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Writing Tripe Since 2004
BlogYear in Review 2005

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Monday, January 31, 2005
Rant
Here's the thing. I believe in God. Now, I realize this sets me up for some contradictions. I believe God created the world, yet I know the world is more than 6,000 years old. I can't explain why dinosaurs aren't in the Bible. I can't explain a lot of things. I believe in life after death, yet sometimes I get so scared of dying it throws me into a panic. I'm not a Biblical scholar or particularly interested in debate in general. I'm OK with this. My belief should not be an affront to you, nor a challenge.

What I want to know, is why can't you just let me have it? I do not go around hitting you over the head with particularly weighty versions of the King James with the Apocrypha (paperback New Testaments, maybe, but never hard cover). I just believe. Perhaps it's because it's what my mother and father's mothers and fathers believed. Or because I had an extremely winning and attractive Sunday School teacher when I was in 5th grade. Or because it's true. What is that to you? Why would you want to talk me out of that? Why would you want to pull my rug out from under me and force me into an agreement with you of a reality that would not only change my life, but make me very sad? Why is it your job to "enlighten" me?

Perhaps it amazes you that an intelligent woman of 28 who has traveled and has a degree and a good job could believe in something that you feel is akin to a fairytale, or at least simply a cultural myth. I call it faith. You call it ignorance or denial. I call it mine.

I do not always make choices that fit in with what I purport to believe. Live with it, I have to. I'm just one woman, trying to make it through my life the best way I know how. I examine things in my own time. I have chosen a system of belief and faith that usually works for me. I believe that it is true. An atheist I once knew said to me "I don't talk about God with people anymore, you can never talk someone out of what they believe...and if I ever did, I would feel awful." Those are wise words. Why would you want to take away someone's faith?
posted by LoRi~fLoWer
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Friday, January 28, 2005
Road Trip into Enemy Territory
Yesterday I was invited to a Superbowl Party. As you may or may not know, I am from a suburb of Philadelphia, and for the first time in ages and ages, the Philadelphia Eagles are going to the Superbowl.

I like football, although sometimes I find it hard to sit and watch an entire game. But home team spirit is catching and Eagles fever is all around. Shirts, hats, cupcakes, "fly Eagles fly"....even if you didn't particularily enjoy football, around here you'd be a conscripted Eagles fan. So of course I'll enjoy a Superbowl party. Even though this one is a bit of a drive.

6 hours.

In Massachusetts.

Yes, I'm heading into enemy territory for the big game. My friend Neil and his wife and my friend Brad all live outside of Boston. (I get the impression that in Mass, anywhere in the state that's not Boston is "outside of Boston"--correct me if I'm wrong.) I'm assuming they are all Patriots fans, and they'll be assuming that I'm a devout Eagles fan. The question becomes, do I admit to them that I harbor secret sympathies for the Patriots (and a not-so-secret crush on Tom Brady the QB--although the mullet he is sporting lately isn't so hot) or do I play up the Eagles fever?
posted by LoRi~fLoWer
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Wednesday, January 26, 2005
I HABE A STUBBY NOTH
I have a cold. I feel like one large nose. Where does all this snot come from? People are looking at me like I am trying to infect them. Dear co-workers, as much as I would love to stay home for the entire duration of this cold--and believe me I would: hot tea, a quilt, and daytime TV sound lovely right now--I really need this job. So here I sit, infecting and re-infecting myself in my own little 8 square feet of office space. Just stay away from me and it will all be fine.



I might have borrowed that image from here. It's very cute, don't you think?

posted by LoRi~fLoWer
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Monday, January 24, 2005
The Real Abominable Snowman
As you might have seen on the news, the Northeast U.S. got quite a pounding from a snowstorm on Saturday. Mom and I had a funeral to go to, and by the time we were leaving at around 10 a.m. the snow had started in earnest. It was piling up at a really good clip for a while there, a couple inches per hour at least. But snow on a Saturday is a lovely thing. We just resigned ourselves to being snowed in and watched it accumulate. We got probably a little more than a foot. 14 inches or so, would be my best guess.

