an attempt to rescue his friend Han Solo from the clutches of the vile gangster Jabba the Hutt. Little does Luke know that the GALACTIC EMPIRE (sic) has secretly...")

4. I have a birthmark on my left boob shaped like Great Britain. At least I think it's shaped like Great Britain. It might actually be a backwards Great Britain, and I just can't tell because I've looked at it upside down my whole life.

5. I read the endings of books first.

6. My last name, according to some Googling, appears to mean "funnel" in Hungarian.

7. I have this bad habit about picking at my feet.

8. I always sleep with the covers over my head, even in the summer.

9. My ears are two different shapes. The one is prettier than the other.

That's about as weird as I get. Well, I probably get weirder, but that's what I've got, off the top of my head.

Thirteen Things I Love About Firefly

1. If someone designed a science fiction show precisely for me, it would look just like this. I really don't know how they did it.

2. I think it has the best female characters I've seen in sci fi. One's a mechanic, one's a warrior, one's a geisha-type, and the fourth is a paranoid schizophrenic killing machine. They all have talents. They all have personalities. None of them is the "token girl."

3. The "Jaynestown" episode is possibly the funniest hour of TV ever. The crew lands on a crappy rural moon where it turns out Jayne, the ship's muscle who has a mercenary outlook on life and isn't very bright, is a local hero. He even has his own folk song. I could watch this episode a million times and still be amused.

4. Jayne. 'Cause, well... yeah.

5. The dialogue is great.

6. The space western aesthetic. Because it reminds me of Star Wars before CGI. Because the space opera genre and the western genre have a lot in common to begin with. I think it works. Fox didn't, but then, no one's ever said they're a tasteful network.

7. So many quotably funny lines.

Mal: Ship like this, be with ya 'til the day you die.
Zoe: Yes Sir. Because it's a deathtrap.

Wash: Hey, I've been in a firefight before! Well, I was in a fire. Actually, I was fired… from a… fry-cook opportunity.

8. And the movie Serenity is awesome too!

9. River's crazy fits... she says out-of-context yet oddly prophetic things.

10. You can tell the characters were very well thought out, right down to the little details of the things they wear.

11. They drive a piece-of-junk ship, Serenity. I love that it's a piece of junk. I love that lived-in look. Again, it's what I enjoy about the first Star Wars movies.

12. It's inspirational because it's the kind of sci fi I am writing, and I was worried that people wouldn't be interested in something that couldn't make up its mind whether it was comedy or drama and was about people instead of big technology ideas. But Firefly has a huge fan base. So there. I'll just keep writing.

13. "I don't care, I'm still free, you can't take the sky from me..." Damn straight.

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Good Grief, Will it Ever End?

And now, this just in: A guy in the Quarter cooked his girlfriend and then jumped off a building!

Do I look like I make this stuff up? I need to curl up on the sofa and twitch, while I watch some really, really happy TV. :-(

Tags: new orleans, nola, crime, news

Dark Days

I don't know if others are in the habit of Googling friends and acquaintances to see what they're up to, but it's something I do when the mood strikes me. In this particular case, it ended badly. This morning, I was looking up some of my co-workers from my old pre-K office, and upon looking up one friend and co-worker, my browser's wheels spun for a moment and then spit her name out in the "is survived by's" of an obituary. "Oh no," I thought. Her boyfriend was killed this summer in an accident. It happened in New Orleans, and I even remember seeing it in the paper and on TV, but I didn't put two and two together. I had met him a bunch of times the summer before Katrina, but I don't recall if I ever knew his last name. Probably if I read the actual paper (the one that's made of paper) instead of nola.com, I would have recognized him in a picture. But I don't.

She had e-mailed me this summer, just to say hi. She moved after Katrina, and got another job. Said she and the on-again-off-again boyfriend realized they were meant to be together after all, and she was expecting a ring. The accident was a week later. I know I should say something, but it feels horribly, horribly belated. And I am all existentially freaked out, because... it's just mind-numbing, how awful it is.

