For Reasons I can't explain - i had to move my site. i am SO sorry - i really really hope this is the last time. if you add me to your MSN Messenger buddy list ColoradoNative@hotmail.com - you can see everytime the blog gets updated. If you think that was a plug for MSN Messenger, then two points to you for object identification (2 points, jen? Is that how much OI is still worth these days or has there been an inflation?)

http://spaces.msn.com/members/ICarriedAWatermelon

I really appreciates anyone who moves with me. "I'll buy you an orange smoothie."

Two weeks ago my parents came to see me. Yay for Mr. and Mr. Wright, and everything that happened after they did their thing. Yay for technology.  (always preface a criticism with a compliment, my conscience tells me often)  I’m ok with history doing it’s thing and where we are today versus where we were when uncle flinstone showered himself in the spit of a dinosaur. i don't, by any means, wish I was living in some pre-plane, pre-car, pre-the-wheel civilization, but i DO wish that seeing my parents didn't have to be such a production. My mom and I should be able to have lunch together when I have a couple hours between meetings.  My dad and I should be able to play music together instead of exchanging tabs and questions over email. Guitar wasn't meant to be taught over e-mail, is what i'm saying. All other hassles aside, my parents have to take off their shoes and go through a security checkpoint with x-rays and guards and metal detectors to see me. They have to show their IDs to someone to see me. I know I don’t usually use words like this – but you know what kyle? that’s f*cked up. Yeah dude. Totally f*cked up. Anyway. You don’t need any more details about their visit – it was lazy, and food heavy, and pleasant.

In the last two weeks I started taking improv classes with Jordan. This is a big deal! I wanted to be an actress until I was about eleven. I came down with a terrible case of stage fright (that VERY coincidentally coincided (is that redundant? It should be if it isn’t) with puberty) and never recovered since. I bit off all of my nails the day before the first class. So far there have been two so far, and it’s actually going quite well. I’m not AS scared as I expected to be. Well – I am, but I’m better about just jumping up there and making a fool out of myself. Like the first night, for example, I somehow ended up being transformed into a warewolf for a good five minutes on stage. Apparently I learned nothing from all my buffy watching, because all I could think to do was wander around the stage howling until the skit got so dull the teacher cut it off. See, that’s pretty much rock bottom, if I got through that (which I did) I can get through anything. And now I find my stage fright melting. You just gotta face your fears. It’s like, if you get mono – don’t lie in bed, get back out on the streets and start kissing people, and you’ll feel better in NO time.

I’m becoming a snob. I’ve been a movie snob for quite some time. Either a movie is fantastic that I fall in love with it and recommend it to everyone, or, if there’s the slightest flaw, I’ll probably shrug my shoulders and say “eh, it was ok.” If I’m in a good mood, or “blech, I don’t even want to talk about it” if I’m cranky. There are very few movies that fall some where between bad and brilliant for me. The problem with my system is that some movies that are clearly “bad” in the literal sense (win a date with Tad Hamilton” for example) have somehow made it on my brilliant list. I’ve decided there’s just no telling what’s gonna do it for me. Maybe the one rule I’m aware of is that if you’re name is not Michel Gondry, or Kenneth Branaugh, your artsy film probably won’t meet my bar. Anyway – that’s always been my way with movies. But I just finished the first book I didn’t like.   This is the first one where I wanted storm the author’s cozy writing office, book in hand and say “look a**hole, here’s your book back and $50 buy yourself an honest editor, you self-centered Pr*ck.” And then I slap my hand over my mouth because I’m apalled at this reaction. Yes, I’ve felt the same way toward Owen Wilson time and time again, yes, I’ve felt this way toward every writer of any action movie ever (except for Arlington Road, Infernal Affairs, and MAYBE Training Day) I’ve felt this way toward a number of romantic comedies, anything Adam Sandler did that wasn’t a song on Kevin Nelon’s news show, or any movie that ever mentioned the possibility of auditioning chris rock for a role. But never have I felt this way about a book. And I don’t think it’s the books fault. I mean – I do, it had some major unforgivable flaws, but I think I must have read plenty of flawed books in my lifetime (I read all of the Babysitter’s club), so I must be doing something differently. This is reconfirmed by the fact that I’ve begun discriminating TV shows too, which I used to accept and love for the mind-junk food that they were, as long as they had a plot (or featured Bob Ross). 24 has almost left me in tears I find it so dull. Lost, I watched for one episode, and could only imagine the actors pulling line after line out of a fish bowl labeled “clichés.”  I think I’m going to be one of those old women that are impossible to please, and that makes me very very scared. 

PS. Jordan said I had some funny skits at improv. Didn’t want you leaving here today thinking I was a total loser.

PPS. Tomorrow I leave for vegas with eight lovely people, so you can expect the next post to be filled with pictures and stories and gossip, oh my.

Two weeks ago I turned 23 in Seattle.  At first I was nervous, you know, I have new friends, but birthday-celebrating friends are different than just any old friends. They have to know what kind of cake you like (versus which you think should be used to scrub kitchen counters); how many birthday drinks to buy you so that you have a great time and star in a few red-faced goofy photos, but not so many that they have to hold your hair back at the end of the night; they have to steer an evening toward activities you enjoy: dancing if you’re a bumper and shaker, bowling if you’re a gamesman, truth or dare if you’re the type to raise your eyebrows suggestively at people, halo if you’re a big nerd; they have to be willing to hold your hair back at the end of the night should it come to that; There are just so many things that people have to get right to pull of a successful birthday. And it says so much about the friends who get it exactly right.

Well, I don’t like to use by birthday to test people – I mean, I might if there was any outcome other than getting what I expected at best or ending up utterly disappointed at worst.  The only way to come out ahead might be if someone goes WAY above and beyond, but then I have to find something even BETTER for their birthday (or figure out when that person stopped being my friend and started trying to sleep with me).  So rather than wait and see how everyone does on a scale from 1 to BFF, I decided to skip all the expectations this year and throw my own party.

Might I recommend this strategy to everyone. I ended up at a bar having invited all the people I wanted to be there. (if you’re reading this and you live in seattle and you weren’t invited, DON’T take it personally. Mixing groups of friends often stresses me our to the point of hyperventilating. Sometimes when I know there’s going to be a very large group of people who all know each other, I don’t invite the few other people – not because I think they’re less important, not because I don’t think they can fend for themselves, but because I will spend the whole night making sure they’re having fun, everyone is nice to them, and they’re not not feeling obligated to stay because “birthday” was in the subject line.)