Sunday morning, however, the snow removal process had to begin. You look out the window and one neighbor is out shoveling, and you feel compelled to put on all your gear and get out there, so as not to look lazy. As I'm adding layer upon layer of clothing I'm thinking about how at *my* housing complex they pay someone to come shovel our walk and plow, yet here I am helping she-of-the-herniated-disk, my mother (while in return getting home-cooked meals, though). Oh well, there's something rural and bracing and empowering about shoveling 14 inches of snow out of your four car-length driveway one shovelful at a time, right?

But doesn't it just stand to reason, that our lovely neighbor from down the street, for whom I couldn't have invented a better name than his own (Mr. Bear) is out with his industrial strength snow blower. . .very pointedly going around to each neighbor's driveway BUT OURS and out of the goodness of his heart (or alcohol-induced stupor) clearing out each driveway BUT OURS. This posed a bit of a dilemma for him, as mom shares her driveway with our next door neighbor, who, while not exactly a crony of Mr. Bear, is still on speaking terms with him. How was Mr. Bear going to do for our neighbor while still thumbing his be-veined nose at us, when our driveways are one and the same?

Mr. Bear's solution was to yell from across to the street to Neighbor-Rob, "where's your friend with his snowblower?" When Rob mentioned that the said friend was still sleeping, the Bear decided that he "would leave him his fun," and strolled off down the street. Later he came back down to our neck of the woods to retrieve his gas can, which he had left at the neighbor's on the other side. He was wearing shorts and a sweatshirt. You just have to laugh, really. . .and keep shoveling.

P.S. This post is quite Amanda-esque, isn't it. Sorry, Amanda.
posted by LoRi~fLoWer
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Friday, January 21, 2005
What else is there...
...to do on a Friday at 4.45 pm besides take stupid quizzes and post the results on your blog?

The burning question today is: What kind of candy am I?


discover what candy you are @ quiz me


What do people do who don't have blogs? Was I ever one of those people?

Apparently, because I didn't even know there was such a thing as a "Bloggie." But that's OK, because according to this, I don't have much chance of winning "it." Whatever "it" might be.

30%
There's a 30% chance that I'll win a Bloggie™.
What's Your Chance to Win a Bloggie™?

posted by LoRi~fLoWer
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Thursday, January 20, 2005
Texas Pictures
I really hate using Hello and having to remember to reverse the order and then post AFTER all the pictures are posted, but there you have it. At least I have a medium to humiliate all my friends. Here are some select pictures from my trip.
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Meet Leona. She's Jess's dog. You'll meet him further down the page. Posted by Hello
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This is Mark. He's my friend, not yours. Don't try to steal him, you can't have him.  Posted by Hello
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riiiiight. Posted by Hello
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This is my brother. Don't ask, you'll find out soon enough. Posted by Hello
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This is Ana and I about to finally head out the door around Midnight to go out on the Riverwalk in San Antonio. Posted by Hello
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This is me and my good friend Jess. Funny story about this picture. I'd never seen him with facial hair. I showed him this picture and he said "my god, there are two ~*~*~caterpillers~*~ *~on my face," handed me back the picture, and went to shave them off. Posted by Hello
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From left: Irma, Me, Lisa. It was a reunion of the Talking Book Program. We went to Quiznos during their lunch hour. Really REALLY good to see them again. Posted by Hello
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All I Need
I forgot to share a funny incident with all you people who aren't reading anymore anyway. The night before I was leaving for Austin, I went to the store because I realized I didn't have any sunglasses and I'd probably need some.

So I'm wandering through the store to kill time, and I see this bra that I like. Now, because I hadn't planned on getting anything beside sunglasses, I didn't grab a cart or a basket or anything practical like that. It's just me, the bra on a hanger, and the shades. I take my place in line behind a 40-something woman with about 10 items. She turned and saw that I only had a few things. "You go ahead in front of me," she says.

