February 28, 2004

here are pictures of senior prank i though marianne would like. and another of the puppy when he was little.
last night we went here to see a blues brothers revue. the band was really great. the brass section plays in annie's mom's band. the tonies who played the brothers were very funny. annie's brother used to be elwood with one of the tonies. yay for fun nights out!

February 27, 2004

i know that is a very long, and b a preaching to the choir deal but it's very funny. don't feel obliged.

So just shut up and buy Adam and Steve a nice present already
by Jim Washburn

Last week, a Massachusetts court ruled that gay marriage is legal in that
state, providing new fuel for conservatives who are gearing upto make gay
marriage the wedge issue of the presidential election. President Bush has
already hinted that a constitutional amendment, for crissakes,may be
necessary to stave off this gay threat.
Responding to the Massachusetts ruling, Bush released a statement saying,
"Marriage is a sacred institution between a man and a woman. If activist
judges insist on re-defining marriage by court order, the only alternative
will be the constitutional process. We must do what is legally necessary to
defend the sanctity of marriage."
Before we all go into knee-jerk paroxysms of knee-slapping hilarity over this
non-issue being hoisted by these moral morons, consider their side for a
minute: Does allowing gays to marry threaten the institution of marriage?
If you really think about it, the answer isan unequivocal yes.
If you're straight and married, you've almost certainly got gay people to
thank for it. Wedding planners, florists, clothiers, hairstylists, caterers,
priests: it's no mere stereotype that these professions abound in gay folk,
and your wedding would have been drab if not impossible without them. Add to that the gay friends and officemates who make such a pleasant and positive
fuss about your nuptials. And TV's Queer Eye spiff-up squad is only a
distillation of what gay people have been doing for ages: making straight
men and women look desirable, or at least survivable, to each other so that
they might hook up.
If gays were busy getting married themselves, do you think they'd have time
to preen the rest of us? We'd all be back in the trailer parkin our
overalls, picking scabs off our unmoisturized faces and wondering why the
phone doesn't ring. It is only because gays can't marry that they get caught
up at all in the romance and filigree of heterosexual marriage,and they'd be
off us like fleas off a wet dog if they could go to weddings that didn't
depend upon our breeder antics. It's not just marriage, but the very survival
of the species that depends upon gays being forcibly kept-by constitutional
amendment, if need be-in their role as our eternal bestmen and bridesmaids.
Now on to the knee-jerk paroxysms: aside from the above, every gay man and
woman in the nation could marry five times over, and it would not affect you
a whit. Why the hell should you care? If Eskimos marry, does your wedding
bed grow cold? If gays marry, does your wife grow a dick ?It does not affect
you! Remember one of the founding tenets that made America great: mind your own goddamn business. That goes double if you're the
government prying in between the sheets.
I've known some gays who are real jerks.
That'sbecause they're like everybody else, except for the making your wife grow a dick thing.
There are gay jerks, gay Samaritans, gay plumbers, gay machinists, gay bums,
gay war heroes and gay Sept. 11 victims. They get to pay the same taxes, do
the same jury duty and die in the same wars (albeit with a sense of service
and secrecy that straights needn't muster) as every other citizen. Why
shouldn't their love and commitment be accorded the same respect and
protections in the land to which they contribute and defend?
But gay marriage would make a mockery of marriage! And that's the job of
heterosexuals, right? Can they possibly screw it up worse than straight
folks? The divorce rate's higher than 50 percent, and couple sare bailing out
of marriages quicker than ever; something like 60 percent of married men and
40 percent of married women have extramarital affairs; and their kids who
aren't busy shooting their classmates are packed with so many pills they
sound like maracas when you shake them.
An 86-year-old sleazeball can marry an 18-year-old dominatrix, and that is
sanctified. Larry King can marry for the seventh time, and it's sanctified.
Britney Spears can get married and annulled quicker than you can say
"publicity whore," and it is sanctified. Yet a gay couple that has stuck it
out through better and worse for 40 years, being exemplary neighbors and
citizens the whole while, pose a threat to marriage? It is legal for them to
marry, of course, just not to each other. They could go out this afternoon
and marry a total stranger, so long as it's someoneof the opposite sex.
That's the law. What's left to mock?
But for all of history, marriage has meant the sacred bond between a man and
a woman! Except for when it meant a man and several women, or a man and a
woman and his deceased brother's wife, or a man and his slave, which wasn't
significantly different from being his wife since women were chattel with no
say in their own lives and certainly no vote. Let's be guided in all things
by historical precedent, shall we? I'll go lock up the slaves and child
laborers while you go get the horse-but don't hook no buggy to it because
that ain't how we done things-and we'll go downtown and shout down those
apostates trying to introduce antibiotics, electricity, pavement, baseball
and all that other newfangled nonsense.
But what about the Bible? Oh, you mean the part where Jesus chased the gays from the temple with a stick? Hold on, I read that wrong: it was the money changers Jesus was after, suggesting that today he'd be whacking heads on Wall Street not Christopher Street. But what about the time he berated the mob of gay people? Oops, sorry, it wasn't gays; it was a mob of judgmental zealots that he told off, remember, when he admonished that only he who was without sin should cast the first stone.
Unlike the fearmongering preachers spewing bile on the airwaves today, Jesus
said a lot about love and acceptance, but he never uttered a single syllable
about homosexuality. Ah, but he did give a blanket affirmation of Old
Testament law, where a man laying with a man is an abomination punishable by
death. But that exists alongside so many other abominations and admonitions
that there aren't enough goats to sacrificeto keep every one of us sinners
from being put to death.
There are bans on premarital sex, adultery, lust, sleeping with a woman during her period,eating three-day-old meat, eating shellfish and, let's not forget, "You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard." Forgot about that one, didn't you? Ha-ha, you're going to Hell. So why not take a tip from Jesus and put your own house in order before you go tearing down your neighbor's?
But what about the children?
What about them? If you're worried about gay parents molesting their
children, bear in mind that most molestations, even same-sex ones, are done
by heterosexual adults. And when parents go bonkers and set their kids on
fire or starve them in basements, it's usually because "God" told them to,
not Mr. Blackwell. Sure there are gay monsters, but probably inno greater
percentage than there are among straight families. And stable gay couples
could adopt some of the unwanted children born to the unfit parents of more
sanctified marriages.
But won't having gay parents cause childrento turn gay? Sure, just look at
the gay offspring of Dick Cheney, Sonny Bono and Phyllis Schlafly. Gay. Gay.
Gay.
But what would gay marriage do to American values?
You may have a point there. Look at Canada, where gay marriage has turned
them into such a nation of faggots that they couldn't even see the clear and
imminent danger posed by Iraq. They've gone soft loading up on universal
medical care and cheap prescription drugs, while we're left holding the line
against Saddam and sodomites alike.
Repeat after me, with gusto this time:
"Gays getting married does not affect me."
Please keep that in mind in the months ahead because the American Taliban
ensconced in the White House will be doing all they can to bang the anti-gay
drum, to distract from issues that do affect you, like: your job going
bye-bye overseas; your decline in real wages; the health-insurance crisis;
the deficit that will hobble your children's future; the children left
behind by No Child Left Behind; the willful dismantling of environmental
protections; the subjugation of our energy policy to corporate interests;
the unbridled corruption of White House cronies like Enron and Halliburton;
the runaway military budget; the abrogation of our civil rights; the lies
told to us to fabricate an unnecessary war costing hundreds of American
lives and billions of dollars, with no end in sight.

