Afterglow

It's been an off few days - not in a horrid sense, just that I've been putting things off pseudo-irresponsibly. In getting lost in the days after the election (a wonderful, wonderful event in watching McCain and Palin relatively disappear from my TV screen), enjoying the weekend - pretty much drinking beer and getting together with family and friends - culminating with Bats Day at Disneyland yesterday (with pictures possibly to come), it was bound to happen - but I'm getting my act together, putting together a review for the Luke Mulholland Band (a very kickass young talent).

Steven had the opportunity of meeting the members of my family who mean the most - sister Jessica, brother-in-law Craig, nephew Matthew, father Michael, brother Joey. The whole experience really meant the world to me, and I'm not lying when I say that the most potent aphrodisiac is how well your significant other gets along with your family - especially when it's an event you never thought would take place due to prior attempts gone wrong. As a result, after two years of dating, my boyfriend got a taste of a rather voracious appetite unearthed from months past. Nothing says thank you quite like many concerted moments of [insert joyful noise here].

I'm leaving for New York this Friday from Burbank airport. I love taking off from there, getting a glimpse of Universal City while watching the lights on the hills alongside the 101 get smaller and smaller, and I await the captain's OK to start flipping through the TV channels. I did a load of shopping this evening after work - sweaters, shoes, toiletries, etc. All I have to secure is a sturdy piece of luggage, tote my cats on over to my folks' house, and work like hell on a take-home statistics exam. This is also the weekend that my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew move to Nebraska. I just don't want them to leave, but the potential of buying a house and raising a family out there is a lot more likely than it is in smoggy, congested Southern California. That's why I have to become filthy rich: so I can put a down payment on a house for all those that I love, so they'll never be forced to move - or ... well, there's this ivy-covered building on a street off of Highland, just north of Franklin, and since I was nineteen I've entertained a wonderful pipe dream that'll never come to fruition. Ah, this mind. It makes room to be a good writer.

All the more reason to get back to working on the CD review I hope to finish by 11pm.

You guys? I am so happy. I can't sleep. I have to be up in three hours. Tomorrow's going to suck...

Wait, no it's not. Do you know why?

IT'S FRIGGIN' OBAMA DAY

And in honor of change, morale, and to remedy the vodka drunk tonight, I'll be getting a breakfast burrito to devour in my cubicle. To hell with the diet.

We like to eat

Twelve days left

You read correctly; twelve more days until I'm on a plane heading out to New York for a week and a half - so so excited. I supposed that my very less-than-thrilled mood has been a gift bestowed upon me by the universe, because I tend to look forward to things so much that once in the moment I tend to not find it at all as interesting as I'd imagined or experienced it to be before. Not just that, but the little day-to-day things that used to take the edge off do maybe a quarter of what they used to do, if that. I really feel that the hugest portion of my life has reduced my role to Glorified Distant Relative - except that I don't have money to remedy the situation, and I don't have time to care (in the corporate sense). "Take care of it your own damned self" is what is perched on my lips at all times, but at the penalty of a sans-severance scenario I wear my employee badge with only mild abhorrence. So to be soon allowed a week-and-a-half without time cards and Monday-thru-Friday frivolity is all I could ever want, at least before Christmas (when at that time I'll be wanting a day trip to the snow, and an external hard drive). The one thing I will look forward to while out in New York will be the spending of hours upon hours in museums, and dinner dates with my brother. Everything other than that will just be a bonus.

In other news, I'm pretty certain that my motherboard is shot. Perfect.

Unfabulous

I have been feeling all shades of off lately. Tired and lacking enthusiasm, mostly. Losing steam. It's been a rather off year. Far from fabulous.

There have been some wonderful moments, of course - but with the switch of the seasons, routine, reflection, and all suchness, things tend to become. . . bland and dull, and uneventful, and aggravating on all sorts of levels. Stagnant. Comparatively humdrum.

It doesn't feel like it's Halloween - but damned I'd be if it stopped me from having a good time. It's the most wonderful time of the year.