The bar was magical in that it had trivia AND happy hour AND karaoke.  It kinda felt just like being a kid again, only instead of charades, there was trivia; instead of a clown, there was the goofy trivia reader guy; instead of kids holding a bat and blindly swinging at a piñata just out of range, we held microphones and blindly swung at notes just out of out range; instead of musical chair we had music and people getting up to pee a lot; the server was like the mom making sure we didn’t run out of party favors aka happy hour, and there was even chocolate cake! (liquors mixed together in a shot glass, of course).

            The birthday was great. There are pictures next door on the photo album page to prove it – the captions give away most of tale. I know this is post is late, I was afraid that if I wrote it too close to the actual event I would talk about the pink see-through lace pompom thing that Jordan and Andy bought me (as a joke!) or the good sportsmanship with which Walter handled the dumpster incident, or Samir’s cozy artwork that is the first to adorn my walls, or the way Jason closes his eyes when he sings and looks like the god of music is trapped inside him straining to break free, or CJ’s perseverance in keeping a night alive if he thinks there is a single drop of fun left to be squeezed out. If I’d written last week, I woulda said all that, which is all good – but verging on sentimental. I’m glad I had all those beautiful thoughts, but waited long enough to keep them sacred to myself rather than broadcast them all over my blog.

When i was about five or six, i received a Nintendo for Christmas.

"Nin-ten-do." Said dad.

"What the hell is that?" I would've asked had I had the vocabulary.

Instead i cried. I cried and cried and cried and though i said not a word through my snot and slobber my parents understood exactly why i was upset. My biggest and best present under the tree, the one from which i had spent the last week peeling away indiscernible bits of wrapping paper to try and discover a clue; the box i had been holding my breath for and turning blue besides,  contained nothing other than another box, a big ugly gray plastic box thing. sure it had a couple of buttons on it, but i had a playskool tape deck with more buttons, and those at least were multi-colored.

"Nin-ten-do" my dad said again. Finally, he hooked it all up pressed a couple power buttons, and magic happened. Over the next couple of years Mario and Luigi became like two lovable uncles - the simple members of the family that "weren't born quite right" so everyone guides them around but they always have a dumb smile and a big heart, so we love them and protect them. The original Mario Brothers also featured turtle-duck things that had me confused about the second day of christmas for years ( two turtle ducks and a partridge in a pear tree...). I loved the little mushroom guys whose feet were the last part to disappear when they were jumped on by dumb-happy uncle Luigi. I LOVED climbing a bean stock up into the heavens where, unlike renegade jack and his giants, i'd get the gold just by running and jumping as fast as I could, and avoid all the icky sticky danger below besides. And then of course there was timing the jump off the stairs at the end of every level such that I could maximize the number of fire works. What exactly was so satisfying about that? Maybe we all need a few fire works to celebrate our accomplishments now at then.  I do. I can't remember the last time someone set fire works off for me. Although, someone DID bake me some fantastic ethnically accurate cookies, not too long ago. Apparently, if i were a cookie, i'd be a snickerdoodle. I don't have a problem with that.

But there was one thing i hated about my first gaming adventures. It wasn't the big dumb beasts that only required a well-timed jump to beat. It wasn't the cloud-lady that birthed miniature dinosaurs from her head (no, but really, who thought that made sense? who was that guy that thought that?) it wasn't even the levels that forced my little forest-gump-like Mario and Luigi to run in circles until they mastered the pattern of the level - though those were often the cause of my controller getting chucked at unsuspecting living room furniture.  The thing I truly hated, was “warping” a clever marketing ploy to disguise "cheating".  Years and years I spent working my way from 1-1 to 8-4 trying to save my princess (that was me, by the way. I couldn't identify with Luigi - few little girls can. The princess however...every time i blew out my birthday candles or drove in a tunnel or pulled out an eyelash or picked up a penny, i thought about being the princess. Does that mean that i was playing so hard, so frantically a-b-a-b-up-up-downing in metaphoric effort to save myself? Perhaps from the captors that would keep a girl locked up rather than run around adventuring? She sat there always in another castle, while mario and luigi and link and metroid and duke and mike tyson and tony hawk and all four teenage mutant ninja turtles and even packman discovered the world. Damn right i was gonna save the princess - and throw a few controllers at any unsuspecting living room furniture that got in my way! Luckily - along came Super Mario 2, and with it, I became the princess. You can count on one hand the total number of times i played with mario, luigi, and toad after that game came out).

But warping. It took out all the fun - it was a way to AVOID playing the game just to win it. It's like the honorary degrees Universities give to random people that didn't take a single note, fret over a single final, or taste a single morsel of cafeteria food. So what if you beat the game!? You skipped half the levels to do so. "Well, I've beat them before." you might argue. That's not the point. If I took frodo fresh out of the shire, with all the rosiness and health his homeland gave him and stuck him at entrance of Mordor - sure, he might save middleearth, but what a lame story. He should complete the last leg of the journey on exactly that - his last leg.

So i just turned 23. If level 1-1 was my first year on this earth, then that would put me at level 6-2 (i think that puts me somewhere underground or water - given the seattle weather – I’d guess the later). What if i had jumped down a tube in 4-2 in order to get here? Jumped down a tube at age 14 and shown up here with no hard work and sweat. Granted - i wouldn't have gotten dumped by Ben Bahney a week before homecoming, i wouldn't have broken up with Charlie Kashiwa because all of my friends teased me about his age; i wouldn't have spent two years with a crush on Karlin Schneider without ever telling him; i wouldn't have told Andy Halliday that i only dated skaters and then blown him off when he grew his hair out and bought a chain for his wallet; i wouldn't have wasted my freshman year of college locked in a computer lab; or drank so much that night of Sex Power God; or forgotten to change cs157 from pass/fail to graded; or lost John campbell - and maybe for all that i should've warped through it all. But what would else would i have missed? Being voted Homecoming Lady, passing a football with Dan Craig the high school  football quarter back and object of my affection, and having him say in passing "nice arm"; Spending lunch period riding with 8 girls packed in a car alongside 8 boys packed in a jeep, we singing backstreet boys, they U2; receiving decorated love letters for a month straight from a boy whose softer side was so big it could compete with the marshmallow man; Getting a marajana leaf put on the cover of the high school newspaper; eating weekly lunches with Willa, Annika, Ange and Laura in a public places to talk about love, life, and sex toys; reading comics during lunch with lance and throwing them on the floor as if i didn't know exactly how bad they were going to be; getting to say goodbye to john campbell.

I’m glad I did it my way. I woulda missed a lot, if i had warped. Forgoing all the rough and tough, all the learning and growing, the ugly, the emotional, the complicated , the spastic so i could end up here in this good place, certainly wouldn't have earned me very many fire works.