I drove home from work, the rain pelting down on my windshield. The light at Jefferson and Freret, functional for months, was back to blinking red and yellow today. I sighed as everyone lined up in the wet gray afternoon light for the usual four way stop we all have memorized by now.

If I were her, I would never come to New Orleans again. Everything here dies.

Tags: new orleans, post-katrina

The Entergy Odyssey

Or, "Cold showers for days? Didn't we just leave this party?"

I am supposed to be at work as we speak. However, I am not. I am sitting on the couch watching The Empire Strikes Back, drinking coffee, and looking at my watch. Let's take a look at the circumstances that led up to this morning.

Sunday 10/8: Sometimes the gas flames on the stove work and sometimes they don't. The pilot light on the hot water heater keeps going out. It seems like something is blocking the line.

Monday 10/9: Mike calls Entergy. They tell him they take gas problems very seriously, and ask if he is home. He says he is at work, but his girlfriend can be home by 3. They say they will send someone. I sit at the house from 3-7, annoyed because I had planned to go to the library, the tanning salon, the bank, etc. Entergy never shows up. But the gas inexplicably starts flowing again.

Tuesday 10/10: At 9 AM Entergy shows up. I tell them it seems to work now.

Saturday 10/14: I take a very cold shower. Mike calls Entergy. Later that evening, at around 8:30 PM (who makes house calls at 8:30 PM??) they arrive and announce that they are shutting the gas off. Then they leave.

Sunday 10/15: Nothing.

Monday 10/16: Nothing. Cold shower.

Tuesday 10/17: Mike calls Entergy, irritated. Is someone ever going to turn the gas back on? Or better... fix it? That would be a revolutionary concept. They tell him they will send someone the 23rd. THE 23RD??? Meanwhile, back at the house, at 9 AM, Entergy shows up. So he has pumped out the gas line, but the hot water heater won't light. Entergy man says he is calling another Entergy man, who will come in 1-2 hours. I am supposed to leave for work at 10:00. Completely unrelated but an ironic coincidence, the lead story in the Times Picayune this morning is "Flood Residue Crippling City's Gas Lines."

So here I am. If they are not here by 11:20, I am leaving. Based on the story above, my hopes of an Entergy employee actually showing up are roughly... nil.

Tags: nola, new orleans, post-katrina, entergy, rant

Is The Dark Side Stronger?

"Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Consume you, it will. As it did Obi-Wan's apprentice."

I've never done the Dark Side ending of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. I think I've mentioned before that it makes more sense to me for my character to fall at the end, when Bastila comes to find her, than to be this mean bully the whole game. The idea of defeating Malak and being the Dark Lord of the Sith becomes too powerful to resist. At the moment, I've conveniently racked up a couple of dark side points doing the Genoharadan quest (basically, you try to join a secret assassins' guild and go kill some people for money... and a cool pair of gloves), so I don't have as far to fall. I'm not sure how many Dark Side Points you get for making the ultimate bad choice and wasting your companions... it's got to be a bunch. I would be disappointed if it turned out the game didn't weight them properly. Killing Jolee (the character! not the cat!), Juhani, and Mission, and declaring myself the Dark Lord isn't quite on the same par as beating some guy up and making him give me $50.

On the flip side... I have cjt0202's Carth Romance Fix installed, and I want to see how it works. This mod changes the disappointing ending to the female PC's romance with Carth (I heart Carth. What can I say, I find him hot). You know, the one where they are standing 10 feet from each other and he tells her he loves her. It is way lame, after all that flirting. I don't think a little making out would have been too much to ask, even for Star Wars. This mod is an attempt to fix the scene. Problem is, if I go Dark Side on top of the temple with Bastila, I'll have to kill a bunch of my party members who try to stop me. And that just doesn't make for a romantic mood. So basically my choice is: stay on the good course and get to see how the Carth mod works, OR fall to the dark side and kill a lot of people, just for fun.