You know, issues like those, the kind grown-ups talk about while the kids
and feebleminded are out obsessing over their neighbors' wee-wees.
i'd like to welcome sarah's friend russ to my links. he has the honor of being the only boy except for the occasional entry by mr. pinky. elvis gets cyber testosterone. hmm.
for all of you suv hating folks out there this is the site for you. especially annie. i think COA would get a kick out of this.
it is most wonderfully beautiful out. the birdies are singing and flying around. the bird lady just came by. every morning she comes and throws out seed for the the little birdies that nest above the bank. i cleaned house last night. i feel very accomplished. there's something about cleaning that makes me feel better about my day. generally speaking i don't clean that much. but i always had to clean before i could do an assignment at school. but maybe that was lack of focus. huh?
the snow was melting well but now it has become cold again and my house is treacherous and icy. well outside of my house. as in the long ass staircase that leads to my house. annie was impressed that it has icicles hanging off of the steps. hey, can you have an outdoor staircase, or is it called something else? maybe in this case scary ice slide thing is more appropriate. what scares me more is the line of deathcicles hanging from the edge of the roof directly over scary ice slide. i pretend that if i don't look up they don't exist. and then i think about being impaled through the head because i wasn't looking. and then i think i'd fall down the ice slide and even more deathcicles would fall and i'd be impaled all over. life is stressful. even if i had a stick or something long enough, you're not supposed to knock them down because it makes you vulnerable to impalement. it's a conundrum. maybe i should just use my fire safety ladder to enter and exit the house, until such time as the spring thaw. in about 2 months. hmm.

