for all you who may know me and have been wondering where i disappeared to...

i'm back. for good. or at least for this semester. (and probably the next three...)

what's been going on here? so much has changed on this site! it's icon city. whoa. there's a lot to explore.

i'll update more later. now i want to crawl into bed. sleepy liz at 11 pm. see, i changed, too.

in keeping with the vogue of posting lists of reasons, here's a little forward that was passed to me...


12 REASONS TO BAN GAY MARRIAGE

1. Homosexuality is not natural, much like eyeglasses, polyester, and birth control .

2. Heterosexual marriages are valid because they produce children. Infertile couples and old people can't legally get married because the world needs more children.

3. Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.

4. Straight marriage will be less meaningful, since Britney Spears' 55-hour just-for-fun marriage was meaningful.

5. Heterosexual marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all; just like women are property, blacks can't marry whites, and divorce is illegal.

6. Gay marriage should be decided by people not the courts, because the majority-elected legislatures, not courts, have historically protected the rights of the minorities.

7. Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That's why we have only one religion in America.

8. Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.

9. Legalising gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

10. Children can never suceed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why single parents are forbidden to raise children.

11. Gay marriage will change the foundation of society. Heterosexual marriage has been around for a long time, and we could never adapt to new social norms because we haven't adapted to cars or longer lifespans.

12. Civil unions, providing most of the same benefits as marriage with a different name, are better because a "separate but equal" institution is always constitutional. Separate schools for African-Americans worked just as well as separate marriages for gays and lesbians will.

i was looking for a book on my shelves and came across a stephen king novel, "from a buick 8."

i've never read it, but i also couldn't remember how i acquired it. so i pulled it off to check if it had any previous owner markings. opened the front cover and found....

a hundred dollar bill!

whoa. what a happy surprise. hidden cash is always nice.

it's on tv. i remember watching it when i was young.

no more wire hangers!

i no longer have an excuse to stay up all night waiting for an email reply from england. everyone i mail is on the east coast, sleeping at 5 a.m. maybe now i'll start emailing my pal in belfast. they're five hours ahead, right?

the radio is such a neat thing. i love listening to all this rem i've never heard before.

just wanted to announce i'm back in town, but only for a little bitty bit. stressful time at home and that's why i ended up staying for much longer than i intended. i don't even remember when i left. i've been living without dates for a long time now. i don't really mind, but it's tough when i'm trying to figure out how long i've been away from buffalo. 2 weeks maybe? maybe more? i don't know.

my last journal was 7/8. was that the night i went to many different bars and had a little adventure? i think i left the next day after that.

anyway. i'm back. i'm thirsty. are thursday nights at the pink still on?

p.s. tops is for me. wegmans feels too yuppie or something. i feel like a poser when i go there. that's just me, though. it's a good store.

folks, another thursday has arrived. i'll be there, will you?

back in the day, when i lived in dorms, i was never suprised by the fire alarm going off, never thought it was a serious event. even when there was an actual fire in my friends' room in another building, i still didn't take alarms seriously. i would put on my slippers and shuffle out into the night like everyone else, without a worry that my things might be destroyed.

now i'm in a similar situation, in a large building where you have no clue what's going on in other apartments. tonight was the 2nd time i've heard the alarm go off since living here -- not bad for a one year period. mostly it's a hassle, but now i have this worry that there might really be a fire and i should leave as if i won't be able to come back.

still, i waited a while after the alarm first started to actual put myself in action. before, the first time, the alarm stopped just as i was about to leave my rooms. i was hoping for a similar situation tonight, and just kept putting off actually leaving and facing a gathering of my neighbors. when i heard the sirens of the fire trucks, i decided it was time to go.

then there's the "what do i take" question. everyone knows that the answer is "nothing," that you should just get out as soon as possible. but i'd already dallied quite a while, so i felt i had time. i grabbed my purse (containing wallet and cell phone), my computer and my portable hard drive, then threw in a pair of clean undies for good measure.

what does this say about me? i did consider taking photo albums, but my bag was already full. i figured that most family pics have doubles with my mom or someone, and i don't really look at photos of old friends any more, so i left them all. my computer/work and clean underwear. hmmm.

when i joined neighbors on the lawn, most people had nothing, some women had purses, i saw one guy with a six pack. there was a low probability of fire, but what if the building was burning? am i crazy and materialistic?

what would you take?

i went down to niagra square with soyeon and zoey to see ani difranco play. but then it started to rain as soon as we arrived. we bumped into another UB DMS person and his friend (a former UB DMS person) and chatted with them. we listened to the end of the opening guy -- he wasn't too good. then during setup for ani, heavens opened and nobody really wanted to stay. i wouldn't have minded getting completely soaked, but since my fellow concert-goers wanted to go away, i brought them back to my place. we had some drinks, played some tetris (i kicked their asses w/ 150 lines), and chatted a lot. zoey invited us to go to a party co-hosted by her parents at their studio. on the way out, we checked out the early fireworks from my roof. met up with even more UB DMS people, and some other folks up there. i even met some of my neighbors (always good to know who lives in your building). fireworks from the roof of the ambassador were cool because we could see them exploding all over town, but mostly far away and not as enjoyable as sitting right underneath a display. eventually went to the studio party over on niagra. there (another roof set-up), lots of local illegal fireworks made the show much more exciting -- but it's still better to be underneath fireworks than parallel or above. then the heavens opened one more time and we lined up to take the ladder down to the studio. we hung out there for a little while, then on to the pink to meet some other UB DMS folks. the DMS folks did not show, but some art ones did. then all the rock stars flooded the place and it was crazy. they all had the look, the attitude, the candy. i'm not a rock star and i don't think soyeon is either, so we gathered up zoey (who could be a rock star) and home we went. that was my fourth of july. god bless america.