I couldn't resist. I hold up my bra and sunglasses and say "Thanks! I'm heading for Texas tomorrow and I figure this is all I'll need."
posted by LoRi~fLoWer
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Turncoats
I have apparently lost all my loyal readers. A girl goes on a week's holiday and comes back to this? I'm crushed. I feel all alone in the world. Come back to me my little ones, my faithfuls. To whose blog have you turned for love and support while I was gone?
posted by LoRi~fLoWer
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Wednesday, January 19, 2005
The New Drunken Diet
Apparently, if you go on vacation for a week...don't eat much during the day because you are sleeping, eat a lot of Mexican food at night, drink so much beer that you couldn't even estimate how much you drank, and go on an occasional walk to the corner store, you can lose 5 pounds.

Yep, 5 pounds. Today was weigh-in again. I made sure before I stepped on the scale that everyone knew I had been on vacation, that I wasn't expecting much, blah blah blah. Then there it was.

I just can't figure my body out.
posted by LoRi~fLoWer
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I don't even know if I really want to post this...
When I browse through blogs, I always look with a critical eye at the ones that are mainly postings of the bloggers poetry (usually awful) or creative writing (usually too long). For me, this blog is a tool to just keep me writing, but it's not where I want to WRITE. If you know what I mean. But while I was in Austin I wrote a little blurb to try to convey just what it is about that city. Looking at it again today, sitting at my messy work desk, looking at a thermometer showing 8 F (-13 C) it seems...well, over the top. Like I was trying to hard. The only reason I'm posting this, is because while I was writing it, it seemed so real. I was sitting on the bed in my brother's room (the former "sleeping porch" of a house built in 1901, which is now divided into apartments), which is fronted by a row of windows facing Austin's skyline. It was dusk, and I was feeling creative. But don't look at askance, OK? It doesn't really stand up to the harsh light of a Pennsylvania winter.


Austin
In the airplane I see sun glinting on the skyline. A thrum starts within me and beats in synchronicity with the massive engine obscuring my view. Touch down, then walking. I spread my body on concrete the same temperature as my insides. Palms spread to feel the rise and fall, ear to the ground and the heartbeat is there underneath like always. I slow my breathing to match. I let the city fill me. Let it make me comfortable in this body again. My skin fits better here, I am the same out as in.

A woman walks three bulldogs. A cowboy eats dinner beside two women in business suits. The people glow here. They walk with a love of the ground beneath them. A woman rocks a baby on her front porch at sunset, singing a lullaby in time with the beat always rising from the earth. A street musician carries her tune to where he plays for change. The city orchestrates our movements, our sounds. Like blood we flow through her streets in an unending flow, pushed to our destinations by the strong heart within her.


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A Word to the Wise from Dilbert and me. Posted by Hello
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Tuesday, January 18, 2005
It's not *my* grammar problem. . .
Last night I had to go buy a charger for my phone because I left mine at my brother's and my phone was almost dead. So a nice young man helped me by finding me one of the old AT&T ones that were on clearance because of the merger with Cingular. I went up to the counter for him to ring me up and there was a sign in one of those clear plastic frames that said something like this:
"...if you don't feel satisfied that you're sales representative..."

"That's the wrong 'your.'" I said aloud, almost unconsciously.

When the salesperson looked at me blankly, I turned the sign toward him and pointed. "That's the wrong 'your.'" I said again. Surely they'd be grateful that someone told them and they could change the sign and not look like illiterates.

"Oh. I didn't make that, my manager did."

Right. Ok. Well, whatever then I suppose. If it's not "you're" mistake, don't worry about fixing it.
I shrugged my shoulders and took my charger and receipt. As I was turning to walk out the door he said,

"How many 'yours' are there anyway? Two or Three?"

I pretended I didn't hear.
posted by LoRi~fLoWer
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I don't want to know if you don't know what I'm talking about here.
So I had the best office surprise waiting for me when I got back from vacation.

One brand new RED SWINGLINE STAPLER

No kidding.

And I didn't even ask for it.
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Monday, January 17, 2005
A Break (Sort of) from my Austin Obsession or a Shameless Plug? You decide.
So you're sitting there watching TV and a preview for a movie comes on. Don't tell me you haven't thought, "You know what, I wish I had a witty, smart, and handsome friend who knows a lot about film, watches a lot of movies and who could review the film for me and tell me if I should bother seeing it or not."