February 26, 2004

it was a beautiful sunny day and i'm glad to say that now at 4 pm the sun is still up, and shining. it was super depressing driving home in the dark every night. i think i forgot to mention that all the laundromats are on strike. my usual mat is now closed at five. last load in by 3:30. and the reserve is just plain closed. i suppose i could drive to ellsworth to do my laundry. it's only 30 miles. i think stone face and i are going to have to have a weekend laundry date. i don't see how it inconveniences anyone to keep the laundromat open. there's no one there, as in no attendant. they only show up to close. bastards denying me cleanliness.
the new glasses are here and i can see. life is good. so the front cover of the paper today is about greenspans plan to cut social security. the timing is suspicious as yesterday all the reports were about how even other republicans don't think it was a good idea for bush to throw down the gauntlet about the marriage act. do we think it's a diversionary tactic from the diversion. it's all very complicated being a shitty president.
the 12 reasons gay marriage will ruin everything

welcome to fabulous bangor...

the lady who criticized the fab five is going to endland and i'm so jealous. england and scotland. she's going on a bus tour with 48 of the best friends she hasn't met yet. and then i remember that i have no money. we can barely afford to go to md let alone cross the big blue ocean.
every friday the upstairs people bring their dogs to work, but this week it's a day early. right now the dogs are barking at the vacuum cleaner. this brings me to the problem of mrs. whatsit. what to do with her when we leave. do you think she could guard the bank. she's getting really good at biting people. annie says we should get a little carrying case and bring her with us. hmm.
mary and i have noticed that a lot of planes have been rerouted to bangor with dangerous passengers. mary said that we would be less missed up here if we blew up (note that bar harbor is not all that close to bangor). but then we decided it was good to disorient folks who'd never heard of bangor. i mean really, unless you watched that show about bangor that was really filmed in vancouver because bangor has NO sky scrapers you'd never have heard of it. oh, the dead zone. it was called the dead zone. i remembered. today it was 20 british folks heading to a bachelor party in las vegas that ended up in a bangor court. can you think of any place less vegasy than bangor?

February 25, 2004

so i'm glad folks can see the pictures. that was a random selection and in future i will err have meaning to the pics. or something. i am getting excited to go to md. we're building our to do list already. so far the coffee co and nito's and maybe the museum for old times sake. and memorial to see if i can get my stuff out. my huge trunk. hmm
i just met the absolute cutest puppy ever, a springer spaniel named dori. so cute, so soft, big brown eyes. we have to get one annie!
i need to call the eye people but i have to remember that they aren't open yet. the last person i spoke to said she couldn't help me because she didn't know anything. although that was an accurate statement, sometimes people do wild and crazy things like ask someone else. nicole. i hate nicole. she is possible the least helpful person i've ever had to deal with, with the exception of every person at ups. except the drivers, because they're very nice. but i digress. the next time i think i might get new glasses, please someone remind me of how difficult it really was. and i won't do it i swear.
so the trip is coming together more and more. i have to stop at my parents house because i could hear my mom drooling over the possibility of me visiting. she's so cute.
everyone is all upset about that asshole backing the marriage protection act. but i say 1. it is not a surprise, we know he is a biggot 2. no matter how much hate they spew on the news no one will make me change my mind and 3. just like every other period of change there is opposition. we aren't going to roll over and say "aw shucks, guess i'll just have to give up that hope for equal rights thing" no no no. as much as i hate to compare anything to a christina aguilera song, it's only gonna make us fight harder. and we've got the rest of our lives to make it happen.
comments are down and that makes me sad. but the pictures are up and i think i fixed them to make them visible to the public so that's good. also the margaret todd was not at the barbor, she was in the harbor. being that she's a boat. just to clarify. more later!

February 24, 2004

i'm on my way to posting pictures. maybe i'll make more progress tonight. i'm writing a letter to emily miller, does any one have any greetings? there doesn't appear to be a postal code. is emily just a dork, or are there indeed no postal codes in belgium? anyone with information should report immediately to me.

