from my friend Andrew

New Podcast.

5 Songs A Day - add that to your iTunes.

It's a new podcast Patrick and I are doing. 5 songs a day. Completely random. Completely cool.

So do it

How To Set Up
1. Click on the "Podcasts" tab on your iTunes
2. Click on "Advanced" in the menu bar
3. Click on "Subscribe". A window will open.
4. Enter the URL http://feeds.feedburner.com/5SongsADay and click OK.
5. That's it. The file will begin to download. Spread the word!

(for those of you who do not have iTunes, click here for Juice, podcast program reader)

on the topic of friendship

"A friend should be one in whose understanding and virtue we can equally confide, and whose opinion we can value at once for its justness and its sincerity. " - Robert Hall

"A friend should be good to his or her friends: be generous, helpful, loyal, protective, and so on." - Principle of Buddhist worship

"A friend should be someone you choose to have in your life because he or she enriches your experience." - Psych Central

"A friend should be radical: they should love you when you're unlovable, hug you when you're unhuggable, and bear you when you're unbearable" - thehelpline.net

*************************************************************

I've been doing a lot of thinking today about friendship, who my friends are, who my friends are not, what constitutes being a good friend or a bad friend, and why I feel the way I feel towards some of my friends.

I like to think of myself as a good friend, I want to be a good friend, but I know I've had times where I've been a bad friend. A terrible friend even.

With all the craziness in my life lately, it feels good to know that even though I've wanted to be all sullen and tight lipped and not say a word to anyone, even though I've said endlessly that it annoyed the living bejebus out of me, people cared enough to inquire about how I was doing or say, "Hey, if you ever want to talk about it, I'm here."

And at the same time, even though I've had all my own things going on, I have been able to extend myself to others to try and help them and give them advice or an ear to simply listen. I feel so good knowing that I have friends who value my opinion and are willing to share themselves and their problems and complexities with me.

I think gratitude is an underexpressed emotion and right now I feel so grateful to have such an interesting spectrum of people who I can call my friends. Without even one of them, the entire tapestry of my life would change. I think of them as my family, the ones who stand in when my actual realtives can't be there, can't understand me or can't give me the kinds of things I need. Each one of them fills a certain need and gives me the opportunity to give back to them when I can and that is such an amazing thing. I would do anything to protect them, comfort them, support them, cheer them up or be there. I want to be a person who people say can be counted on no matter what.

I don't care if anyone out there feels that this is lame or sappy or naive. If you think that, I feel bad for you. Maybe you don't have people who make you feel this way, and for that I feel really sad. I wish everyone could look around them and see all the people they have in their corners and just step back and truly appreciate them for what they are. Hell, I wish I could do that all the time like I am doing now. I wish that everyone could take just a few moments to think about the things they love about each other and not the things they hate - that we could all look at something from a different perspective, a tolerant perpective, an unselfish perspective.

But then that would make the world a lot less dramatic and a lot less cruel - and who could possibly want that, right?

winter wonderland

jebus.

the falling price of pain

so, i don't think i can go any longer without talking about how things are going in the legal arena.
it's bad, kids, real bad.

basically, i've been backed into a horrendous corner by the insurance company through the testimony of the driver's friends who were there that night. it's basically ten against one and if we take this to trial, it's going to be a jury trial. and anyone who's watched any legal drama knows jury cases are less about the truth and more about swaying opinion.

so, that being said, my options are put everything on the roulette wheel and spin it in court or take an insultingly low figure that is about a quarter of what this case is actually worth.
my lawyers are infuriating me with their "aw shucks, sometimes this happens and everything turns and it's a real shame." attitude. so, because i don't want to end up with nothing after six years, i am going to accept this offer - but before i settle, i asked to see a fully itemized bill so i know where my paltry little sum is going and why once the lawyers start dipping their little hands into it. well, while i'm at work, my lawyer's secretary calls me up and says "we have something in the way of a bill for you, but your lawyer wants to talk to you before you see it."

oh, wrong answer motherfuckers.

i tried to explain that i wanted something i could look at while we went over the numbers. ever since my mediation, my brain has been shot to shit, i've been on an emotional rollercoaster through hell and i just feel like i've been jerked around like crazy. my lawyer can't seem to get straight the date the insurance company's offer comes off the table, so why would i feel and cozuy and secure with what he's telling me on the phone without something in front of me to reference and ask questions about???

still she said she didn't feel comfortable giving to me the bill until he'd talked to me and the only time i can talk to him is when i'm at work which makes me look so good in the eyes of my employers - as if the walking around with red puffy eyes and constantly being on the verge of tears was helping.

i have so much anger in me right now and no way to express it.

so now i have to call them while at work today and see how much more i get jerked around over the numbers.