Well I have that friend. And it's your lucky day because he has a website. So while I have the privilege of being able to call him and hear him wax poetic on Paz Vega's perfomance in Spanglish, you can still go here and read his great review on the movie (or to the links section over there ---> ). And as a tease, that's my foot he's talking about at the end there.

Better yet, go here to his page of reviews and see everything. Maybe by then he'll have put up a review of In Good Company, which we saw on my last day in Austin.
posted by LoRi~fLoWer
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Take Two: Austin Past or Future
I moved home from Austin about 4 years ago. It felt so good to be home again. I would just drive and drive over all the roads I knew so well. I still love it here, as I've said in a previous post about contentment. But as soon as I set foot in Austin I realized how much I had missed it. After a few days, I was thinking...why not come back, why not? I could go to UT and get my Master's in something. I could just come back if I found a comparably salaried job.

Why not? Well, because I love my job HERE. Because I love my mom HERE. Because a month ago I wrote a post on contentment. Because I thought I wanted to be out of debt so I could get a house and a dog.

Well why go then? Because since about a month after I got my Bachelor's I wanted to be back in school again. Because I have a solid group of friends there, and a more active social life than I do here. Because I miss my brother and we have such a great time together. Because Austin is AUSTIN.

When I did live there, it wasn't always great. I sunk really low financially, but I'm quite positive that would be different now with the jobs I've had since then. I got homesick. It was really, really hot in the summer.

The biggest thing keeping me here is the job I have now. I really like it, I really like the people I work with, I like what my company accomplishes, I like what I accomplish there. I have an email saved from my supervisor that says "You will always have a career path here." How could I throw that away? If they said I could keep doing what I'm doing for them from Austin, I'd start packing tomorrow.

I guess I just have to give myself some time to work it all out. Do Pro/Con lists really work? I don't even know how to begin. I am trying to keep in mind that maybe all I want to go back to is the freedom of last week, and that moving back to Austin would not be a permenant vacation.
posted by LoRi~fLoWer
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Ramblings on My Trip to Austin Jan 8-Jan 16
Let me start by saying that I was just on one of the best vacations of my entire life. I can't remember the last extended time off I had that only revolved around me and my agenda. It was amazing. I did a lot of thinking on the plane on the way home about how I wanted to present it in my blog. I figure that no one is really interested in a day by day account of what exactly I did. I wrote one, but mainly just so I wouldn't forget a thing. As I was writing it, I was hating the fact that all those things were already only memories. I think what I have decided to do is write about it in pieces. Kind of like different takes on the trip. So here goes.
Take One: Sometimes You Can Go Back

Probably the worst thing that Ben did to me, at the root of it all, was to make me doubt my worth, or, more accurately, my loveability. He made everything that I thought about my sensuality seem false. My appeal, I had always thought, was a certain gentle sweetness, a soft vulnerability that was not put on. I could be the aggressor though, and when I was, the fact that the night before I had sat next to him, closed my eyes, and tried to memorize his face with my hands made it even more exciting.

In "leaving" the way he did, he somehow stripped me of that sense of myself. And because I cannot stand naked in the mirror assured of any physical draw, that knowledge of which he robbed me was my most cherished possession--like a pearl I could hold in my hand and use to smooth away the roughness of my body.

Walking wounded, I began dating before I was ready, like I had something to prove. After a series of disastrous evenings, I gave up. Really, I think, I was searching for my pearl. But nobody can just give that back to me. Like an oyster starting with a grain of sand, I have to grow a new one to carry inside.

In Austin, an amazing brother, a few good friends, one old obsession, and some much needed embraces made me look back and realize how far I have come. How I walked into my own womanhood somehow, and, blindly or not, made my own way. I've come through some rough spots quite admirably all-in-all, and I should be proud. That pride is my first grain of sand. I am worth what I want.

Amazingly, that was conveyed by someone I once thought I couldn't live without holding my face in his hands and kissing me on the forehead--basking in it, but not being owned by it anymore. And by a different wonderful guy's not saying anything mean about having to let me cling to him to stay upright after numerous pitchers of beer and some tequila; to my apology the next day and question as to whether I had been inappropriate or funny, he simply said "You're always funny." And a brother who would still think I was cool even if he didn't have to love me.