February 23, 2004

eegads is there a lot of snow!

so i knew we were expecting a storm on saturday. but saturday's weather was so wimpy that i expected just slippery driving conditions. and then sunday morning, oh my holy holies was there alot of snow. annie and i dug out most of the driveway, sarah will know how much driveway that is, and then the plow guy came. actually we thought it was just a plow guy taking pity on us, but then the landlady's ex boyfriend showed up and said it was our reserve plow guy because the usual plowguy was really busy, plowing. annie and i decided that one) plows are really cool, and hydraulic, and we're going to get one and a truck to put it on and make a living off plowing down east nd two) that next time we are going to wait for the damn plow guy and sip cocoa on the chaise lounge. i shall have to buy a chaise lounge first.
this weekend was rather uneventful, as i was expecting to be snowed in. i got to see parts of stone faces autobiography which is going to be very funny. oddly enough stone face excels at dead pan. hmm.
sarah i baked you some goodies that i will be sending. so look out! i just have to find my wallet...err. i've no idea where it is. hmm again.

February 19, 2004

i think i made a bad banker decision...i cashed a very large check for a dude with .01 in his account. wrut wroe. lets hope i still have a job next week.
and also, tia has been reading these terrible jokes from the internet. mayb that's punishment enough for cashing a sketchy check.
i'm so not a classic tale with hideous 80's cover art. better luck to the rest of you. it's another very over cast day. there were alleged 4 feet snow drifts and -6C temperatures in calais, but maybe the radio was lying. i don't know how far we are from calais but there is no such apocolyptic weather here. mary just called us to remind us to open the doors. you'd think she had no faith in us.
i can definitely get time off mid march so we will be coming at least as far as frederick. amy and kirsten can i borrow your floor?
and now it's snowing again. how bizarre.




You're Great Expectations!

by Charles Dickens

Coming from humble beginnings, you have become pretty stuck-up in your
later years. While hard work and dedication were the path you first walked on, a sudden
fork brought you glory and fortune. Unfortunately, you have changed even more than your
bottom line. You really should turn back to your old friends and at least respect your
old life. Look out for haughty hotties.



Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

February 17, 2004

And yes, it's tempting sometimes, in those moments of silence or being awake and alone in the wee hours of the night to give in. To say yes, you are an irresponsible, adult child who will never be able to stand on her own. To look at your dirty sink, cluttered floor, piles of laundry, empty Coke bottles and Starbucks cups, stacks of unopened mail, trash that needs to be taken out, and see yourself as a collage of irresponsibility. And these mean voices are good. Real good. Because they come from me, and no one knows my weak spots more intimately.

ahhh

cursing myself for not dealing with glasses problem sooner. eye doctor on vacation. i was stupid to think i'd have to pay for new glasses and or a new appointment. ofcourse i don't have to. what happened to the aggressive customer. curse curse curse.
i ran in to this just now. it's a bunch of highschool juniors chatting about the scarlet letter. it even seems like they actually read it. or they are cleverly using cliff notes. those of you who hte the scarlet letter and or highschool english please avoid.

ps. my valentine also got me huge magnetic letters (so i can put bulletins on the fridge) and yummy chocolate and i just wanted to say thanks! i got the funnest valentines!

panic inducing cold

dearest sarah i thought i should let you know that it is again panic inducing cold in bar harbor. i am telling you this so you will feel warmer where you are now. however i have learned not to touch door handles with my bare hands. that always reminds me of amy mas sizzling her tongue with that hot cookie. they're sort of paralell experien. i can't remember if i've told that story a thousand times so forgive me if it's boring. speaking of boring i have to remember not to pack my beach bag tomorrow because the lady who trained me is coming for the day and i don't want to look too unprofessional. it is sad because one of my valentine gifts was a set of care bear coloring books that i want to play with. i'm hoping to go to the library later and get more of his books. i think i could get away with reading a grownup book in down time, if not coloring fuzzy pastel bears. my mom seemed upset that some of the potential gradschools are far away. she's rooting for University of Vermont. i think she just wants an excuse to visit vermont. burlington is a very beautiful and liberal town. i could dig vermont. i have the cold weather gear now. anybody want to move to vermont?
apparently san francisco is getting into trouble with those gay marriage liscences. they're blatantly breaking the law. it's so ironic. you have to break the law to change the law. segregation, inter-racial marriage, prohibition. and still history repeats itself. it's like the last frontier of bigotry. until we win and then they have to find some other thing to protest. or have they already? i have to say i'm getting disheartened to see so many pro-life comercials on tv again. there's a really good one about a lady who is a firefighter and saves lives and that those lives would be lost if her mom had an abortion. thou shalt not manipulate should be the 11th comandment.