Luckily, there is a third option: Save two games right before the Unknown Planet and try out both!

Tags: games, star wars, knights of the old republic, kotor, mods

October 16th Is National Feral Cat Day

Happy Feral Cat Day! I am volunteering with a new group called PCAT (Plaquemines Cat Action Team) to promote humane solutions to the outdoor cat overpopulation problem. Nationally, Alley Cat Allies is a group dedicated to spreading the word about TNR, or Trap, Neuter, Return. The theory behind this is that there will always be feral cats on the streets-- in an ideal world where pet owners were responsible and spayed/neutered their pets, this wouldn't happen, but we don't live in an ideal world. Feral cats tend to live in colonies. Think of them as a really pretty piece of wildlife. Statistics have shown that the best way to reduce cat population is not to trap and euthanize, but to use TNR. If you euthanize the cats, more will move in to take their places, whereas if you manage the colony, they live out their lives in one spot in steady numbers (no kittens), keeping other cats out. Each cat's left ear is tipped to indicate that they've already been done.

Did you know that spay/neutering feral cats cuts down on many "problem" behaviors, such as yowling, roaming, fighting, spraying, and other mating-related behavior? Did you know that, realistically, there isn't any place for trapped cats to stay right now due to Katrina, so if you call animal control, they will euthanize? Our group is committed to spreading the word about free or low-cost spay/neuter services to stop overpopulation before it starts. The reality is that there are too many pets on the streets right now and too few resources. A lot of people don't want to hear that we are putting the cats back. This is the "return" part of Trap, Neuter, Return. Sometimes if the cats are social, or if they're still kittens, they can be adopted locally or shipped out of town. But this isn't going to be feasible in most cases. However, TNR really does help to stop the reproduction and reduce nuisance behavior. If you have stray or feral cats in your neighborhood, most cities have programs and events that you can take advantage of, ie: They'll fix them for free!

To find out more about feral cats, go here: http://www.nationalferalcatday.org/. Or, if you're in the New Orleans area, there are several community activities in honor of Feral Cat Day:

FREE Spay/Neuter services for outdoor cats
October 16-17-18 – Ark Animal Hospital (males) 504-834-0906
October 16-21 – Southern Animal Foundation 504-671-8235
(Please note that you need to call for an appointment.)

October 16 – 7:00 pm
Learn about new ways to help outdoor cats of Greater New Orleans!
Jewish Community Center – 5342 Saint Charles Ave (Uptown)

October 17 - 6:30 pm
Get involved in Plaquemines Parish (I'll be at this one!)
Belle Chasse Auditorium

Jolee Bindo (showing off his v. fashionable S.A.F. ear tip)
says, "I'm not feral. I just don't like you."

Tags: pets, cats, new orleans, hurricane katrina, katrina cats, national feral cat day, feral cats, TNR

No More Laundromat!

Mike's parents bought us a washer and dryer!!

This is rather exciting, since Mike lost his to Katrina when the basement flooded. We have been frequenting the Babylon on Maple Street, a wonderful facility where there is no AC but you can get a nice chicken kabob and a Coke next door. Since Mike has less clothes than I do (my Victoria's Secret collection can stretch for a month), this usually translated into him doing laundry on a regular basis and me hardly ever washing my clothes. I washed my work uniform in the bathtub with bleach. Now we are going to have laundry right in the basement. Thanks, Mike's parents!

In other news, my family is coming here for Thanksgiving. I think I might have to go to the vet and get my cat some kitty valium or something, in preparation for that holiday. Last night he was sitting in the window waiting for me to come home from work. When I went into the kitchen, I noticed that he had waited till I got home to eat his dinner. Poor guy. I hate being that lame overreacting person who medicates the cat, but I don't want him to get so upset he starves himself. The apartment is just not that big. He is pretty much restricted to just our room if he needs to hide from people. If it just seemed like he didn't like people, I wouldn't care. But he's really scared of them.