My female friends always make everything special. They are my fortress and my shield. But they could have said--and quite often do say--a million times all that I re-learned by falling asleep in the crook of a male friend's arm with the touch of his lips still on my cheek.
posted by LoRi~fLoWer
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Friday, January 07, 2005
The Countdown Begins
I'm off tomorrow for my long-awaited trip to Austin. I really am going to try to keep posting. Trying to remember everything for a long post when I get back will be way too much of a feat for me. Already know that I will be whisked from the airport in Austin to SanAntonio by my lovely friend Ana. We shall then proceed to party up and down the Riverwalk until the sun comes up. Oh, wait, first I must aquire a "fruit cup" from the Paletera. My mouth is watering just thinking about it...then comes the dancing.

I'm just about all packed. The problem I'm having is SHOES. I think I'm going to need a separate bag for all the shoes I want to take. See you need a pair of sneakers, a pair of black shoes, and a pair of brown shoes, you need some sort of dress heel, and since it's Texas you'll need a pair of sandals and perhas a pair of flip flops. You see my dilema? So much for having only carry-on baggage!
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Note to Self: Don't tell anybody ANYTHING
To borrow the format from my brothers less-than-oft-updated blog. (He got a new job, and they actually make him do work, can you believe it?

I'm not telling anybody anything anymore. I should really know better. I mentioned to a few people at work that I'm on Weight Watchers. Suddenly all my co-workers are my own personal food police. "Should you be eating that? Aren't you on Weight Watchers?" "Hey, I baked cookies, oh wait, Lori, none for you."

I only blame myself. And hey, maybe they will keep me honest and on the ball. But if I want to have a f-ing cookie, I'll have a cookie. Let me worry about it, please. No less than 5 people mentioned WW to me yesterday in some fashion.

I'm never telling anybody anything.
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Thursday, January 06, 2005
A Great Man Stops Writing
I learned from Colin that humorist Dave Barry is retiring. It's a sad day. I wanted to post my favorite Dave Barry excerpt. Hopefully he won't sue me for copyright infringement since I post this with full credit and with a full heart. I never would have said "he used to be funnier."

From: Barry, D. (1999). Guide to Guys. New York: Ballantine Publishing Group.
You should buy it.

"Let's say a guy named Roger is attracted to a woman named Elaine. He asks her out to a movie; she accepts; they have a pretty good time. A few nights later he asks her out to dinner, and again they enjoy themselves. They continue to see each other regularly, and after a while neither one of them is seeing anybody else.

And then, one evening when they're driving home, a thought occurs to Elaine, and, without really thinking, she says it aloud: "Do you realize that, as of tonight, we've been seeing each other for exactly six months?"

And there is silence in the car. To Elaine, it seems like a very loud silence. She thinks to herself: Geez, I wonder if it bothers him that I said that. Maybe he's been feeling confined by our relationship; maybe he thinks I"m trying to push him into some kind of obligation that he doesn't want, or isn't sure of.

And Roger is thinking: Gosh six months.

And Elaine is thinking: But, hey, I'm not so such I want this kind of relationship, either. Sometimes I wish I had a little more space, so I'd have time to think about whether I really want to keep going the way we are, moving steadily toward. . .I mean, where are we going? Are we just going to keep seeing each other at this level of intimacy? Are we heading toward marriage? Toward children? Toward a lifetime together? Am I ready for that level of commitment? Do I really even know this person?

And Roger is thinking:. . .so that means it was. . .let's see. . .February when we started going out, which was right after I had the car at the dealer's, which means. . .lemme check the odometer. . .Whoa! I am way overdue for an oil change here.

And Elaine is thinking: He's upset. I can see it on his face. Maybe I'm reading this completely wrong. Maybe he wants more from our relationship, more intimacy, more commitment; maybe he has sensed--even before I sensed it--that I was feeling some reservations. Yes, I bet that's it. That's why he's so reluctant to say anything about his own feelings. He's afraid of being rejected.

And Roger is thinking: And I'm gonna have them look at the transmission again. I don't care what those morons say, it's still not shifting right. And they'd better not try to blame it on the cold weather this time. What cold weather? It's 87 degrees out, and this thing is shifting like a goddamn garbage truck, and I paid those incompetent thieves $600.

