museumchick --
[adjective]:

Banshee-like

Jessica --
[noun]:

A person who laughs at anything (even this entry)

jess --
[noun]:

A person who has the ability to be invisible

'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

"Sex Without Love" Sharon Olds


How do they do it, the ones who make love
without love? Beautiful as dancers,
gliding over each other like ice-skaters
over the ice, fingers hooked
inside each other's bodies, faces
red as steak, wine, wet as the
children at birth whose mothers are going to
give them away. How do they come to the
come to the come to the God come to the
still waters, and not love
the one who came there with them, light
rising slowly as steam off their joined
skin? These are the true religious,
the purists, the pros, the ones who will not
accept a false Messiah, love the
priest instead of the God. They do not
mistake the lover for their own pleasure,
they are like great runners: they know they are alone
with the road surface, the cold, the wind,
the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardio-
vascular health--just factors, like the partner
in the bed, and not the truth, which is the
single body alone in the universe
against its own best time.

Kindness by Naoimi Shihab Nye

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.

Some links and articles I found lately that I thought were kind of cool:

Free Punk Mp3's

superheros

(Article on myth and literature in videogames)

I've really gotten into the Sabres lately! Which is a little strange, because up until this season, I knew nothing about hockey. I guess I just find it exciting that we made it this far and might possibly make it to the Stanley Cup. I hope we win the next game in North Carolina!
(I should actually try to find a way to watch the games, but I find it more fun to call up a friend of mine and get the details from him. He's very colorful in his descriptions!). He was telling me about all the stuff that people have actually done with the "Stanley Cup" itself over the years... the stories are pretty crazy.

Another thing Tom was telling me about... there's actually a man out there named "Stanley Cup" who loves hockey. Everytime he goes into a bar, all the bartenders will give everyone there a free round because Mr. Cup came.

It's been awhile. I wish I could have made it to the e-strip party, but thanks to Paul for emailing me.

I'm back in Jamestown for the summer. I'm saving money by living with my folks until I need to be back for classes in the fall. It's definitely nice being with my family and friends, but to be honest, Jamestown is not exactly the most thrilling of places. Our big excitement is the fact that they just built a "Super Wal-Mart".

Fortunately, I get to go back up to Buffalo quite a bit because I'm doing some museum work, and I'm also taking a class to start working on my thesis. So it's all good.

You know what's kind of strange? It's when you're at a concert or something, and a guy is standing really closely next to you, or behind you... and then he'll keep smiling at you while he looks you up and down with his eyes. And he won't actually talk to you either, but he'll stand in exactly the same position. You'll turn a bit, then he'll turn a bit and so forth. Its creepy.

Do you ever get picked up in really atypical places? One for me that has always surprised me is the library. You would not think that it would be a magnet for romance. I've always wondered why I seem to meet guys in libraries like this. Plus, there's always the people who try to ask you out at bus stops or bus stations. Usually they ask you if you want to go some place where they could use their senior citizen discount or something! I mean, I'm sure we can all find true love on Greyhound, but still....

I was wondering... would anyone on here be interested in meeting up sometime for coffee or perhaps a drink? I've really enjoyed reading a lot of the entries of people on here and think it would be cool to meet some of you.

I grew up in a small town. Most of the people I grew up with are married and have children now. This probably sounds terrible to say, but anymore it seems that I feel awkward around most of my old friends. Because I can't relate to most of their experiences. I don't have children. I'm not married or engaged. The relationship that I had been in for a year and a half ended soon after I moved to Buffalo this past fall. I don't have a car. I live in a one room place. I'm this chick in grad school with a serious illness, trying to scrape by on a minimalistic income and medicaid. Maybe it doesn't make sense, but I just feel like a failure compared to them. That I've fallen behind somehow.

The truth is that most of the time, I feel like I am content with my life. I am involved with things that matter to me, and I continue to meet a lot of amazing people. I just wish I wouldn't compare my life to others this way. I want to be someone who can just be happy for them. I really do.

Recently, one of my grad classes were discussing the plans to build a new hotel on Elmwood- near Forest Avenue. Its supposed to be located where several businesses are. I believe these businesses include Mondo Video, Home of the Hits, and some other stores. Everyone in my class that participated in our discussion seems to think that building a hotel there would be a great idea, but I have to say that I definitely have mixed feelings about it.

On the one hand, I agree that it would be nice to have a hotel in the Elmwood neighborhood. It definitely would be helpful to the many museums and galleries that are located in the area. If a blockbuster show came to the Knox as they do several times a year, people could stay at a hotel right near the museum. They would probably go to some of the restaurants in the neighborhood and such. It's always great to support the economy around Buffalo. And, as some mentioned, some of the buildings that are currently the site are suffering from disrepair and have structural problems.

From a different perspective, though, I have to say that I am sad at the prospect of the tearing down of those buildings. I love the way those house-style stores are mixed together inside the neighborhood. And I feel bad that those stores would be forced to move, potentially not on Elmwood anymore. I think a lot of people would miss not having them around here. I have not been a part of the meeting process and can't make an informed comment on how the tenants of those buildings have been treated... but I have read from many of the news sources that some of them feel that they weren't given much of a voice during this process to have their concerns addressed. Of course, I could admittedly be fallacious in my assumptions on this.

There's also the issue of the possibility that the hotel might fail. Sometimes its hard to predict whether a hotel will succeed in any given area. What will happen to the surrounding neighborhood if that hotel goes out of business and just becomes some abandoned space?

So I certainly am interested in following what the outcome of this will be, and how it will affect the neighborhood in which I live.

It scares me sometimes just how much I like the 80's sitcom "Night Court". I truly find it amusing, and I have no idea why. I like the crazy bald baliff.

Oh, and the new "Real World" is at Lake Superior, Michigan. How come they haven't done a Real World Buffalo? C'mon, aren't we more exciting?

(The last time I actually watched MTV was when I still thought it was cool... you know, when Green Day first came out. I feel old now).

For my fellow procrastinators:
Bubble Wrap:

Yes, its true... I'm one of the many denizens of that place commonly referred to as "livejournal". Yet, I think this site is any interesting concept... it definitely has more of a collective community feel. I look forward to reading some of the posts here soon.

I moved to Buffalo this past September. I really like it so far. It has a very funky, warm feel to it as a city. It has its problems, but I definitely think it has more than its fair share of strengths, too. There's a surprising amount of culture and art to be found in it.

I shall have to post more soon...