Yesterday at Sears, they had The Empire Strikes Back and Serenity playing on giant flat screen TVs. Oh, jealousy... I could think of worse ways to spend one's Sunday than watching good sci fi movies on a $2,000 TV...

Scaredy Cat

I think it's time to face the truth. My cat is a wimp.

I don't know, I guess I really thought he'd be calmer this time with people in the house. It has been five months since the last time we had guests here. Back then, he didn't let me pick him up. Now he does. So he is a semi-adaptable fellow. But today he is hiding under the bed, with his eyes round and his sad little head rested on his paws. I dragged him out, but some men unloading a truck made a noise next door, and he shot back under. When he's not under the bed, he's curled up on my pillow, making himself into as tiny a ball as he can manage. He won't go out in the living room, where Mike's parents are. He keeps slinking around with his butt low to the floor. And shedding clumps of white fur on the rug. He is truly terrified.

I feel so awful for my poor Jolee. When is he going to realize that, just because people are not me, they don't necessarily want to kill him? I think he needs a kitty psychologist.

Tags: pets, cats, jolee, katrina cats

Eek!

I just realized I have to leave to pick up Mike's parents at the airport in 15 minutes and my car is a-tro-cious! As in, the whole trunk is filled with empty cat food bags and the backseat is full of crumpled newspapers and water jugs and probably spiders. Frantically trying to avoid looking like a scary cat lady. Never mind that I am a scary cat lady.

Oh crap.

Thirteen Things About Me and Sorority Life

1. I was a Chi Omega.

2. I didn't pledge until my junior year, because I thought I was the kind of girl who hated sororities on principle. They had to give me 2 bids before I gave in.

3. My nickname was Flounder. Because we all had nicknames from Animal House, and it was someone's idea of a good joke. Hmph. I more often went by my last name, though, or Sketchy T.

4. We used to have a Super Secret Midnight Event that culminated in several of us going to the bar in our pajamas. But if I told you what it was, I'd have to kill you.

5. I have a pair of Chi Omega handcuffs. I like to tell guys this. They're from our Screw Your Sister semi-formal, a lovely event where your friends picked your date for you and then handcuffed you together for the night. Luckily, mine picked my friend Packy, and we chugged 3/4 of a Nalgene of Jim Beam in the bus before we even got there. Debauchery ensued.

6. After Katrina, Chi O alums singlehandedly furnished my temporary apartment in Boston.

7. And clothed me. Mike was impressed and a bit scared at the volume of boxes arriving daily.

8. Epsilon Kappa House Corp also mailed me a much-needed $500! I was supremely grateful. I love everyone in Chi O! Love!

9. The Epsilon Kappa chapter is having their 25th anniversary in two weeks. I can't go to the festivities because I'm going to be at a wedding in Rochester. It really sucks that I'm going to be so close-- actually in the state of New York-- and miss it. I am especially bummed about missing the party at the Hoot.

10. A sorority is a great thing to join if you like T-shirts. I have about 10 Chi O T-shirts. Of course I still wear them around. After Katrina, the house sent me... more T-shirts! Oh, and glassware. You should join a sorority if you like glassware too. Although I wish I hosted more social occasions that call for my giant glass Senior Banquet beer pitcher...

11. We had an intramural team. Our motto was "REFUSE TO LOSE, PREFER TO BOOZE."

12. My favorite songs were the ones about drinking beer. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to repeat them here, or if they're also super-secret. At inopportune moments (like at Rush when we had to hide anything alcoholic), I was apt to break out into the beer songs. Also, I used to flash the house during serious ceremonies.

13. I was famous for doing really weird things, sometimes when completely sober. Sometimes not. At meeting every Sunday we gave out joke awards. For example, I have in my scrapbook right here The Holiday Spirit Award, which I received in March for finding our Christmas wreath (which Beta had stolen months earlier) in a snowbank in the street, getting freaked out because I thought it was a dead animal, then putting it around my neck and wearing it home. I was wearing a purple bedsheet toga at the time as well. As my friend Nellie once said, "And then there are people like Sarah, who always get awards because they do stupid shit every weekend."