Higher learning

I love school. Be it history or English or humanities, it tends to offer something that can be taken with a person to shape or redefine the way they view the world or themselves. Even science and math, depending on the application and the professor, can provide that same sort of out within one's mind. I told my dad the other day that the reason why I think the religion I used to be involved with is so against higher education is because they're afraid that people might actually learn something. It came out a bit more harsh (if you will) than I intended, but he found it hilarious. I suppose that's how most religions work, but if you confine yourself to one way of learning, you're confining yourself to one way of thinking, and that's not really healthy.

In history class last night my feelings for voting were reaffirmed this year. Not sure if I've mentioned this before, but as a former Jehovah's Witness, we were not permitted to vote, because since the kingdom of God apparently is not of this world, then neither should "we". But as American citizens, in the past, the only people permitted to vote were those that owned property - because of property tax. In the view then and now, if you pay taxes, you should have a say in how they are spent. Now, many people today don't own property, but they do pay taxes. You pay taxes; I pay taxes, whether we like it or not. So I should be able to vote, as should anyone of any religion. Penalty of excommunication should be a non-issue - but there's fear for you.

I think that's it. We've learned and re-learned lots of things - such as why women would pin up their hair at a certain age (pinning up one's hair was a sign of physical maturity [aka menstruation] and gave men the hint that a woman could be courted, because "if you're old enough to bleed, you're old enough to breed"), as well as -- well, concerning the issue of race... pretty much if we or our family members/ancestors were in the west or along trade routes over the last 400 years, or any place where people intermingled sexually as it were - regardless of ethnicity - we all have some other race in us. It should be OBVIOUS that the color of our skin does not define who we are; our DNA does. You could be the palest shade of white and have African blood in you. I have Irish and Portuguese blood in me. It saddens me that people see only the black, the white, the brown, the yellow, the red, when the quality of the person should be held on esteem, or considered cautiously, etc. They - whoever 'they' was - weren't lying when they said "knowledge is power". Knowledge is power. Knowledge is friggin' hot. Knowledge makes you a life form and not merely something to look at. It's pretty much the only thing that we have that'll be ever-withstanding, so it'd be a shame to keep the blinders on any longer.

Okay. All done.

Happy hump day.

Weekend update

It only started feeling like the Halloween season after roaming around through Target last night, looking for spare bicycle tubes for today's 60-mile ride - stopping by in the Halloween-y aisle to look for devil horns. It's been an interesting season, all right. I think with the pussy punches thrown by McCain's camp during the election race, and the various global financial corruption/issues and everything (and taking the angry calls as a result of my place-of-day-job's missteps), it's going to be a difficult holiday season. So difficult, especially for those who lost their jobs recently, or not so recently, or who have been looking for work for a longer time than expected. I still plan to enjoy as necessary, or warranted (I'm drawing up a Christmas list for prioritizing as we speak). I didn't celebrate holidays as a kid, but can thoroughly understand why as a 'grown-up': we all need a reason to throw a kick-ass party. From late October to two weeks after the Rose Parade in January, it's a relatively pleasant time. It's probably my favorite time of year.

And for the record: it's not that I don't like John McCain. He's a grandfather figure that I went without as a child due to time and unforeseen occurrence. He might be a great person to learn life lessons from or to listen to as he regales stories about his time in the army - I really mean it - but I don't think he should be our President. Even more so with Palin on the ticket. She's friggin' hot - but that doesn't mean there's much upstairs to benefit the nation. That and the Republican camp (in this election specifically) has been despicable in their role as Fucking Lynch Mob. There is no way in hell that I'm voting for "those ones" - and that's as political as I will get in print.

So yeah. We went on a 60-mile bicycle ride today (57.6 miles, if you want to be specific), from Pasadena to Long Beach. I am tired. For some reason this ride was a lot harder than others of the same length - I'm thinking because of the bike path in particular had a lot of these dips and raises in succession, and it was ah. . . too much. But I like being able to say that I cycled down to the Queen Mary from the foothills. We'll do it again - hell, we'll probably do it to Long Beach and back - but we'll work on it. Today was just enough.

I'll be featuring a strictly-photo post sometime soon.

I hope everyone had themselves a good weekend.