Soooooo the Cracker Barrel Mark and I eat at got shot up last night. It's, you know, less than half a mile from our house.

I HATE DURHAM.

Also I watched Sybil last night and just found out Brad Davis died in 1991.

I'm pissed. He was so good.


Hey, also, my class is about to start, and I swear someone smells like a margarita.

Biggest jackasss I've ever heard on NPR on the Diane Rehms show right now: Stuart Taylor.

Better yet, he's written a book entitled "Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case" -- and I don't even know what to do with that. The title of that book doesn't even fit in my mouth. He's got a huge hard-on for the Bush administration and his one piece of evidence that torture and illegal wiretapping and illegal everything the administration did is that there wasn't another 9/11. That's it.
To be fair in the slightest sense, there's another guy saying "LET'S TRY THE ENTIRE BUSH ADMINISTRATION FOR WAR CRIMES RIGHT NOW" as if the Obama administration was elected to do that, rather than fix the shitstorm which has developed over the last eight years.
And there's one dude who's like "can we talk about something else"


THANKS DIANE. Like I needed to wake up to this bullshit. I wanted to be in a good mood this morning. It's like listening to Hardball or some shit. On NPR.

WITH DIANE REHM.

wtf israel and gaza

this is fucking retarded already.

i'm about done with seeing dead babies on reddit because of this shit. i know the diplomacy route has fucking sucked for generations, but fuck -- like bombs are really going to make this situation any better.

i have israeli and palestinian friends and wtf, they are both totally rad. they are all totally intelligent and fucking responsible and NONE of them want wars and death and horrible shit like this. no one, anywhere, deserves to go through this bullshit.

2009. can we get some peace up in here?

Crazy RoboSanta in the middle is our first ornament. The apple above it was my parents'.
Bonus adorable Christmas 1989 ornament to the left.

Mark and I did a crapload of shopping today, even though we were both basically too exhausted to move even when we first started... he worked all day and night, I was up coughing and had to rely on the black magic of vodka to finally get me to stop. Which means I fell asleep, but didn't sleep well. And neither of us slept long. Note to self: After purchasing new bottle of Nyquil, do not place it in a location where you cannot find it when you are ill and really desperately need it.

Ugh.

Anyway, I still have a ton of shopping left and it's driving me nuts. I have tomorrow and part of Friday; I'm driving to Pittsboro as usual to leave flowers for Eric that afternoon. Saturday morning we leave for Wilmington to begin CHRISTMAS... part one of... what... five, six, potentially?

Also, WHAT DO YOU BUY FOR CHILDREN??? Kate has the inside track here, I know. But my mom was all A+ on buying gifts for the kids (I helped!) for Christmas -- so I could be part of the "Bonnie, Travis, & Sarah" card. And once I turned 18 my mom would still help me get my shit together, and she'd pick out something genius or whatever.

BUT I DON'T HAVE KIDS AND I FEEL LIKE AN IDIOT. Like, Eva, I can totally chill and remember (mostly) the kind of stuff I wanted when I was six. I mean, things have changed since '93, but Eva's a chill kid. I see Harper once a year so I don't even know what he's doing. Like, I think he was walking around and saying words last year. I imagine things have progressed? I haven't seen the twins in a year either, but I'm trying to put myself in Matt & Kim's position -- I don't want to get the girls things that'll just crowd up the house, or that they won't use/play with/whatever... and then with baby "11/12" (as I am dubbing her), I don't want to make life any more complicated. And I feel like 11/12 (aka Matt & Kim) should get something for Christmas too.

Being one of the three cousins without children and then, of those three, being the only one not living with my parents has put me in a crappy position.

MY BRAIN.
MY WALLET.
MY WALLETTTTTTTT.
(and mark's)

I need to sleep.

so mark just left for work. he took all of last week off for his birthday, which actually ended in him taking care of me.

it was really fucking nice having him around.

i feel like summer vacation ended and my best friend is going back to school far far away.



i can't decide if that's sweet or pathetic. either way, I don't think i can go back to sleep like i usually can when he leaves.

MAN, our economy ROCKS! thank god our president and Republican presidential candidate are there to remind us! Oh, and remember that guy, Alan Greenspan?