I'll leave you on that note.

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Tags: thursday thirteen, st. lawrence, chi omega

Don't Eat At _____ This Morning

It's nice to know the management at my workplace doesn't seem the least bit concerned that I was up all night sick to my stomach. I called in because I had that drained, wary feeling that characterizes people who didn't get enough sleep because they were sick and aren't sure they should eat breakfast. And it doesn't strike me as a good idea to go to a place where I serve other healthier people their food. "Well, there will only be 5 people on the schedule. Can you come?"

Well, yeah, but don't be surprised if I a) die, or b) pass on my deadly stomach pains. I'm just saying.

Tags: work, sick

"Stand By, Ion Control. Fire."

Just in case it's been too long since my last Star Wars: Special Edition rant, I am pleased to announce that I have the nitpick of all nitpicks coming up tonight. Those of you who haven't viewed Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back at least 30 times should probably run and hide in a deep dark closet far, far away from this post.

I was watching my Special Edition DVD of The Empire Strikes Back the other night, and I noticed that the Rebel chick who fires the ion cannon is missing! I have no idea how this escaped my attention before... probably there were so many other itty bitty stupid changes to harp on that I somehow missed this one. During the escape from Hoth, she is the one sitting in the command center who says, "Stand by, ion control. Fire." And the ion cannon knocks out the Star Destroyer that's sitting in orbit above Hoth, allowing the first Rebel transport to fly past it and get away. Maybe you didn't notice her as a child, but I sure did-- she was our first glimpse of a female Rebel, besides Leia. I mean, there were only three altogether that we saw in the entire trilogy-- Mon Mothma, Leia, and the Stand By Ion Control Girl. You can clearly still hear her saying the line, but there's no close-up: she's simply not there, just this disembodied voice.

Now, there are a couple of reasons I can come up with for this change. It bugged me so much that I spent (actual amount of time edited: let's just say it was way too long) Googling for some kind of explanation. I found one site which seemed to indicate that this is in fact a Fullscreen vs. Widescreen issue. While it is true that both Mike and I have the gold Fullscreen boxed sets, I don't see why this would make a difference-- I also have the 1995 THX pan and scan VHS boxed set, and at least two homemade versions taped from TV airings on Fox between what I would estimate had to have been 1986-1992. All of these tapes certainly had the unidentified Rebel chick. So there is the explanation that she was possibly cut out of the shot on the Fullscreen edition. (If anyone has the silver Widescreen set and can confirm this, that would be great.) But I don't see why she would have been, when she appears on the previous edited-for-television versions. I also saw a reference to a blooper in that shot, where you can see someone behind her giving a cue. This might be a reason for cutting her out of the TESB:SE.

But I'm still going to argue that this change was somewhat irresponsible of Lucas, and here's why: as a feminist, it just pisses me off. I am more than irked here. Rebel Chick was the Wedge Antilles of female Star Wars fans, the "everygirl." Not everyone can be a Princess, but you could dream of being the behind-the-scenes hero, the girl who saved the day by immobilizing a whole Star Destroyer with that funny egg-shaped ion cannon. She should have been left in solely because she was a female face. The fact that she isn't sitting there at her console with her chunky headphones and brown hair deeply disappoints me. Why, George Lucas, why? There were already shockingly few females in our favorite space saga. Couldn't you have left us this one?

Hell, you deleted the only scenes in Return of the Sith that portrayed Padme in her actual role as a Senator-- you know, doing her job. Sure, her outfit "conveniently" rips and she runs around in her kicky midriff-baring outfit in Attack of the Clones for half an hour, but the main female lead actually expressing an opinion of her own, sowing the seeds of the Rebellion in secret meetings with Bail Organa, and showing that she exists as something besides a blank face for Anakin to obsess over? Well, that's going to have to be cut so we can put in more special effects.

