The shiny newness has worn off, and I've reached the 'goddammit do I have to keep going every day??' point. There are definitely positive aspects of the job, including two days off each week.... I got my paycheck last week. Er, it was tiny. I know my prior job paid okay at the time I left, but daang. Jobs suck.

Tonight I am going swimmin. Swimmin feels good after a long day at work. Also on Thursday. At some point I need to groom my eyebrow, because my neanderthal roots are showing. Ah we are descendants of the hairy ape. *muses*

I am reading a book called Women and Desire: Beyond Wanting to be Wanted. It is out of print so I got it through inter-library loan. It is a psychology book, and although I don't dig how the book is organized, or maybe I don't grok how it's organized despite there being a TOC, it is interesting. It isn't all about sex, though there are some parts of it about sex. It's about how wanting to be wanted (by men, children, spouses, employers, etc) prevents women from figuring out what they want and becoming fully-realized adults. Er, it speaks to my experience pretty well. I'm a bit skeptical of some of the author's reasoning - she's a Jungian (Jungist?) and I'm not sure I wholly buy the archetype thing. I'm still on the fence about archetypes. I do recognize they can be a useful tool, but sometimes a chalice is just a something to drink out of, you know?

I have to toddle off to work now. *curses*

I haven't watched the movie Speed since college, but I watched it tonight. That is one highly entertaining movie, I must say. Allen's favorite quote from the movie: "Man, you're not too bright, but you have a pair of big, round, hairy cojones." TMI, if you ask me.

Passing this on:

naamah_darling writes: The Bush administration officially proposes conscience rule for doctors who don't want to do their fucking jobs.

She has several helpful links in her entry, to the text of the proposal, to Planned Parenthood, and to NARAL. It makes letter-writing easy.

I hope everyone on my friends list knows how important abortion rights are, and how important access to abortions is for "abortion rights" to mean anything. If you don't, I'd be happy to have a respectful, private discussion about it with you wherein you can help me understand your position. I really do want to understand.

I am feeling wrecked.

I think the fact that I have watched the following films in the past two days has contributed to my current state:

-The Way We Were
-P.S. I Love You

Holy fucking Christ, people. I cannot stop weeping.

A very strange thing happened to me this past week. Now, a person can go years without seeing a movie with a midget in it, right? I rented five films from Netflix this past week, and the same little person appeared in three of those five films. Three. In one week. And I had no idea before-hand. Don't you think that's strange? What is the universe telling me?

Peter Dinklage:

-In Bruges
-Penelope
-Death at a Funeral

WHAT IS GOING ON?

We went camping over the weekend. We stayed at Honeyman State Park on the coast. This is West of Eugene, and there are two miles of sand dunes between the campsite and the coast. The campsite has several lakes, and there's one day use area where a sand dune descends pretty dramatically down to one of the lakes. It's really beautiful. It looks like a really, really steep beach. :)

Anyway, Ella enjoyed herself in the lake. And we enjoyed ourselves, too. Here are some photos:
( Read more... )

Just had nice lunch with @juliethompson, returned her book, caught up on work gossip. We might take french &/or crochet classes together.

Edit at 1:30pm: finally on the bus headed home. Methinks after walking the dog I will go for a quick swim. I wore a sweater because it was cool this morning, but I am roasting. Note to self: learn to layer.

Woe! That I should be going to French class and not staying at home to do the handwriting meme and listen to Kate Beaton's radio interview! Waiting is poo.

SO SWEET.

THEY HAVE GOOGLE STREET VIEW OF PARIS... AND ALL 21 STAGES OF THE TOUR DE FRANCE ROUTE.

I THINK THIS IS SO AWESOME. GO LOOK.

YOU CAN SEE THE VELIB BIKE-SHARE STATIONS IN PARIS. THEY ARE SO COOL.

AND ON THE TOUR DE FRANCE ROUTE THE LITTLE STREETVIEW GUY IS ON A BICYCLE, TEE HEE.