February 13, 2004

friday bank rant:
1. "I will be with you in a just a minute" means that it will be atleast one minute before I will help you. i reserve the right to prevent your banking for atleast one minute if i ask nicely.
2. "yes" and or "cash" are not appropriate or funny answers to the question "how would you like your cash back?".
3. It's not my fault you can't read savings or checking at the top of a deposit slip. just because i put them on the counter with the checking closer to your savings and vice versa, does not mean you get to stop reading or understanding english.
---i could deal with all the above without blogging a rant if chris wasn't making me take my break early because he wants to go home.

canadian diamonds, who knew

apparently canada has a fab diamond trade with ecologically and socially friendly processing. oooh. so uhh, for those of you who buy diamonds...err buy canadian. so we had an interesting evening, annie and i. we went to walmart where annie got some ideas for her project and i got a garlic press. and a movie, and a yoga dvd, and on sale cheez-its, and some v-8 splash berry blend. and then we came home. and mrs. whatsit is now big enough for her ball and seems to really like it. she even learned how to stop before she hits things. it's so funny. she sort of stops and reverses and her but goes over her head. it makes me a little nervous, but if she didn't like it she'd sit all sullen and not roll, right? it was good fun. and then the police came. but i think stone face should tell that story. if she's not too busy she might tell us all about it today.
before the police came, annie suggested that i'm hard to buy gifts for, so this is mainly for her: what do amy's like? they like new cds like pj harvey or liz phair or a simon and garfunkel retrospective. they like harry potter or stephanie plum books. they'd like jane austen's emma the bbc version without the commercials and fuzz from watching it a thousand times. they always like candy, flowers, or furry things. we're very easy to please. really.
ooh, does everyone know that it's coyote mating season? it is the season of love after all. this accounts for the ungodly howling all evening. damn coyotes. they're scary.

February 12, 2004

i love words, i use them all the time

just in case everyone didn't know, dean won on MDI. not maine. but the island was all about him. and kucinich, who for reasons unknown, has been campaigning in downeast maine hard core. i am befuddled.
i have added a new word of the day because mary was too frustrated with the ridiculous words on the original word of the day, but i think they're kind of funny so now there are two. it's fun to learn words. sadly annie's project was nixed, but it means i get to help her make a model which i'm really excited about. i realised there are alot of things i read that aren't linked on here. such as the belle de jour and where is raed?. very different, but both interesting. i don't know how interested other folks would be. let me know i guess.

February 11, 2004

i got caught in a hood-ism today. i was chatting with mary and i said "count-m-ups" instead of adding machine. she usually just ignores it when i do something odd, but today she said "count m ups" softly to herself and shook her head. hmm. it made me think of laura et al. yay for random college nostalgia. have we been graduated long enough to use the word nostalgia? i realised that i typed that last rant so quickly it has more than the usual number of typos. sorry. it was the rage.
the only class i could take at coa this spring would be web design...so i have to see if the bank would pay for it. and if i have to like, apply. imagine.
sarah smile is on the radio...thinking of you sarah. i know it's your favorite song. this is just a rant really, not about the radio, but about the loan officer of the bank. he's a boy. he's the only boy in our bank. he does all these boy things that drive me crazy. well mry says that they are boy things, and since i don't really know any boys i'll take her word for it. anyway. he opens the window everyday even though tia will have her heater on and a blanket on her legs. then he says "you guys should really make sure that window is latched at night". why, you opened the damn window. your problem. and then lter today he says "we're almost out of stamps". and i'm thinking since he picked up the used roll from the same spot as the new roll he must know there are more stamps. but he moans more and i say...there's a new roll right in there. then he says "oh look there's a new roll". i know i said it because mary heard me. i asked her. and then he says "i hope you guys can get this to the post office today". and not a minute after mary goes to the post office (which incidentally is RIGHT NEXT to the bank) he goes out to fulfill his valentine's obligations...walking right by the post office. AHHHHH
no more changes damn it! it stays this way. dissenters take notice.