Leia? She's a great character. My problem is that she appears to be the only woman inhabiting the galaxy. Honestly, I'm surprised he didn't CGI more of them in (I mean, he can CGI dinosaurs in, but he can't CGI some women? Of course I know they're called dewbacks, not dinosaurs. I know more about Star Wars than most sane people. I just hate to acknowledge that anything in the Special Editions exists) purely for continuity's sake-- after all, Lucas has officially endorsed the books and comics in the EU, and the EU is full of female characters. I was always grateful to these authors, feeling relief that they were correcting a mistake. It was vindicating; I wasn't the only one who noticed the disproportionate male/female ratio. I wonder whether it's because Lucas panders to the majority, or that he simply doesn't care. I believe the Exile is the first Star Wars video game PC to be named canonically female, for instance. And that was only very recently.

A quick search through the Star Wars EU reveals that the Rebel Chick has been given the name Toryn Farr. But never mind that. Her name is irrelevant. What I care about is that she was there. And now she is not. And I want her back.

Because I am a female fan, and it's my saga too.

Tags: rant, feminist, star wars, empire strikes back, george lucas, special editions

Impaled Cat

Jolee: Alive and sleeping? Or impaled by chair leg?

Tags: pets, cats, jolee

Can I Get A Public Service Up In Here?

So Mike went to NYC this week for a conference. And I ordered some stuff from Amazon and some Netflix to keep myself occupied. Fast forward to today. I am going to the airport to pick Mike up at 4:30... and the mail has come ONCE. Naturally, with none of my stuff. I don't think it's on Amazon's end. According to the package tracker thing, my books should be here. So where is the USPS? Between Mike and myself, we get at least three pieces of mail per day. I am putting this information out there, just so you don't say, "Well, Sarah, be reasonable. Maybe you just didn't get any mail." No. I know we are getting mail. The reason I know this is that, conveniently, whenever the mail takes two days off, we get a shitload of mail, all rubber banded together. When it rains, we don't get mail. This is a pattern I have noticed over months of study. THEY DO NOT WANT TO DELIVER THE MAIL ON RAINY DAYS. I do not live in a vastly destroyed area of New Orleans, either. I live in the 70115. I don't mean to accuse the USPS of laziness, but... well, yes I do. This latest non-delivery coincides with the random blocking off of my street by some orange-painted signs and cones. I think they were just like, oops, can't go down there! I mean, I am a person with lots of bills. Sometimes I need to mail my bills. OK, so the mail doesn't come every day. I accept that. But do you think-- thirteen months after Katrina-- the Post Office could put some mailboxes back? I could just walk down to the JCC, where there HAS ALWAYS BEEN A MAILBOX. The Times Picayune put their thing back. Isn't it time we got some mailboxes SOMEWHERE Uptown?

As a matter of fact, why is my street blocked off? Is it because of the huge hole they dug in the street two houses up and haven't come back to fill in? Is it because the Landrieus (Landrieux?) live up the street and god forbid important or wealthy people drive their cars into holes? Really, you might as well just remove the blockade, because we are so used to driving around other neighborhoods' holes by now that there is really no point. And being a veteran observer of the New Orleans Pothole, I can tell you that this pothole is weak. It is only a foot and a half deep, and it is on the side of a one-way street, not the middle. This pothole is maybe a one-cone pothole, not a "block off the street" pothole. Other potholes laugh in the face of this clearly inferior pothole. I'm just saying. Anyway, since the street is perfectly clear, people are just creeping up on the curb to go around the baffling blockade. So-- this just occurred to me-- I almost wonder whether it's there because they forgot to take it with them when they finished digging the hole. It would not surprise me.