And Elaine is thinking: He's angry. And I don't blame him. I'd be angry, too. God, I feel so guilty, putting him through this, but I can't help the way I feel. I'm just not sure.

And Roger is thinking: They'll probably say it's only a 90-day warranty. That's exactly what they're gonna say, the scumballs.

And Elaine is thinking: Maybe I'm just too idealistic, waiting for a knight to come riding up on his white horse, when I'm sitting right next to a perfectly good person, a person I enjoy being with, a person I truly do care about, a person who seems to truly care about me. A person who is in pain because of my self-centered, schoolgirl romantic fantasy.

And Roger is thinking: Warranty? They want a warranty? I'll give them a goddamn warranty. I'll take their warranty and stick it right up their...

"Roger, " Elaine says aloud.
"What?" says Roger, startled.
"Please don't torture yourself like this," she says, her eyes beginning to brim with tears. "Maybe I should never have. .Oh God, I feel so. . ."
(She breaks down sobbing)
"What?" says Roger
"I'm such a food," Elaine sobs. "I mean, I know there's no knight. I really know that. It's silly. There's no knight, and there's no horse."
"There's no horse?" says Roger.
"You think I'm a fool, don't you?" Elaine says.
"No!" says Roger, glad to finally know the correct answer.
"It's just that...It's that I...I need some time," Elaine says.
(There is a 15-second pause while Roger, thinking as fast as he can, tries to come up with a safe response. Finally he comes up with one that he thinks might work.)
"Yes," he says.
(Elaine, deeply moved, touches his hand.)
"Oh Roger, do you really feel that way?" she says.
"What way?" says Roger
"That way about time," says Elaine.
"Oh," says Roger. "Yes."
(Elaine turns to face him and gazes deeply into his eyes, causing him to become very nervous about what she might say next, especially if it involves a horse.)
(At last she speaks.)
"Thank you, Roger," she says. "Thank You," says Roger.
Then he takes her home, and she lies on her bed, a conflicted, tortured soul, and weeps until dawn; whereas when Roger gets back to his place, he opens a bag of Doritos, turns on the TV and immediately becomes deeply involved in a rerun of a tennis match between two Czechoslovakians he never heard of. A tiny voice in the far recesses of his mind tells him that something major was going on back there in the car, but he is pretty sure there is no way he would ever understand what, and so he figures it's better if he doesn't think about it. (This is also Roger's policy regarding world hunger.)

The next day, Elaine will call her closest friend, or perhaps two of them, and they will talk about this situation for six straight hours. In painstaking detail, they will analyze everything she said and everything he said, going over it time and time again, exploring every word, expression, and gesture for nuances of meaning, considering every possible ramification. They will continue to discuss this subject, off and on, for weeks, maybe months, never reaching any definite conclusions, but never getting bored with it either.

Meanwhile, Roger, while playing racquetball one day with a mutual friend of his and Elaine's, will pause just before serving, frown, and say: Norm, did Elaine ever own a horse?"
posted by LoRi~fLoWer
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Wednesday, January 05, 2005
My Little Project
Some of you may remember my gushing over the fact that I was getting to do the layout for the new company newsletter. I've posted some of the pages. I'm hoping that the pictures came out well enough for you to see how cool it looks, and blurry enough that you can't really see any of the text or names.

What do you think? Don't tell me if you hate it and it looks amateur. :O) Hopefully by next quarter I'll have more pictures and less clip art. It didn't work out that way this time because we were playing catch up on events that happened before the newsletter, hence, no photographer.
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One of the inside pages of my pride and joy.  Posted by Hello
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Here is the first page of my pride and joy. The colors came out a bit funny looking, they look much more uniform in print. Posted by Hello
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Haven't posted any photos for a while, so here's me at work in my messy office, looking...odd. Posted by Hello
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It's a good thing I'm a girl not easily discouraged.
I didn't go to Weight Watchers last week because it was my only chance to meet my friend's Marine boyfriend before he shipped back off to Japan. At least that what was I rationalized myself into thinking was a reasonable excuse.

