I attended this weekend what I hope to be my last wedding of the year. Not that I'm not all for people gettin hitched and all, but man that shit makes me tired. I drove 4+ hours to some place in Ohio on Saturday, sat through a wedding and many hours at a reception with a bad DJ and then went to a hotel and then got up in the morning to drive back home. Weeeeeee!

In other news.... (e:felly) got me sick so on top of drinking too much which for me always means smoking too much, I was sick and making myself sicker. But I feel better now.

Today I have to read the last 250 pages of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Wo! Man, what a book. It's terribly fascinating and curious to me how books become canonized...what a racist piece of garbage. But at the time it was crazy talk that these "simple, childlike critturs" maybe had feelings too. Good grief.

I guess I will go on a minor rant right now for lack of something better to talk about it. 4 hours in the car with my high school best friend led to us talking about racism...and she was like this: well when I sometimes try to show black people that I am not racist, like holding open the door for a black woman and her three kids, sometimes they aren't even grateful, like they don't smile or thank you or anything.

So first of all, I was like...why a black woman and her three kids? Where does this image come from?? Second of all...I think a lot of white people have this notion that because they do something they deem to be "nice" or anti racist or however they frame it for a black person, they deserve special treatment. Like black people should get down on their knees and thank the white person for being a human being. If you were to hold the door open for a white person (sorry, her example) you wouldn't think about what a wonderful white person you were being and if the person didn't thank you for your kindness, you would call them an asshole, not deem them ungrateful for your attempt at being a good whitey. Ug. Ya know? Am I crazy?? I would love feedback on this. And jeez, if the best example you can think of on how to be anti-racist is to hold open a door for a black person then you got a long ways to go. Meh.

Oh yeah and one last thing. I always hear this bs about how "surprised" people are when they overhear overtly racist arguments, as if racism has magically vanished into fairy land and only the grossest humans who think they are safe among friends would dare to speak that way. But seriously, overt racism obviously still exists but in my opinion, that is the least of our worries. The same can go for sexism. Not that I don't think this kind of thing is terribly, I do, but I think that it is that shit that we can't even see in ourselves as being racist or sexist or whateverist that is the scariest thing. The ideologies that make up the fabric of this country and this "global" world that are so entrenched that they are invisible are what scares me. Because how can you fight something that you can't see???

So we went out. (e:heidi), (e:drew), (e:fellyconnelly) and myself had a nice gathering of food and beer at Gabriel's Gate and then went to Battle @ Buffalo (minus (e:drew) unfortunately :( I am probably too intoxicated to be posting, but I will say that it was fun and you all should have been there.

So last night after watching the debates, Felly and I were having a fascinating conversation about identity and negation when suddenly a large unidentified flying object flew into our apartment. holy hell what a ruckus. The bird, which I thought was a giant month and felly thought was a bat, was flying around, flying into things and going crazy. Needless to say that cats went instantly into attack mode. Maxx, our hunter, caught the damn thing in his mouth and tried to take it under the bed. Meanwhile, I grabbed the other cat and threw him in the bathroom and closed the door behind me. Felly got ahold of Maxx and somehow the bird got away, but it lost all of its tail feathers in the process. It landed on our fridge and just sat there, scared shitless I'm assuming. I picked it up in a towel and brought it outside and it sat there long enough for us to take pictures:






Eventually it flew away. We are not sure if it will be ok cause it lost so many feathers, but we got a good look at it and it seemed like the legs and wings were in ok shape. Poor little birdy. Bad Bad kitty.

Ok ok I am never on here. forgive me. but, I want to remind everyone that its that time again!!

WHO: YOU, ME, THEM, US
WHAT:Breakdancing/funkstyles Battle
WHERE: 910 Main St. (just south of Allen...door is located between Hyatt's art store)
WHEN: SAT Sept 26, 7-11pm
WHY: CAuse its fun, different, and super awesome.

I also might be interested in getting a drink before/after whatevs.

Also, a shout out to (e:heidi) i hope you can come!!!

So on our main computer we suddenly have this problem where when we go to google or yahoo the whole site is different looking and whatever search results show up are actually fake advertisements or whathave you. we have run spybot and some other shit and can't get it to go away...
anyone have any suggestions? im clueless and felly, although somewhat less clueless can't fix it either. grumble grumble. danke.

well, its back again. its amazing how something so simple as sitting in a classroom can light a fire under my ass everytime. my mind is already going into overdrive...and sometimes its very frustrating because the truth be told, i don't think in real world terms when i get going like this. i am a highly theoretical person and despite my generally negative attitude toward stuck up academics who can't talk like real human beings, i am equally at fault. i have been doing a lot of thinking about this major issue must be included into my thesis...somehow.