Our utilities are controlled by shoddy monopolies. Want to know how much I was charged by Entergy for a month in which the house was unoccupied and the power was TOTALLY OUT? $200! That's more than I paid when I was there! And I know people who were charged upwards of $1,000. Cox(uckers) is no better. I don't know who hires the incompetent fools who work there and try to repeatedly tell us there is no outage and we should buy a new modem from them... when there is no cable! As in, black fuzz on all the channels and no internet connection. Could you please learn how to listen to your customers? We didn't love living in Boston for 4 months, but I cannot tell you how wonderful it was to call for services and actually speak to someone polite and articulate on the phone. Every single time. It has long been the standard in New Orleans that at restaurants and hotels the service is legendary and world-class, while at the Walgreens you have to wait in line for 20 minutes while the cashier talks to her girlfriend on the phone and gives you a nasty look. Come on. This is one of those things that could stand changing Post-K. After all, we are paying employees more now. And one would think there would be more of a "we're all in this together, what can I contribute?" mindset. Let's start over and make this a city that's efficient.

Can we talk about the trash? After living here for nine months Post-K, we have finally determined that it comes on Wednesdays. Except... when it doesn't. This is a step down from our former twice a week service. There is no point whatsoever to using the blue recycling bins, because the recycling doesn't get picked up at all. Our pizza boxes and empty cans just grow bugs until we give up and throw them in the trash. There is no rhyme or reason to whether the trash comes or doesn't come. Or why they are willing to pick up some stuff, while the remains of our hedge sat bagged on the corner for months. I know there is talk about putting a new automated trash pickup system in place, but I don't feel confident about this working. Not here.

Seriously, though, what are we paying taxes for? What, exactly? (OK, this does not quite apply to me because I got all my taxes back last year due to Katrina/grad student exemptions, and I am a renter, but still!) Why do we re-elect the same tired people? Why-- even now!-- do some citizens vote to maintain the status quo? This just would not happen in the rest of the U.S. Because people wouldn't tolerate it.

< /rant>

Whew. I think that covers everything.

Edited 2:28 PM to add: Completely proving everything I said about USPS, eight pieces of mail and a package were just dropped through the slot.

Tags: post-katrina, hurricane katrina, new orleans, nola, public services, usps, rant

Testing

My blog isn't loading properly today for whatever reason. Just back from work & trying to get it straightened out.

Thirteen Good British Things

In honor of the fact that this week's BBC drama (I am the sort of person who has a "this week's BBC drama") from Netflix is The Way We Live Now, I offer a list of thirteen other British Things I like.

1. My Fair Lady

2. Swallows and Amazons (Arthur Ransome)

3. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)

4. Wives and Daughters (Elizabeth Gaskell... and BBC)

5. The Forsyte Saga (John Galsworthy... and BBC)

6. North and South (Elizabeth Gaskell... and BBC)

7. The Hobbit (J.R.R. Tolkien)

8. The Chronicles of Narnia (C.S. Lewis... and, by jove! BBC. I sense a pattern.)

9. The Importance of Being Ernest (Oscar Wilde)

10. Monty Python

11. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)

12. The Duchess of Duke Street (BBC)

13. The word "dodgy" and the word "minging."

Oh, all right, that's 14 things, but I ran out of space. There are ever so many more books and movies I wish I could add, too.

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Tags: thursday thirteen, literature, bbc, anglophile, victoriana, books, netflix

I Have No Food

Days Since Mike Left For New York: 1
Status: Holding down the fort.
Location: The fort.
Provisions: Low. Must ration goods.
Neatness of fort: Suspect. Very suspect.
Hot Pockets: 0
Canned Soups: 0
Meals in a Bag: 0
Frozen Pizzas: 0
Beers: 14 (status good)
Trips to Roly Poly: 1
Feline Companion: Apathetic. Feline has full complement of rations.
Days Till Mike Returns From New York: 2
Prognosis: Must send out expedition soon for food and supplies.

I am an army of one and this is my fort.

You may well ask, how does the neatness of the fort go from "good" to "suspect" in one mere day? To which I reply, "Heh. You obviously don't know me."