In providence there was strange crime. Those of you were there may remember the time we got the email from the Brown police and security telling us that two kids had been robbed of their bottle of vodka as they left a liquor store near campus. Who mugs someone for their vodka? It wasn't even Smirnoff ice!  And then a couple hours later we got another email from the Brown police and security telling us that some kid had been mugged and his wallet taken. Ahh, this is a mugging i can understand...But what are the juicy details? How was the kid mugged? He was hit on the back of the head with a vodka bottle.

And then of course there was the time east-side mini mart was held up. Not with guns, not with fingers in pockets that looked like guns, but with swords. The kids who did it were caught fleeing the scene when a police officer threw a stick in the wheel of the kids bicycle. The next day, there was a sign on the door of the minimart saying "No Shirt No Shoes No Service...No Ninjas"

And then of course there was the month-long manhunt for the guy that was going around campus grabbing girls' heads. He was literally putting his hand on top of their heads, squeezing, and running way. And he was getting hunted for 3rd degree sexual assault. I mean, i know our minds are our sexiest feature, right  boys (RIGHT BOYS??) but sexual assault? There were police sketches hung up around campus and everything.

Then there was the mayor. His name was Buddy Cianci (see-an-see)- known as "Buddy" to all. If that doesn't sound like the Tony Soprano of Rhode island then i must have been watching WB when i should've been watching HBO. Buddy had been in and out of jail throughout his mayoral career - not that it ever mattered, one of his reelections happend while he was in there. I know one of the major strikes against him was that he allegedly put a cigarette out in the eye of a man he thought was sleeping with his wife. And that brings me to his wife - if you didn't already feel like i was painting a picture of a cartoon town, a gotham city, all you have to do is say the name of Buddy Cianci's wife out loud: Nancy Anne Cianci.

So, i mean. i'm used to a little crime here and there, but it doesn't mean that i'm not vexed when someone takes a sharp object (a sword, perhaps?) and rips through the rubber on all four of the tires that were supposed to take Samir and I to CJs (whose four rubber tires were going to take us all snowboarding at Baker) It's mean, it's expensive, and NOBODY wins. At least when someone steals a wallet you can hope that the money was going for a loaf of bread for the guy's staving octuplets that his abusive, low-paying job leaves so hungry. I mean it's not, but you can hope. In the case of tire slashing - what hope is there? What possible good could have come from it? We tried to hypothesize that it was done with sharpened knitting needles by some disgruntled housewife whose husband drives a similar car. Maybe he beat her - maybe he cheated, like six times. Maybe she's feels better and then perhaps i would feel a little better. But not much. Because that story doesn't explain why the perpetrator also stole the radio antenna. Unless that same disgruntled housewife took it home and used it to stab that SOB. But that doesn't explain why she couldn't have reused the sharpened knitting needles. We thought maybe it wasn't one guy - but four - each positioned around the car, slashing implement in hand, gauging out the rubber with such precise power and timing they'd be worthy for a gold medal in synchronized slashing.  I suppose there's some beauty in that. But still doesn't explain the antenna. So with those stories falling apart, i just have to assume that someone took a knife (knives are scary) and laughed while they bled each tire, one at a time, while their friends looked on with some mixture of approval, fear, awe, and guilt.

Help take a bite out of crime. Ruff.

There is no rhyme or reason to this post. This is just a picture i like a lot and i believe it needs to be shared.  

In a perfect world, here is a picture of my good friend Kate trying to hide from the
paparazzi.  She realizes she's failed when a tiny little camera man (like 8 inches tall) jumps out of the beer sitting accross the table from her and snaps a photo before she can say "Oh my god! An 8 inch camera man!"

In Actuallity, this is kate having a beer, bought for her by our teacher on the last day of classes, wearing unjustified sunglasses in a cloudy Edinburgh, lent to her by a big jolly Scottish man. I, five-foot-seven-Leah-the-camera-woman, took the picture. I can't imagine what i must of done to make Kate look at me like that, but i wish i could figure it out so i could do it again.

Everyone's been telling me i'm too wordy lately. Angela told me not to listen to "Everyone" and that "Everyone" should stop complaining, or skim. However - i feel i can take a little constructive criticism. So i"ll stick in a few less-texty posts every now and then for those of you who are better at reading pretty pictures. Here are two pictures i stole off the spaces of my manager and my office mate. The cat belongs to Jasmine and the Kid belongs to Stacia. I've decided that a good indicator of compatible personalities is dressing your dependents the same way:

Dates. Pretty lame word for a very interesting noun/verb. Speaking of nouns and verbs, when i was home, i was talking to a freshman-in-high-school friend-of-the-family. He didn't know what a "noun" or a “verb” was, and in order to justify this fact (which he probably only realized needed justifying by the consistent way in which all of our jaws hit the table with a simultaneous "thud") he said "i know what an adjective is!" Given that "adjective" itself is a noun, he at least knows something about nouns, in that he knows one. This isn't to talk trash about this freshman-in-high-school friend-of-the-family, but there is definitely some eyebrow furrowing and finger shaking going on in the direction of Denver school system that let him reach his freshman-in-high-school status without learning what a noun or a verb is. 

So, “dates” from dictionary.com” and why I like (or don’t ike) them:

1.      Time stated in terms of the day, month, and year:

My favorite dates in this category are: 1/1, 1/10, 1/11, 10/1, 10/10, 10/11, 11/1, 11/10, 11/11” I leave it to you to figure out what they all have in common. I’ll also give you a hint in the form of my favorite nerd joke:

“There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who know binary, and those who don’t” 

2.      A specified day of a month.

My least favorite in this category is: “the twelfth” I shouldn’t feel physically exhausted after trying to say any word, but that one does it to me. It’s especially frustrating that I had to be born on said (or unsaid) date. Luckily, I can say “January” just fine (wink wink).

My favorites are the 15th and the 30th. These are days in which my bank account has its growth spurts, which I mark in my kitchen by lining my bank statements up the wall and making a mark with a pencil and a yard stick. I also have a ‘versary on the 15th. Is it unhealthy to measure the length of one’s relationship in terms of paydays?

3.      A particular point or period of time at which something happened or existed, or is expected to happen.

I really like this date as it refers to styles in music in fashion. I can say “Music of the early 90s” and already I know there’s a soundtrack involving brian adams, the heights, and the cranberries playing in your head (in your head: zombie, zombie zombie –ya-ie-ya-ie-ya!). Or watch this: Mid-80s! You’re thinking about leggings and GnR, aren’t you? I knew it!

I also like that in the musical “Hedwig and the angry Inch”* Hedwig often refers to his age like this: “Once, in my early-late twenties”

*this is a movie you all must see if you have a taste for heart wrenching, mind-opening, slightly life changing and musically rewarding experiences.