So today was my 4th week, but only the third time I've weighed in. I had forgotten that this was the first meeting of the new year. There was a line of people filling out first-time forms, asking questions, looking determined. A wife had dragged her husband kicking and screaming to join with her. I wonder what she had to promise him. To go to a power-tool convention of some sort, perhaps? There was a particularly high-strung woman buying not only a membership, but every tape, serving spoon, water bottle, cookbook, and snack food on offer. I had a brief moment of self-congratulation that I had been here before and wasn't a "resolutionist." I know from before that not many of them come back. But, as I said, it was a brief moment...more on that later.

Well, there was a line at the door, it stood to reason that there was a line for the scales. I really appreciate WW's approach to this weigh-in process. Nobody else can see anything, nobody really says anything besides "hi, how are you," unless you give them the go-ahead by saying something first. Still, I had my eye on the new people, not because I wanted to know how much they weighed, but because I like to see how different people approach the challenge of stepping on the scale. As the husband wife team approached the scale, he made a mad dash for the bathroom while she stepped on the scale. But she wasn't having any of that, she stood there until he came back out. "We're doing this together, " she kept saying. The high-strung woman had a hard time finding a place to put down her Weight Watchers paraphernalia before she stepped up to the plate. Then it was my turn. My approach? Take every ounce of clothing off that isn't required for decency, smile, get on the scale.

I wasn't really sure what to expect this time. I know that where I run into trouble is when I try to keep track of things in my head instead of writing them down. And I knew I had been doing just that. But I also thought, hey, 2 days of puking up everything I ate...surely there must be some benefit to that. I watched while she wrote down the exact weight I had been when I re-joined a month ago. Right. So much for that 3.6 pounds I had lost my first week.

Still. It's really not all that bad. Apparently, the average American gains 7 pounds over the holiday season. So staying the same is better than that right? But now the holidays are over, and it's time to get serious if this is what I really want to do.

I won't mention that I'll be in Texas with all that wondrous cheesy Mexican food all next week. We'll just cross that bridge when we come to it.




posted by LoRi~fLoWer
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Tuesday, January 04, 2005
On the New Year
2005 rang in for me with little ado. I went out with a friend and her boyfriend, his brother, and another couple. I was suspicious of this arrangement at first, but it didn't turn out to be a set up. I got kissed around midnight by a short, drunken, self-styled "New Year's Eve Fairy" who thought I smelled good. I'm pretty sure he had to stand on tip toe to reach. So that's a story to file away. All in all it was a better NYE than most. Although, as some of you know, I maintain that New Year's is my least favorite holiday. Too much pressure to have this amazing, unforgettable night.

Sunday night into Monday was spent with my head in the toilet, without even the memories of a great evening of drunkeness to get me through. Watch out there's stomach bug going around.

As for the year ahead...

The first scary thing I thought about when the new year arrived is: this year marks 10 years since I graduated from high school. I'm waiting for the reunion invite so I can tear it into a million pieces and burn it. God, I hated high school. I wasn't an angst ridden teen or anything(although I did write my share of bad poetry) but I hated the way everything operated. Like the way you KNEW who was going to get picked for the lead or voted class president. So no, I don't think I shall be attending unless I become very rich, very skinny, or marry someone famous before then.

I don't make resolutions, but I have a few hopes for myself.

I hope that by the end of 2005, I'll have gotten rid of the credit card debt. (I'm pretty much on track for this).
I hope that by the end of 2005 some wonderful man will wander into my life and think I'm the greatest thing since sliced bread. And, perhaps this is too much to hope going from past experiences, he might already live in America and be single.
I hope that by the end of 2005 I'll be on the way to having the lifestyle to be a good dog owner.
I reserve the right to add to this list.

You have any?
posted by LoRi~fLoWer
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More on that..
Although I have some problems with the Red Cross as a profit making organization and with how the money given for 9/11 was distributed, they are probably still the best known and most visible charity. They and Amazon.com have teamed up so you can donate to the Tsunami Relief fund online.

American Red Cross Disaster Relief at Amazon

P.S. Stay tuned for a deep and meaningful post on (my) life in 2005.
posted by LoRi~fLoWer
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Lori~Flower

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