YOU CAN SEE LITTLE FRENCH COUNTRY TOWNS.

THIS IS AMAZING, OH MY GOD.

THERE IS COOL SHIT IN THIS WORLD; DON'T LET THE BASTARDS GET YOU DOWN.

This is my favorite photo of the day. Nay, of the whole week, and perhaps forever:

http://community.livejournal.com/cycling/343649.html

(the first photo, natch)

After reading laurenhat's list, I felt I needed to compile my own list of 2008 movies I've seen in theaters so far. They are:

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
Young @ Heart
[This American Life live broadcast]
Horton Hears a Who
Iron Man
The Incredible Hulk
WALL-E
Hancock
Hellboy II
The Dark Knight

My favorites from that list are:
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
The Incredible Hulk
WALL-E
The Dark Knight

Movies I've watched on Netflix in 2008:
( This is an embarrassingly long list )

If any of you tried to watch The Website Is Down in the first week when thewebsiteisdown.com was down, and had to watch it on YouTube instead, or some other lesser quality version, go back and watch it on http://www.thewebsiteisdown.com/. It's much more clear now. :)

They're starting work on Part II this weekend, according to my insider source (Ruth).

We're back home, where it is somewhat cool. We've just spent a few hours in the sun down at Jamison square for the Bastille Day celebration (two days early). It was fun, but hot. There were booths, live music, and a waiter race, where waiters from the local French restaurants compete - whoever gets a tray with a bottle of water and three glasses around the block three times fastest, without spilling, wins. Tee hee. Jamison square has a wading pool and that was a nice way to cool off: slide off shoes and dip toes in water. But all the food booths had long lines and the shade was few and far-between, so we left.

We stopped at the Farmers' Market to get jam, but I was very disappointed to find that "my" jam booth wasn't there! We walked all around, but they weren't there! Where am I supposed to get "my" strawberry rhubarb jam, if my jam people aren't going to show up?? Pox!

I'm feeling much cooler now. I think I'll take a nap. Karaoke tonight.

Edit to add: We entered six tickets in the raffle to win a trip for two to France. I am crossing my fingers, my legs, and all my other appendages so hard for this, because we've all but decided we can't afford to go this year, when we had been looking forward to it so much. Wish me bonne chance!

I didn't make any plans for my birthday, but yesterday Allen asked me not to balance the checking account for a few days and said we shouldn't stay up too late on Saturday. What is he planning??

I'm gonna get a surprise for my birfday! Woo!

I forgot that I wanted to post something before I turned the computer off, so this is brought to you via sidekick.

Today I did some things I'd been meaning to do for several days, like feed Mitch and give him fresh water, clean the fishtank and change the filter, go grocery shopping to buy things like bread so we don't have to eat out every meal, and take Ella out for more than just her sanitary needs.

I dunno, I've been really dragging these last few days. Low on energy. When I feel like this I wonder how I'll manage to go to school and work and keep up with the pets and the housework and all that. I know people manage all the time, but I wonder if they do it feeling like this? I can't imagine ever having kids. I'd want to die, I think, if I had little people demanding things from me all the time. And I'm going to be a teacher? *snort*

Sorry, my self-defeating side is showing. Let me cover that up. *grabs a sheet*

I had a lamb gyro for lunch today hoping it'd give me some iron. Maybe iron will help.
So mitch got a mouse. He's been taking the new, bigger mice really well. I'm pleased. He likes the warm weather; he's been super active. Running laps and stuff. Har har.

I watched Golden Girls and ate oreos this afternoon (in addition to bread, I bought a package of oreos). I felt like I was 12 again. Or, y'know, however old I was when Golden Girls was on. It's a funny show. That Blanche: what a man-eater!

After my oreo/sit-com binge, Ella and I went to the doggie park, and she ran around sniffing butts and getting hers sniffed. There was some dude there who had a beef with tennis balls. He kept running around picking up discarded tennis balls and throwing them away, muttering about how they shouldn't be in the park. When his Newfoundland picked one up he made a big show about wrestling it away from her. Dude, it's a dog park. There will be tennis balls. If you don't want your dog to have tennis balls, don't bring her to the dog park. Jeez. Anyway, Ella got a good run-around.