4.  The years of someone's birth and death: Beethoven's dates were 1770 to 1827.

On a gravestone in Scotland, Justin Swartzman and Kate Swanson and I found the following Engraving “so-and-so; 17**-18** ; Erected by his loving widow.” Come on, that’s funny. .

5. The time during which something lasts; duration.

My favorite duration is 3:24  - the exact time it takes to pop a perfect bag of popcorn on my Denver-based microwave. And it looks like something that could have come from the bible – that’s how divine it is. A less fun duration is 32:44 (when the 4 is sticky) because it is WAY more time than one needs to set a bag of popcorn on fire in any microwave anywhere. Trust me, I’ve tried. Three times. 

6. An appointment: a luncheon date with a client; a date with destiny. See Synonyms at engagement.

 “Dates” are synonymous with “engagements”? Um…AHHH! Solitary Friday nights, here I come! 

7.      An engagement to go out socially with another person, often out of romantic interest.

I think it’s the “often” in that definition that gets a lot of people in to trouble.

8.  One's companion on such an outing.

Given these two definitions it’s possible for you to “date your date.”  See definition 10 & 11 for why that’s funny. 

9. To mark or supply with a date: date a letter.

On the refrigerator in the C.I.T at Brown. There was sign asking for trouble:

“Please label and date your food.” Someone stuck a carrot (^) in between “date” and “your” and wrote “but what if my sandwich just wants to be friends?” That sign always made me stick out my bottom lip in sympathy. However, given the “often” in definition 6 above, apparently it’s possible for that guy to date his sandwich anyway.

10. To determine the date of: date a fossil.

11. The sweet, edible, oblong or oval fruit of the date palm, containing a narrow, hard seed.

So, given the two definitions above, if you had a sweet edible oblong or oval fruit of the date palm that you wanted to know the age of, you’d have to “date your date”. See definition 7&8 for why that’s funny.  

12. To betray the age of: Pictures of old cars date the book.

My dad likes to reminisce about the days of computer programming with punch cards. I’m glad he’s willing to date himself, cause no one else would. (just kidding parents, love you guys!)

I think it was the commercial jet that killed Christmas. I shouldn't say killed - Christmas is still alive and well, evident by the prolific SALE! signs, the wrapping stations (boom chica boom chica boom boom) and the deforestation of the evergreens, specifically of the oh-honey-look-at-that-one-wouldn't-it-look-great-in-our-living-room-? variety. But commercial jets certainly changed Christmas - the kind of serious plastic surgery that even your rich uncle wouldn't get for his hunny-bunny twenty-something prize wife whose perfect now but who knows what will happen when time starts to tug at her. 

I'm no linguistical expert,  but I bet at one time Christmas had something to do with Christ. Christ didn't come up once today in all my celebration. (that's not entirely true - my (jewish) dad asked me if I knew why sausage wasn't kosher. "No, tell me, why isn't sausage kosher, dad?" Straight-faced he says, "Because it's Jesus backward: susej." Oh dad. Funny, though it bothered me that it still wasn't a good explanation of why jesus backwards wouldn't be kosher. Driving home tonight i decided that christians are the one's that eat the body of jesus, and there's nothing more not-kosher than being christian. Also last night i pulled out my phone at the christmas eve dinner table to text message someone - i got a few glares but they let me off the hook when i told them i was just sending Jesus a quick 'Happy Birthday') No, there's very little Christ in my Christmas. But you know what there is? Mas. Mass. Lots and lots of people. People i went to high school which whom i haven't seen in years (and a few i see whenever i'm in town.  And ever since the commercial airliner started helping offspring escape the tyrannical grips of their parents, or their social class, or the rural tedium in which they were raised - something had to take on the role of reuniting loved ones, and christmas stepped up to the plate. (especially evident in the fact that all of my jewish friends, one atheist friend, and one Muslim friend all went home for christmas too - which just reaffirms that you can look everywhere, even under the christmas bed or in the christmas closet, you won't find Christ hiding anywhere)

On friday, christmas Eve, i went skiing (i, of course, was snowboarding, but when you're with seven skiers, and thus on the moguls all day, you're skiing) with seven kids that i graduated with. It was great - the lift ride offers just enough time to give one another a quick rundown about what our lives look like right now - and just as we're running out of stuff to say, it boots us off and sends us flying down the mountain. And we did fly. We flew. The Because most people were at home wrapping and digesting and praying, no wait, no praying--we basically had the mountain to ourselves. There were so many of us going down the same run at just about the same speed -  like rain on a car window you know? just crisscrossing in and out of each other's paths. But that's us on the mountain and us in life. Everyone moving in whatever direction at just about at the same speed, but we keep reuniting every so often - to expertly dance the "hello how are you how are your parents your roommate your girlfriend oh i'm sorry to hear that have a drink give me a hug and a kiss on the cheek here's my email see you next year" dance.

"How long will this keep happening, us all coming together?" someone asked at a bar last tuesday, when the reuniting began. Until our parents move away? Until we have families of our own? Until some other technological advance once again changes the face of Christmas? I shrugged, "Five years?" Or maybe someone else said it, but the sound of it triggered a panic in my chest. I like these people. These are my people, my tribe.  Reaffirmed by incidences like these: Allegra and I  haven’t' seen each other for six months (she's been teaching english in france) and within about twelve seconds we were trying to calculate when, if ever, a plane that leaves from denver at 4 pm, stopping in Dallas for a two hour lay over and then heading off to Paris on New Year's Eve will actually ever be in a time zone when it's midnight. Someone poured us drinks before we ever figured it out.

Last night i was reunited with about 20 other people from high school. The key here is that it was last night. It was christmas. We'd all done the family thing, we'd opened our presents (presents, Kyle, presents) and were all free to hit the bars. Tom was drinking beer by the funnel-full, jake was wiping the sweat from his forehead as he stared down the row of shots set before him. Taylor, recently divorced (after marrying a woman he'd met the day before in Vegas) put away his Georgetown law books to pick up a pool cue; Bahney came from LA where he's Master-ing the art of International Relations (bow chica bowow) to line up shots before Jake; The list goes on...everyone took a break from what they were doing (aaron back is teaching english in Taiwan, Dan KP is Dan KP which needs no further explanation if you know him*; Alex SR is teaching in Texas--big task; they have a lot to learn) to come hang out on Christmas.

I don't think this is what the good ole christian church intended when they set up this whole Christmas thing, but it's a happy metamorphosis. It was lovely to see all my friends and family. It was lovely to give presents and to get them. The snowboarding rocked my little leah-world, and mom, your cooking is as good as always. Oh, and Jesus, whoever you are -- man, god, myth, or just a lonely mixed-up backwards susej - I hope you had a very merry birthday.

*If you don't, he's a writer and editor for Foreign Affairs Magazine in NY AND he knows Jonathan Safran Foer.