Construction Ends Here

So i think i've finished with the uhh changes to blog. it is now distinctly different from sarah's and it's pink, but there is higher contrast to please stone face, and myself really. i find it very mellow and it has sort of a southwestern feel, with out the turquise. actually it's very like the sunrises i see coming to work most mornings. as i can't post my own...yet...this is the work of a really nice/talented artist. the top obviously is the sunrise on cadillac but the second picture is the Asticou Azalea Garden where stone face will probably have a fabulous internship this summer.
valentines day approaches and i feel unprepared although i have been scheming for some time. for some reason i didn't feel so worried about accomplishing christmas. i'm over christmas. or something. i'm still no nearer to finishing christmas projects than i was in december. sad sad sad...

February 10, 2004

create your own bush conspiracy here. it's good for a laugh.
so it's very pink. let me know if you think it's too pink, or too ugly, or even if you like it. i enjoyed myself.

"ointment, 2-3 weeks, sorry your show got cancelled"

an update from yesterday... pinky asked me to explain more about the hydrogen burns. so ofcourse i will. an unnecessary long narrative version, of course.
you'd think working in a bank wouldn't be all that risky, unless you get robbed, but we have the most interesting accidents. there was the time tia got stuck in the closed door of the elevator, i locked my shirt in my cash drawer (which is embarrassing and uncomfortable) and now bizarre chemical burns. we have a rather ancient emergency kit, housed in this huge red duffle bag. inside it there is a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, which according to our caltulation is about 6 years old. i've used said bottle many times without incident. but yesterday after i put the inside contents on another work related injury, the ouside of the bottle turned my hand all white and burny. the actual cut i was trying to clean was fine and not at all weird. everything turned out ok, the stain started disapearing and the burning faded to an itch. we couldn't figure it out. mary's husband said that happens with old hydrogen peroxide. annie said we should call the local chemistry teacher. mary and i were discussing whether we could have gotten workers comp., but i think we'll have to settle for a new bottle of hydrogen peroxide.

February 09, 2004

mary and i have some kind of chemical burns on our hands from very old dry hydrogen peroxide. life is exciting. there is a slight burning sensation, but i think i'll live.
i met a genuine sled dog today. she was so soft and fluffy. i want a doggy. maybe i just want to get a very tiny sled and harness for mrs. whatsit. mush! mush! maybe not

February 08, 2004

30 helens agree, today is a beautiful day

the storm was delightful. we got a layer of snow, a layer of ice, and another layer of snow. 30 annie's agree it was a satisfying crunch to step on the mixture. i sort of had to hack into my car but it was worth while because annie took me sledding. i was feeling the grumpy. partially because my glasses are right. or rather the very expensive glasses that i can ill afford are how they are supposed to be and i can't see out of them. so either i have to go back to the doctor which i can't afford or have the glasses remade which i can't afford. and now i want to sit around and cry. grrrr

February 06, 2004

i got my package! i got my package! YAY. it's the british versions of harry potter from canada. woohoo. yay mom. i'm gleeful.

mrs. whatsit hearts tom jones

i've had "it's not unusual" stuck in my head for atleast the past 24 hours. i can't stop singing it. i'm not even sure if that's what its called but i know if i research it i'll be singing it for the rest of my days. mrs. whatsit seemed to like it. i went to bangor last night and yes my glasses are wrong. i would be upset at the inconvenience if i wasn't so glad to know that i'm not crazy. or blind.
so we're expecting snow, sleet and rain all this afternoon. you know what comes next, locusts. it has been a rather tame winter up here. it's weird. fortunately it's a weekend and there's no need to go anywhere.
i'm getting a package, i'm getting a package. oooh mail. i'm so excited.

February 05, 2004

hmm. just got a suspicious call from my mom. wanted my address. wanted my work address. i smell package. my mom loves me. even though she called me cell phone and scared the heck out of me. it doesn't matter because i'm getting a package.
in other news i picked up the much anticipated individual income tax booklet long form 1040ME today. it's got to be 50 pages thick. it looks hard. silly income taxes. this is why bar harbor should be in NH. then i wouldn't have to fill out all these papers. how much do you suppose it costs to print all these papers, and pay people to read them? what's the point of taxes anyway. grrr. i hate taxes. i hate papers. grrrr. but i'm getting a package. YAY!


create your own visited states map

i stole this from some british bloke. mostly i just want to see where everyone else has been. happy map making!