I'm a bit worried about Allen. He's been working late. On tuesday he stayed up until 3:30, and still got up at 7 for work. He's working tonight, too, and has been since he got home from work at 6. It seems like 19-hour workdays might be violating some kind of labor law... I don't think he's getting paid overtime. I hope this project is over soon.

I'm turning 30 next week. I was suffering about that a few months ago but I'm mostly over it now. I'm going to try not to think about age. I'm going to try to just live in the present.

What else... oh, I'm a failure at holly homemaking this week. I haven't vacuumed or dusted for over 2 weeks, and the last meal I cooked (last week) made me want to vomit. I want to vomit just thinking about it now. *erp* ugh.

I finished reading Obama's book Dreams From My Father. I found it very engaging. It is reflective and insightful, it reads like a novel, and is very interesting. I will happily read his other book about the audacity of hope (a phrase, incidentally, that he ganked from a brochure for Rev. Wright's church). I am terribly disappointed in him at the moment because of his FISA vote, his stated position on late-term abortions, and his support of faith-based programs (although I'm not opposed to churches providing services to the community, I think it's problematic when they're getting public funds in exclusion of non-denominational programs). But I will still vote for him, because I have no other reasonable choice. (Sorry, Chris, I'll eat glass before I vote for Nader.)

Now I'm reading Good Omens. Hooray.

Heavens I'm chatty. I'm not even done. I have more to say. But it's night night time.

We had a nice 4th. We drove up to Sellwood with the bikes and parked near the Springwater Trail, then rode bikes up to Portland for the fireworks. We laid our blankets out near OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science & Industry) facing the river. We had a great view. There were tons of people there. The fireworks were really good this year. They had a dual show - one barge setting off fireworks by the Hawthorne bridge, and one barge setting them off by the Morrison. They went on for a long time, too. Afterward we put all our lights on our bikes, and wore headlamps on our helmets, and rode back up to Sellwood. It was a lovely evening, but there's a sort of sketchy part of trail where I'd be a bit nervous riding alone at night. It was okay with Allen there, though, and there were quite a few other cyclists out, too. I think it's kind of cool when you're wearing a headlamp at night and you can see all the moisture in the air. Um. Anyway, it was about a 7 mile ride round trip, and I think we avoided a lot of traffic that way.

Ella and I went to dog training class again this morning, and she did really well until we were practicing Stay and Come. She Stayed great until one of the other people said Come, then she took off like a bat out of hell. I had to quick say Break so it looked like I meant for her to do that. ;P

Today I went shopping for interview-appropriate clothing. I got some cute tops and a pair of long dress shorts (short dress pants?). I also impulse-bought a pair of flip flops but came to my senses when I got home. I'll take them back tomorrow. I have to take one of the shirts back anyway because they failed to remove the security thingamabob at the check-out counter.

I have this song in my head:

Why can't a heterosexual guy
Tell a heterosexual guy
That he thinks his booty is fly?
Not all the time obviously
Just when he's got a problem with his self-esteem.

Ok so I checked out another french class this morning to compare w last night, and now I get to decide which one I want to attend.

Class 1:
++ only a 10 min bike ride away.
+ More emphasis on grammar & verb tenses
+ Structured class
- taught in english
- only 4 other students
- only 5 wks left, same price
- i felt restless & a bit bored in class
+/- Belgian instructor
+/- evening class

Class 2:
+ taught in french
+ more class participation
+ instructor has good sense of humor
+ more students
+ 7 classes left, same price
- less structure
- slightly less advanced course work
-- downtown, less convenient, have to take the bus &therefore have to listen to bus stop preachers, dodge panhandlers, pay $4 bus fare, and it takes a lot longer to get there & back.
+/- french instructor
+/- morning class