Statistics in MSN Spaces: they're found underneath "settings" on each person's space. The statistics tells the owner how many people have viewed the space in the last hour, day, week, and ever. For each hit, the statistics page shows what part of the space the person was looking at and the site from which they came.  This last part is the statistic too which i'm addicted. (say that last phrase out loud and see if YOU don't burst out into song).  When someone googles something, and ends up clicking on a link to my site from the google results page, MY statistics page tells me what they were googling* in order to find me.  These have provided me with such entertainment, i feel obligated to share them with you. Here they are, in no particular order

"Leah Pearlman Naked" - I take this to mean that someone remembered that i had the word "naked" somewhere in my blog title but couldn't remember the whole thing. "sure leah, someone looked up 'leah pearlman naked' in search of your nerdy online journal."  But see, i have to tell myself that, because the other options are that someone was after a different Leah Pearlman, in which case they're totally uninteresting to me, or they were actually looking for "leah pearlman naked" in which case someone out there who knows me well enough to know there's an 'h' in my first name and an 'a' in my last actually thinks i might have naked pictures of myself up on the web - everyone knows i only put naked pictures of myself on billboards. (before you get to the bottom - i'll just tell you now that i have not uploaded any pictures in association with this entry)

“Naked Anger” How very poetic. I don’t know what clothed anger would be, but I imagine it would involve a leather jacket and a big*ss belt buckle. And maybe even fishnet tights.

"How to imagine someone naked" - I feel terrible that someone signed on, opened up Google and began a search just looking for a little help on something, and rather than find what they were after (if you're out there still, what WERE you after!?) they ended up at my site instead which, until, offered no such instruction on this topic.  To prevent against any further tragedies of this kind, I am now inserting (choice of words: unintentional) a step-by-step How To Imagine Someone Naked guide my blog.

   Step 1. Remove yourself from a standing position.

    Step 2. Close your eyes. (but actually open one slightly so you can make sure no one’s watching and laughing.)

    Step 3. Get into your head the image of the person who is the subject of your query.  Only imagine their face, if you include the rest of their body then you will include clothes, and clothes are what we're trying to avoid.

   Step 4. Think about the body of someone you've seen naked, it can be an ex, a relative, Ron Jeremy, even your own worthless reflection. My only recommendation is that whatever naked body you pick should at least come from the same Phylum as the object of your affection. Studies have shown that pornographic websites featuring the heads of women on the bodies of naked reptiles, birds, or fish have very slow traffic – no matter how fit the animals in question may be.

   Step 5. Overlay the conjured images from steps 3 and 4.

   Step 6.  Enjoy!

I hope this proves helpful to whoever it is that needs a website to tell them how to imagine women naked. I don’t want anyone to grow discouraged on their search for information. Knowledge is power, my friends. 

 “Susannah Raub” – how about that, sue – someone is googling you – which is appropriate considering you are Google-ing everyone.** 

"Naked Pictures Girl Blog” – ok, it just occurred to me (yeah, just) that by including this list might actually increase the number of hits I get from people searching for pornographic material. I suppose that can be considered a bad thing – but just think of that one adolescent boy who thinks about naked women all the time, but is too young to buy pornography so he browses the web in search of satisfying his dirty sinful urges (the lord will strike you down, son!) and instead stumbles upon MY site and develops a love for reading – helping him forever stave off his physical needs and desire and to lead a life of purity and chastity.

Oh, but as for this particular search item – I like to see that someone is looking for naked women on blogs, it makes me feel like someone wants to get to know something about the women they want to see naked. That shows real maturity.

“Naked Girl Apartment” Honey, you’ll have to ask your real estate agent for this one.

Thank you Google for sending people to my site. Thank you Susan for insisting that I keep the word “Naked” in my title. and thank you Matt Chidley – not for showing off to me your expansive collection of synonyms for the word “Fat”, not for telling everyone you hate my hair but telling me it’s not SO bad, but for encouraging me to use spell check in my blog. JUST because I’m IMAGINing EVERYONE reading this IS NAKED in order to overcome my Page-Fright, doesn’t mean I can also imagine them to be forgiving about sloppy writing.

________________________

*I'm not trying to be a Google elitist, believe it or not NO one has found my site through any search engine but Google - either that, or the other search engines have found a way to mask the information from me.

** A reference to the fact that she works at Google.

Flew in to denver Friday night at 8 pm, which gave me precisely ten hours to adjust to the altitude before heading up to the mountains for a long and happy day of snowboarding. That's the summary. Here's the long version:

Last night i arrived home*. As soon as i stepped off the airplane, i was happy - not that i had been sad before, but i was new happy, like clicking refresh on your webmail and finding out you have new mail - across the way was a gift shop filled with overpriced merchandise all branded with the word "Colorado" a word that makes me go mmmm. The orange and blue is always instantly comforting (there's a guy who works in MSN, everyday he wears a broncos hat if not a sweatshirt too, and i smile every time). Then i waited at the baggage claim to pick up my snowboard. My snowboard. My parents bought for me - used - when i was thirteen. As you know, i was a green-haired stoner-skater then, so i headed straight to the stoner-skater part of town to shop in all those emo funky record stores on which Hot Topic is based. There i loaded up with goofy stickers (one says "Fly Girls" in red and yellow, another says "Burton" in pink and silver) and plastered them all over my board. Then i rode it for nine years. It's bumped it's bruised, it's scratched it's worn, it's still covered in the cheesy decorations of a difficult teenage girl and i love it like i'd love a ratty disintegrating childhood doll if i had had one. I'd probably sleep with my arms wrapped around it if not for "ow." I've never owned a snowboard bag because i've never ridden outside of Colorado. So when i got to SEA-TAC international, i had no choice but to wrap it up in clear plastic and cover it in packaging tape before sticking it down below.

  So when I got back to Denver - there i stood, waiting for my board. Fancy ski bag after fancy ski bag slid down the baggage carousel (can it be called a carousel if there aren't horses or creepy music?) waiting for my plastic wrapped baby. And then there it was. I proudly walked up and took it like a carefree drunk man taking a swig out of his brown bag while people lift their pinkies high off their champagne glasses in order to point at him in disgust. Just kidding, i don't think the people cared that they had nylon and i had saran wrap. I personally thought it made me look a little more hardcore (although a ten-year-old board and the unwillingness to take care of it by putting in a bag kind of shows a disregard for snowboarding) so perhaps they thought so too.

Then i went home and went to bed. At 5:30am, i dragged myself up in the dark. Too tired to turn on the light, i stumbled around the room in the dark trying to avoid large objects while i collected my gear. I slung my board over my shoulder, picked up my boots and headed towards Emily's house. I had also been too tired to put in my contacts yet (and i figured i might sleep a little on the way up to the mountain - emily was driving) so i stumbled my way through the streets of Denver, once again trying to avoid large objects. I arrived at Emily’s. No answer at the door. She overslept. She's hurrying. Hurry, Emily, Hurry!  The traffic.