Reuters:

Greenspan also said the chances of escaping a recession was "less than 50 percent."

"I can't believe we could have a once-in-a-century type of financial crisis without a significant impact on the real economy globally, and I think that indeed is what is in the process of occurring.

It's so awesome it's so unclear as to how the Fed plans to keep on keepin' on. There's a responsible way to let the market "correct itself," and an irresponsible way. Bailing out Bear Stearns, for instance: irresponsible. Letting the asshat CEOs at the head of the other national banks and lending companies see where their absurd bonuses and risks lead the company (hint: into the ground); well, that's capitalism. Though one can hardly blame the risk-takers -- the incentive sure as hell was there. It's just that there's some collateral damage. Like, jobs.

Sure, I'm pretty much a socialist, but if we're going to do the whole capitalism thing, it's kind of stupid for the government to reverse the market economy so as to "reward poor leadership" (thx Obamatron). I believe (and correct me if I'm wrong) I'm somewhat on par with my libertarian friends here. Local and regional banks, on the whole, are not weak institutions -- and they're not as tied up in the national banks as one might think. They're not in a bad position to step up as the national institutions fall.

But the foundation's there; we've been going downhill since BEFORE Sept. 11th 2001. I imagine the downward trend of the economy sort of like a falling pinball, simple physics: the longer that ball runs towards the bottom without obstacles, the more momentum it gains, and the the harder it is to follow it to defend against it. And then, over the past seven years, the ball has hit targets that just increase its momentum -- more industries take hits and more CEO asshattery is sanctioned by the government. Greenspan seems right on, in my opinion (although I'm certainly no economist). We're headed towards an epic reset which will might require something like 21st century FDRNewDeal-tokens. We can all hope for a ramp right before Game Over -- but that is a rapidly shrinking possibility, and it's idiocracy to lean on it like the second coming.

Anyway, that's what we call an overextended metaphor.

(funny coincidence, though)


But just as a final note, somewhat unrelated: when Karl Rove says your attack ads are going "too far" and are not "100% truthful" -- hell hath frozen over.

can we ban the phrase "FUNNY PIC!" from the internet?

Oh, also, Dell? Yeah. Telling me that I have the same problem I told you I had two weeks ago, and then telling me you don't know how to fix it, and giving me a pity 12-mo extension of my warranty? Not going to fly. Not as long as my gfx dies every time I try to open Firefox, and then I just have an expensive strobe light. Seriously? If I were epileptic, you'd be so fucked.

for the first time in my life, my compy's got a virus. and a shitty one. and i am going to have to backup and reinstall SUPER FRESH because it's fucked with my drivers and got access to my passwords, which is excellent and super stupid.
i don't even know what the thing is, but i have a suspicion it's probably from that 3rd party application i downloaded to sync up an app for my iPhone with Microsoft Outlook. I SHOULD KNOW BETTER. WHO AM I??

i should also not be so brazen as to assume that my antivirus program is something that's simply taking up memory (and thus ending its process or just abandoning it altogether).

so i'm in safe mode.
i suck.

goddammit.

(also plz let me know if "i" sent you a message or did something funny on facebook, which is where i've gotten my security alert)

i have a headache
i'm tired
i have to study tonight and i don't know if i have the energy
the drive to chatham county takes forever and uses way too much gas
i realized i think everyone who drives an SUV and doesn't live in the mountains is a dick, because I can't remember the last time I saw a person driving an SUV who looked like they'd actually go anywhere near nature
my dad told me today that he's voting for mccain even though he's severely uninformed about his platform
but arguing with him is pointless, as i know very well

i have been very irritable lately

i think i'm probably going to have rice for dinner again tonight.

okay, using my internetemobloginator to complain, again.

urban outfitters: i have a love/hate relationship with you. you are overpriced and somehow commercially scene-y, but i love some of your shit so much that i buy it.

here is the issue. i have checked, and all tops/dresses you sell are properly sized for me as a medium -- except I have boobs. the size you give for a medium bustline is an A 1/2 cup, maybe a B. through my many escapades of gaining/losing weight, i seem to absorb and then maintain my breast size. urban outfitters: why do you not believe in Cs? Little tiny triangle tops will not cover a C. I don't demand much. just like, an inch more of fabric. to keep, you know, my boobs from falling all over the place.