anyways, this is basically a warning post. i have already been doing a little commenting here and there and might i just say to not take them as attacks, just thought provokers or critiques or what have you. friendly intelligent conversation if you will. also, you all know how i love to procrastinate :)

i can't believe its that time already. lucky for me i don't have class today so i can put off this whole back to school thing one more day.. even though secretly i am really excited to be going back. even better is i only have class on t,w, and th which means four day weekends all the time! the scary thing is....this is my last semester of classes. thats it. 4 classes and then i have to write a thesis. my thesis. holy flying shit balls batman. i think it wouldn't be so bad if things weren't so screwed up in my dpt. i won't get into it but needless to say i think the nonsense that is going on goes above and beyond your typical higher ed bullshit which is why i can't wait to get the eff outta here.

i went to the elmwood arts festival on saturday. it was terribly hot and i had aching menstrual cramps, but i am glad i went nonetheless. however, although i certainly probably most likely would not have gone by myself...i think it is necessary to go with folks who you are one hundred percent comfortable with so that you can take your time and stop where you want to stop and not feel the need to press on. honestly, i didn't really look at any actual art. i strolled from one end to the other, got some artichoke hearts smothered in cheese on a pita and a chai tea from spot and went home. not exactly the full experience, but an experience nonetheless. i was sad that felly could not come with me though. boo.

felly and i are going camping next weekend in watkins glen near ithaca. i am terribly excited about this because, despite us saying we were going to go camping all summer, we didn't. we went to plenty of weddings, but no camping. and i think it will be just us and the dog which is nice. I have never been to ithaca, amazingly enough, so it is sure to be a good time...as long as something terrible doesn't happen like it usually does when felly and i try to do something fun together. ha. as long as there are no tornados i will be happy.

oh yes and i will say this. felly has gone crazy with the beer makin. crazy. she is sooo very excited and i am doing my best to be excited as well. don't get me wrong, i think its cool and all and i like beer, but i have a giant 2 gallon keg on top of my fridge and a cooler full of possibly explosive bottles of beer taking up my closet. awesome. i spose when the beer is actually ready i will appreciate all this.

Ok...so by the looks of it, I have to resize my pics before I can upload them cause I got this one to work, which is from left, myself, my younger brother Dan, my mom, my new sister, my big brother and my dad, which was stolen from my cousin and much smaller than my own. So it goes...

My brother's wedding was pretty awesome...beautilful redone barn in the middle of nowhere...the ceremony was outside and then dancing and nonsense inside afterward. I will post pictures but, how do I do it again? I tried yesterday and I think I screwed it up. I am usually not this technologically impaired...estrip manages to confuse me though...

Oh yes and... Felly and I got home from out four hour drive on Sunday and were watching a movie when we here a loud crash outside and then instantly see a cat flying inside of the porch. We go out there and lo and behold, the cat had somehow managed to jump up onto our flower box and knock it to the ground. Most of our flowers were severed or decapitated by the fall and are looking pretty sad. Poor poor flowers. Now, as a result, neither cat is allowed outside although it is only our crazy must eat and destroy everything cat that should be denied access. Had to ruin it for everybody. This is also the cat that recently chewed off the entire green part of our indoor spikey plant that is already sitting on top of 9 books so he can't reach it. So much for that idea. Bastard cat.

Dumm dum duh dummm duh duh dummm...

OK.
So im watching this really fascinating show on the history channel about Star Wars as an epic myth full of symbols and metaphors and all that good stuff and...well, its cool. For example, they are talking about Luke and how he represents the kind of average hero (much like Harry Potter) who has insecurities and normal people stuff and how this figure is present in many more ancient mythological stories. Also very interesting ideas about technology (ie the Death Star( vs. humanity (ie The Force) and the dualism/struggle going on and how this is a modern type myth. Oooo and they just talked about Luke as a Messianic figure who redeems "the father" (Darth vadar) and how Odysseus became his father in order to grow up.

Im into this shit.

I guess part of the reason I like this so much is that I have noticed, as I am sure many of you have also, the increasingly huge trend in these epic, multiple film movies (ie, harry potter, lord of the rings, Batman, etc etc) are HUGE at the box office. Although I don't always think that there are always conscious connections between these modern films to these age old classic myths, I think that it shows a deeper human connection and why we continue to be fascinated by and drawn to these types of stories. heroism. good and evil. love and hate. journeys that require courage and overcoming fears and insecurities. being extraordinary.

what i am thinking is why this sudden surge in pop culture? is it a surge? is it just more accessible now because its on film and not in words? or are we as a culture more lost and seeking that human connection...that feeling that we just don't get from computers and other forms of technology? is it a catch 22 that it is film and media technology bringing these mythic sagas back into our lives? what impact are these films having on us...billions of dollars means something!

sometimes i think about these things...