Eventually we get to the mountain. Lifts are just opening, I'm bundled enough to make the Michelin man proud (later i rode up the lift with a man who told me "There's no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing.") and we get our day started. There's not much i can say about the day without sounding like i'm trying to make everyone who doesn't ski the rockies jealous, you know, sun, powder, long long runs, and all that. And that's basically what the day was - a perfect day on the slopes - so normally perfect that there no imperfects to disclose - no story to tell. Although, thanks to CJ resetting my bindings, i was able to ride fakey better than i ever have in my life (which is necessary for the following). At the bottom of a lovely blue-black, the only way to get back to the main lift is to cross underneath the slightly slanted bunny slope where all the youngins are learning to ride. Every time we hit that, i practiced spinning. Literally just sticking my arms straight out and spinning in circles all the way down the hill. Besides being fun and dizzying, out of the corner of my eye i could see all the parents pointing me out to their kids. I'm never going to be a good enough boarder to see fellow riders hang their jaw in awe, so i might as well go where i can be appreciated. On the way home i told emily that the kids were my favorite part of learning to spin, and she said that's what she'd liked best about skiing backwards. People and affirmation - it's a funny thing.

Today i'm banged and bruised and scratched and worn. I rode hard. Tom, another friend who had met us there, kept taking us down this awesome run. Awesome except that it contained one stretch of super steep bumps - the big deep bumps, the kind where the grooves in between are so deep you could curl up inside for a nap and no one would ever see you. I like blacks, i like moguls, but i do not like super steep (unless we're talking "savings"). First i tried desperately to get through it the "right" way, with turns and stuff, but eventually i just fell on my butt and slid all the way down it. When i was comfortably seated at the bottom of that portion, and looked back up at everyone else sidestepping their way down, I realized my accidental solution was the right one. Every time we hit that section for the rest of the day i just sat Dow and slid, yelling things like "woo hoo!" I think a few exposed rocks that jumped up and bit my arms and legs and butt were what left me so tattered today.

Last night my parents watched Ali G with me. They both laughed so hard they cried. It means a lot to me to have parents i can watch Ali G with.

*Later last night i drove home from a night out with friends. Halfway through the drive, a song by The Killers came on the radio and i was instantly filled with a sense of nostalgia -i felt transported to a commute along the 5-20 bridge watching the water on the left behave one way, and the water on the right behave some other way, and feel the joy that comes when stop-and-go traffic finally becomes go traffic. If i can be nostalgic for the 520 commute, then i must be able to feel nostalgia for everything in Seattle. I missed being home - my seattle home. After all i posted about last week, i feel "like a bit of a hypocroalist." Maybe i just have to get used to the idea that both places are home and i had to be away from them to see that. I drove the rest of the way home singing really loudly.  

Three months ago, one of the first questions Jas-"oh, office mate of"-mine asked me was "So, what music do you listen to?"

This question has plagued me since the fifth grade when my very best friend, Emily, asked our entire class to "raise your hand if you listen to KS104."  Many people in the class raised their hands high and I did too - knowing full well I was full of sh*t. KS104 was the cool-inner-city-kid station playing such great hits as "Never Gonna Get it" by En Vogue, "Motownphilly" by Boys II Men, and of course the infamous "Baby Got Back" by sir-mix-a-lot (who probably should've gone with a name like "Sir-Mix-a-little" considering the way his career went). I didn't listen to KS104 - I only know it played those things at that time because immediately following Emily's class-wide poll I went home and programmed every radio station in the house and car to 104.3 and engaged myself in a strict regiment of self-socialficaiton (the process by which one makes themselves socially acceptable). I was a little sad to put Les Miserable and "Chess - the musical" up on the shelf - but I knew it was a necessary step to maintaining my status as one of the cool kids.

I should note here that when I told Emily about this incident a couple of years ago, she had no recollection of the poll, or of ever having listened to KS104 - however, she does admit that it's quite possible someone had told her it was the music of the popular and she conducted the poll anyway.

In seventh grade I became a punk skateboarder kid. The change happened overnight - one day I was a good kid in leggings and rolled socks, and the next day my head was half-shaved, my hair was green, and my feet (which had been clad in keds, but now Vans) had been swallowed by the expansive circumference of my denim pant legs. I was almost a new person except for one lingering artifact - I still listened to KS104.  All the cool kids were now listening to KPBI the Rock of the Rockies. It was hard for me to trade in Janet Jackson and Arrested Development for the likes of Soundgarden and Nine Inch Nails - but if there was anyone skilled at completely changing their entire taste in music because someone said they should - it was me. I made that swap after a conversation during a slumber party late one night at Meghan Tappan's house. It was well after midnight, and we'd snuck into her brother Devin's room. I had a huge crush on Devin. We were listening to Nirvana (which I only knew because someone said "I F*cking love Nirvana"). Later, the conversation died down, and I started listening to the lyrics "I'm half the man I used to be" the man sang...trying to impress Devin, I said "How can Kurt Cobain be half the man he used to be - he's perfect now - there's no such thing as double perfect." Everyone burst out laughing and my twelve-year-old cheeks burned. Combined with my green hair I must have looked pretty Merry Christmas.  At some point, someone had switched the CD to Pearl Jam (see Tibet's comment...they're probably laughing at me all over again)  and I hadn't noticed. Not noticing is ok - but not knowing the difference between the two was a cardinal sin. I went home the next day and reset every radio station in my house. KPBI - here I come.

I should note here that not long after i made the switch. Meghan told me after school that Devin wanted to ask me out, and would i say yes. "Boy, would I!"...i mean, uh..."Sure, whatever, man." So next time you're trying to get someone's attention, try changing yourself to impress them - it works brilliantly ;-)

Ever since, I've never been remotely loyal to music. Don't get me wrong - I have my favorites - but I have never made an effort to make much of an investment in a band because deep down I know that with enough peer pressure, I’ll jump ship. For example - The Offspring has been "my favorite" band since my senior year in high school (they were in a close second to Nirvana in middle school too - no pun indented - but when I got to high school we were supposed to listen to "talented artists" like Dave Matthews and Radio Head. So I kind of left the offspring alone for a while) yet I don't know the names of the band members, how many there are, or the names of almost any songs. I just know I like the way they make me drive faster down the highway)

This brings us back to the present - well, three months ago present, when Jasmine asked me what kind of music I like. I think I might have skirted the answer or let something about Brittney Spears slip - but she jumped on that. Prepared to save me, yet again from musical social suicide, she made me a mix of Seattle's favorite Indie-rock bands and I listened to it over and over, day after day, until I could tell the killers from the shins from the ya-yas from Franz Ferdinand from that bashful Mouse we call Modest.  I tuned the radio in my apartment and in my car to KEXP (as instructed) and I borrowed several of those band's CDs. Once again - I was in training. My final was last Thursday when I attended The Deck the Hall Ball - a concert whose bill almost matched the index of My First Indie Rock mix (except with all the girl-groups missing).  I passed with flying colors! I knew almost every song at the show - well enough to sing along - to dance along - to actually comment on which were my favorites and which were my least - not just relative to one another, but relative to their recorded stuff. 