thx.

john edwards, why did you have to go and be a dick?

okay CHRIST ON A FUCKING CRACKER.

mark has had a sore throat for three days. incl. what is still my today but is now technically 24 hours ago. so, yesterday, he was a hell of a lot worse, and there was a *hole* in the fucking back of his throat. I have no idea how else to describe it. he went to class and got out at like 8:30 last night, and basically sounded like he had Down's. this is what they call "hot potato mouth," apparently. because it makes you sound like you have a mouth full of hot potatoes. no joke, that is a professional medical term. (it's kind of hilarious to hear, though)

now, i had already convinced him to make an appointment with his regular doctor, which was an incredible feat in itself. people who work in medicine do not take care of themselves. it's 100% ridiculous and 100% true. but when he came home and eventually stopped swallowing his own saliva, i was all, "okay, we're going to the ER now." "ahhh... fine. just after this episode of star trek is over." (which is what he said, but not what it sounded like)

we got to UNC at about 11:30, at which point he couldn't speak coherently and i was pretty much freaking out (which was under control fairly quickly -- thanks, anti-anxiety meds!). got him in, they started fluid and antibiotic IVs, then got a CT scan. took him back to his room, and once he was halfway through his bag of antibiotics/steroids he was pretty much asleep. i was pretty much not for eight hours.

so, here's my main problem. they told me it would take an hour to get the CT results back, but they already pretty much knew 100% that it was a peritonsillar abscess (aka tonsillitis on crack), which generally requires some minor surgery (cutting and draining and aspirating and things that make me feel a little nauseous). so he got the scan at like 2, and 3:00 rolled around, 4, 5, and finally I was like "okay, where the hell are his CT results?" so, the nurse tells me that they've been in for two hours, but the ENT specialist who we saw when we first got there is apparently a complete flake and doesn't respond to pages; he just comes in at 6 AM instead, when it's, you know, more convenient. for him.

so jackass finally comes in and evaluates him and decides that, even though the infection had gotten to other tissues in his throat around his tonsils, he was just going to give mark every antibiotic/steroid ever, and then have mark see a different ENT specialist on friday, whether mark felt okay or not. then it was all, "okay, bye!"

we got out of there like an hour ago and i am so fucking pissed off.

and, admittedly, some of this is because mark got to sleep most of the night while i was trying to curl up on two chairs i'd pushed together beside his bed. and it could not have possibly been a degree more than 65 in that room. i got four blankets -- two for mark and two for me. but he had the whole bed thing and i cannot tolerate cold, so i was just wired all night on a combination of discomfort, 100% unadulterated and distilled concern that mark was going to die (this happens), adrenaline, and a significant drop in core body temperature.

if i ever have to be on that flip-side experience of the ER again, i'm going to have to find some way to at least get a bed.

Man, I hate Tom Cruise. I feel like I'm constantly getting new reasons to hate him.

Why did Katie Holmes marry him, and why did he get like, the most adorable child ever? And why HIM to bring the word "glib" back into regular conversation? Who is he to help people out with the SATs??

HE BELIEVES IN FUCKING ALIENS INFESTING OUR BODIES. HE GOES ON OPRAH AND JUMPS ON COUCHES BECAUSE HE REJECTS THE MEDICATIONS THAT WOULD PROBABLY MAKE HIM A MORE ACCEPTABLE MEMBER OF SOCIETY.

There's some satanic shit going on here.


Also Bono. And Angelina Jolie. The former because he's irritating and wears sunglasses all the time, the latter because she's a homewrecker (that's right I said it), building an international pokemon army of children (also renaming ones who already have names they know and understand), and despite the fact she: a) married Billy-Bob Thornton, b) wore a vial of his blood around his neck, c) made out with her own brother, SHE IS A GODDESS. With huge boobs.

I'm happy that I'm younger than these people. I want to see them fall apart and get old. But history will remember them as wonderful.


I am not bitter. Particularly when considering celebrites.