...the ice melted, and there was joy among the people.

my driveway was all gritty. it was the best. last night stone face bought me yummy dinner and we had a face off with her roommates cat. the cat won but we put up a good fight. the roommates dog however keeps lunging for annie which is scary. it's big and drooly and it could take us no question. in the animal vein i had the weirdest dream last night. i dreamed that mrs. whatsit had little hamsters, and then they all turned into rats and gerbils, big ones, and it was scary. i think it was because mrs.w was running on her wheel. subconsious nonsense.
Annie has put me in charge of the valentine's day committee. i am filled with a sense of power, a surge of organizational strength, the dread that nothing is open in bar harbor. tricky.
in other news there was almost a laundry revolution last night. at the new laundrymat, which was not randomly closed, the change machine was broken. these burly men with exceptional amounts of laundry kept coming in, and the old would tell the new about the change machine being out of commission and there would be this look of hopeless misunderstanding and each one would say "the change machine doesn't work? but how am i gonna do my laundry?". and then they would see me feeding quarters into a machine and say "hey, where did you get those quarters?" like it was some feminine mystique secret that i had quarters, and i would say "uhh, the bank" and then they would say, oh yeah, i was at the bank today why didn't i get quarters. well gee sir i don't know.

February 04, 2004

why i am thankful i have a small car:

i am lucky to have a geo. a baby car, that very rarely has weather related problems, and has great gas mileage. this morning, much to the dishonor of car i was a bad driver. i was driving, up the impossibly iced luge that is my driveway without a care in the world and as i neared the top, i stopped. a car was coming down the road and i just stopped! what the hell is wrong with me. i am a new englander and i lapsed, i had a maryland moment. you know what happens when you stop driving up a luge in a geo. nothing. absolutely nothing. i had to get out and push. there was no choice. and here begins the real saga. when getting out i realized i was wearing dressy shoes, on a luge. so i had to slide down the luge to my house to get to my sneakers and emergency cat litter. i made it to the apartment where i told mrs. whatsit my woes. if i didn't know her capacity for sympathy and compassion i would say she sniggered at my misfortune, it must have a been a sob. after consoling her i set off to climb back up to mr. car in the sneakers spreading the cat litter in front of me. it would almost have been triumphant if i didn't still have a whole car to push into the road. there are multiple, unforseen problems pushing the car. one, the car was in park. it would have been easier in say neutral, but then it would have soared down the hill into a. my landlord's house, b. a big tree, or c. the apartment. so i left it in park. problem two would be that i live on a major road, why i had stopped in the first place, and i would have to push my parked car on a sheet of solid ice into a highway, by myself. to go on with specifics would be highly embarrassing but as you see it all worked out. i wasn't even that late for work. i ended up alternately pushing and driving the car, spreading cat litter, and i didn't even fall down, not once. the car did sort of end up in the middle of the road with oncoming traffic, but there was no way that car was going back. but in maine people just drive around you and stare. they didn't even slow. so that was my morning adventure. thank heaven for geos.

February 03, 2004

i just had a devastating thought...i have NO clean clothes. nada. zip. not a washed thread of clothing to wear. and no desire to go to the laundry mat tonight. sigh. and i have no money with which to do laundry. problem. also...somelady with an apparent disease touched every conversation heart in my candy dish. who thought open candy dishes in a bank was a good idea anyway?

hmmm, bordello

apparently all of coa is going to pimping and ho-ing at abbie's very posh and very historical cottage on cottage tonight. although it is a tuesday and kids at coa actually DO their schoolwork, with vehemance even, so maybe there won't be that many pimps and ho(s). i never know the proper grammar regarding the word ho. do you add ab e for multiple hoes, or is that the garden implement? anyone?
annie actually left the house today. only for about ten minutes but i'm sure the air did her good. now's she's back and hopefully sleeping. we saw her roommates and they were in shock saying "we thought you were dead" but she's not.
there is just about nothing happening today. it's been so warm and today it's seriously brrry i think folks are hibernating.

February 02, 2004

i forgot some important things...we went to see cold mountain before annie fell into the depths of sick. it was very good. and historically accurate. i was just waiting for them to screw up the first battle but they didn't. they made it seem like it was the end for the guys in the trenches, and then the feds charge and get massacred. silly union. it's an amazing tribute to the combination of money and stupidity that the union won that war. it seems money and stupidity always win. why is that? so anyway i was very impressed that they showed that battle the way it happened.
i was also impressed with the downfalls of the educational system because there was a gaggle of girls who were mocking the movie because "they didn't have lipstick in the civil war" they did, they did, they did. make up has been around for a reallllly long time. and the civil war was not that long ago. it's just like the pan-nazi dinosaurs of ancient india. its a generation of jessica simpsons. why why why?