See, the thing is, every time I make one of these massive overhauls, I end up actually liking the music my peers have forced on to me. I didn't decorate my bedroom with kurt cobain's giant head to impress devin - I actually got butterflies when I listened to Kurt alone in my room late. He had me at "hello." ("hello, hello, hello, hello.") I still listen to Radio Head on a semi-regular basis - and if you get a few drinks in me - i'll sing every line of Baby Got Back like it was my very own one-hit-wonder. (36-23-36? Only if she's 5'3" eer-eh-eer-eh). Does this mean I have no taste? Does this mean all music is good? Does this mean people are attracted to the familiar? I don't think that's it - because if I hear one more freaking christmas carol in one more non-christmas related location i'll take out that nine-iron...they were playing christmas music at the proclub today. How the hell is a person supposed to break a sweat to "Silent Night, Oh Holy Night?" I wanted to take a nap right there next to the treadmill. 

Why do we judge people by the music they listen to - where do taste in music and personel character intersect?   Can i still be your friend if you find the Backstreet Boys in my CD case? (not the big case that sits at home, but the little one i carry around with me?) "And if the answer is no, can I change your mind?" - My new favorite band, The Killers.

In an conversation yesterday, i yelled "This is not my world!" I meant Seattle when i said it, but it got me thinking, if this isn't my world, what is?

Is a world geographic? Brown was my world - but not all of it. The CIT was certainly my world but the theater department was a scary scary place. Thayer street was my world, i could tell any visiter where to go to buy kneehigh stockings, how to get to the nearest donkey, and how much the cheepest piece of pizza costs; but putting one foot off the hill might as well have been walking through the wardrobe into Narnia. Denver is certainly my world - but i've never really spent time there as a 21 year old. Don't ask me where to go to have a good time or i'll probably suggest the ally where i tried my first cigarette, the parks where the copper choppers can't find you, or the bowling ally. Scottland was home less than a week after i got there. But can you call a place home when any local can point at you from a mile (kilometer) down the road and shout AMERICAN!?

So then i thought maybe it's about people. I have made friends here. (and you know it's a big deal when seattle names make their very first appearance in my blog) CJ and I discussed not having enough chill time LATELY, emphasis on the lately. People can't start assessing a quality (quantity?) decline in their friendship if they don't have a friendship. Samir will listen through any hysterical rant (for example, say one were to take a night off from work and play in the name of relaxing, and then have a hysterical fit about not having accomplished anything. Just for example) with mostly a sympithetic ear while keeping friendly sarcastic jabs to a minimum. Susan and i have knit together which gives our friendship a dimension that's not cs15.  Walter has finally seen my apartment and taught me what empathetic means, and Jason doesn't mind talking to me when there are half naked women dancing on our table- i could barely concentrate on our conversation - if that's not friendship, i don't know what is.

So why isn't this my world? Why would i say something like that? Is it because i don't have a dentist yet? Is it because i know that number 1 on my car radio is pop, number 2 is hipster, number 4 is howard, number 5 is NPR, but i don't actually know what what the station number is? If i were stranded in a rental car i wouldn't even know where to start. Is it because i still cheer for the broncos, and have even become a distant nuggets fan? Maybe it's because I don't know how to get to highway 90, or i only know one place to get a good breakfast but don't know a second place to go if the lines at the first one are too long. Is it because i dont' feel anything when i look at a washington liscence plate? Or maybe it's because i scoff at the silly state that is STILL recounting ballots until i remember that's my state, that's my candidate that lost by 24 votes. When i'm in the Seattle airport i look at the screens for flights leaving to denver and i stroll by them to see if there's anyone i know, maybe that's keeping me from feeling at home. I have never laughed until my stomache hurt here - maybe then i'll feel like i'm at home. I was with shannon and Emily for less than two hours before we were all laughing so hard we were doing that silent laugh thing and crying (emily stole shan's phone and reprogrammed her name to say "Jesus" later in the night emily snuck into the kitchen with her own phone and called. Shannon's phone rang and when she looked at it, she looked shocked. "JESUS! JESUS is calling me!?" My favorite part was that she didn't answer it) But that's not because things aren't funny. Jordan and i had a ten minute conversation about how practical/impractical it would be to have velcro attached to your trachea. I was laughing inside, but i haven't found a way to let it out - is it the seattle air? does the denver elevation make me lightheaded? Or maybe i haven't been drinking enough. I can tell you, it's been a damn long time since i've had a 40 on a friday. I hope that's not the problem.

I dont' know what it will take. I don't know what's wrong. I'm not at all ready to say that Seattle and I aren't meant for each other - in fact, right now i'm pretty convinced we'll be a great fit. I feel like i'm standing outside a Window with my nose pressed up against the glass of the Seattle Store. Everyone inside is having a great time, and every now and then they try to usher me in, but i get kinda shy and just shake my head all embarrassed and look at my feet. I am so thrilled by the people i've met here, my apartment, the city, the views to and from work, the mist, the fact that it doesn't smell like fish nearly as much as i thought it would, the political leanings, the cleanliness of the bus, the color of the yarn store, the ability to order egg beaters almost anywhere, the self sufficent nature of my job and the laptop case i found with an over the shoulder strap AND backback straps. I love having two NPR stations (on one of them yesterday i heard about a super libral church in which the minister gave fake sermon about how the government was legally merging Christmas and Channukah - the theme song of the new holiday would be "Oy vey, all ye gentlemen.") I love walking to my friend's apartments and being able to get anywhere as long as i can see the space needle. That all sounds promising, right?

Sorry for such a serious post. It's just, with John and Sue coming this weekend, i feel like i am going home, and for that I am excited.  

Before i tell you the funny story i heard on NPR this morning, i should give you an accurate picture what morning is in the land of leah:

The art of alarm clock. I abide by the generic alarm clock laundry list for the most part -- wakeup time set for A.M.? Is the volume up? Is the damn thing on?  But then I have a few amendments to the alarm clock constitution:

1. Is the off button out of my reach (i define "out of reach" to mean "cannot reach while ANY part of my body remains in contact with my bed." Feel free to envision the very tips of my toes clinging to the edge of my bed, one arm on the floor, and the other reaching outwards toward my alarm clock to test this clause. Feel free to also envision the rug burns i received after finding no other way out of this position than "release")?

2. Is the time set far enough ahead that when i do oversleep i can move from "frantic" to "hurried" with the pleasant realization that i was smart enough to set my clock forward?

3. Have i set my alarm early enough to allow for at least three snooze sessions of nine minutes each? (but in the back of my head i MUST know i actually mean four) plus the time it takes me to get from my bed to the alarm clock that i have placed out of my reach for each of the three (but really four) times that i snooze. Because i know the exact amount of time by which i've set my clock forward, i'm welcome to subtract that when setting the alarm - i certainly don't want to wake up any sooner than i have to. pshh.

The Art of Breakfast: open fridge, open single-serving yogurt. Stuff a few cardboard flakes into yogurt and mix - no time for dishes, people. Consume while elevator takes a two eternities to come collect me and my, by then, empty yogurt container.

The Art of Radio: Always start by listening to cool hipster radio and wait for the "who am i trying to impress?" question to pop into my head, and then switch over to a quality pop station. This stage never lasts more than 3 minutes because quality pop stations don't play music in the morning, they just have DJs that say "Shit, girl! You nasty, stop callin in here" and "Aight Aight Aight Dawg, hit us up wit some traffic." Next i switch to Howard Stern (for those seatellites out there, this usually takes place right around montlake) which any graduate from a liberal-with-a-capital-LGBTA univeristy should listen to in the interest of an occasional reality check. Howard can sometimes take me all the way in to work. I'll only make a switch in the case of a commercial break, which are all about 20 minutes long, no joke; more than one of the following guests: someone with mental disabilities, a drunk, or a stutterer. One i can handle, more than that makes me feel like a bad person and also it's just hard to understand; or if howard starts throwing slices of meat at naked women - that would strictly be after lunch kind of programming for me. So if i leave Howard - where else is there to go? I'll give you a hint, it's not Local Private Lame-io (goodwin - tell me how long it takes you to get that one)

Now - to the point of this post. The story i heard was that a particular Australian Wireless Provider is offering a new feature built and designed for Susannah Raub (yah! they said that in the report! Ok, no, they didn't. You'll have to see one of my old posts from like, May for why i make this joke) in which users can blacklist certain phone numbers in their phone before they go out for a night of drinking. Once the number is blacklisted, users cannot dial that number until some specified amount of time. The feature was designed (as the adorable sounding Australian spokesman put it) after a rowdy discussion in a pub. It's purpose: to save its users a little face the morning after. According to a pole they did on a website - 60% of the users say they often call people they don't really want to when they are drunk. 30% said they specifically called ex's and some other large % call just about everyone they haven't talked to in a while.  How funny is that? Almost as funny as what i saw on some evening news recently that said Martha Stewart got in trouble in jail for smuggling in real butter and flower and eggs.

I don't care how many 2nd grade level questions your porn star can't answer, Howard - NPR got you beat.

Ok, look, I've received enough e-mail that I realize this issue must be addressed further.  I thought i laced my previous post with enough light-hearted humor that you guys would understand that i wasn't being serious. I mean, come on, i'm a blackbelt - why would i take up golf in order to be threatening? Look, i know you have problems with Microsoft, i do too. There is nothing that makes me more blue than a screen of the same color (especially since i run Windows 98 on my home computer) and there is no parenthetical word couple i prefer less than "(Not Responding)". All i'm trying to say is go easy on me. Or don't - but at least be clever about it. Clever is almost always forgivable in my book. And i didn't mean to pick on Mac Users - just because you only have on button does not make you inferrior.  

Disclaimer: If you think this post might apply to you, you're probably right. With the exception of Ginger, my Parents, and my nephew, Correy "I want to be 5 now, I’m tired of being 4 and 5/12s" pearlman, this post applies to everyone i know. So please don't take it personally.

IF ONE MORE PERSON ASKS ME HOW I LIKE "WORKING FOR THE EVIL EMPIRE", I will take up golf just so i can have a nine-iron with which to hit the offender in the head. And s/he won't get a useful warning, like "FOUR". No, you'll just get smacked upside the head and left sitting in a gutter looking at all the pretty stars - if I didn't hit you hard enough you might have the reasoning capacity left to wonder why there are stars in the middle of the day and how you got so close to them and ow, why does your head hurt.

Ok, let's talk about this people. Do you go up to someone "Hey! How's your evil mother?" Now, I’m not trying to compare my company to my mother (especially since MY mother and computers don't belong in the same dictionary let alone sentence), so perhaps it's more like "you go to what college? Oh my god, that school F*cking sucks. Did you not get in anywhere else? Does a parent work there?" We're talking about a personal part of my life, a decision I’ve made for various reasons for the time being and applying words like "evil" to something i dedicate 50 hours a week to cold-hearted. Which reminds me of a little ditty from the break away blockbuster, bring it on:

"brrr, it's getting cold in here
there must be some Mac-users in the atmosphere"

Maybe those weren't the exact words - but come one, i saw it a couple years ago.

Beyond generally rules of social interaction, why "evil"? That word leaves absolutely NO room for negotiation. Are you THAT hooked on alliteration, people? If so, i have a number of tongue twisters about woodchucks i can refer you to in order to satisfy your fix. Believe it or not, Microsoft actually does a number of very handy little things. I KNOW you all love PowerPoint, because what is there not to love? You love using it, you love teachers who use it, you love the big font the animation and the pretty pictures and there's no denying it. Outlook is freakin’ awesome. I can send out an email with cute little voting buttons and get responses about who is "totally coming" to my Buffy Watching Parties, and who is a "big loser" - and just like that too because i can make the voting buttons say anything i want. And Messenger - i don't want to even get in to how much better it is than AIM - but for starters, you can make your own emoticons. Every time i type "Buffy" in a conversation window the word turns into a picture of Buffy.

The reason a lot of people have trouble with Microsoft, is that you spend either too much time with it - so problems are bound to arise - like too much time trapped in a car with your family driving across the country to see even more family and the knowledge that you're actually going to have to drive BACK with these people - it doesn't mean you should stop loving them. OR, you don't spend enough, so all the things you "wish it could do for me" it actually does. You're just not taking the time to learn it. Like ctrl + Z - my dad didn't know about that. How he lives? I don't know.

Ok. I think that's the end of my rant. I suppose I’ll have more to say about it after someone thinks it's funny to test me and my trusty 9-iron.

With so much Love - Leah :-)

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Before "Spaces" there was "Blogger" - and with that, did i bare my soul.