18 million photographs can't be wrong.

or can they?

chest-tacular.

more to follow after i get off work.

but not of my chest.

a chernobyl love story.

megahead and earthworm girl prove there's hope for us all.

crotch, magic crotch.

absolute truth.

oh lord: an update

okay, so after a day of waiting and stressing over the legal aspect of my life, there's a bit of an update.

we got the offer extended til march 1st. so now we can go in and interview all the douchebags who were saying things about me that weren't true and see how many holes we can poke into their stories.

two more weeks of this anxious nervous bullshit, but if we can get something out of this to bring things up a little, it's going to be so much better.

*sighs*

i think my lawyer has realized he's fucked things up and hopefully he'll be able to regain some ground.

so THIS is winter....

you can see my fucking breath in this picture, motherfuckers.

see also my four dollar tacky as hell scarf.

i used to have balls but they fell off BECAUSE IT WAS SO COLD!

on the controversial tip.

File this under stupid white kids:

A friend of mine who is a morning show host at Joel's radio station usually uses his blog on myspace to discuss emails and letters recieved from listeners - one of such pertained to the oh-so-hot-button issue of racism. I can't link the blog because it no longer exists, but trust me, it was interesting. A lot of it had to do with things such as the notion of "reverse racism", the playing of the race card and similar.

So, being a person who enjoys the spirit of debate and a major I said my piece in there about how I felt - about how racism is not exclusively a caucasian trait [ie. no such thing as reverse racism] and how I felt that people who complained about things like The Latin Grammys being exclusionary [um, yeah, we may not have the White Awards, but we've been winning the majority of them since their inception.]

Anyways, I felt that what I said was reasonable and truthful. Apparently someone didn't think so because I got this in my inbox:

DISCLAIMER: identity of said myspacer is protected simply because I would have been ashamed to have sent this to another human being myself! I'm ashamed for the caucasian race after having read this.

"I just have to say I was reading the post about black vs. white on Fisher’s page and I have to tell you are so off base. Racism is for ignorant people no matter what color and that is the bottom line. Yes back in the day black people where slaves and treated awful; and there is no excuse for what happen in the past however it was in the past. White people were slaves to in the past too you don’t see us complaining about it and not to mentioning it has happen to our ancestors not us! Look we all need to live together as happy people no matter what race we are and if we keep pulling the race card all it will do is keep racism alive."


So I thought about it, and I had even said that I FULLY agreed sometimes the race card gets played in inappropriate situations, but it is not an invalid arguement ALL the time. This whole "white people were slaves too...you don't hear us complaining" was what clinched it for me. Seriously, what the hell is THAT? That makes generations of slavery against other people acceptable? I'll admit it was a bit of passion before reason, but I was pissed. I sat on it for a bit, but now I responded with the following:

wow.

i respect your opinion on reparations owed to former slaves, but i think your position of [and i quote from your email] "White people were slaves to in the past too you don’t see us complaining about it and not to mentioning it has happen to our ancestors not us!" is highly ignorant, but as person who has never experienced slavery [nor likely to have ever studied it, i'm only left to assume] it's not surprising. perhaps if you want people to take your counter arguement as serious, intelligent, and informed; you may want to try using spelling and grammar check to weed out further evidence of your stupidity.

send me any more emails like this and i will report you. if you have something to say, reply to the blog comment instead of filling my inbox with this crap.

thanks,
k

i know the old adage about arguing on the internet, but she pushed my buttons.

MASTURDATE!

http://ebaumsworld.com/2006/02/masturdate.html

a shoe called Love.

quite possibly the most garish shoe ever created. yet, that being said, i covet them daily and nightly and drool at them each time i walk by brown's.

what is wrong with me?

moi

i love my digital narcissism sometimes.

a distraction: graffiti

somewhere out there, one lonely black gardener is missing his equipment. hoe, if you're out there, call maurice.

welcome to vancouver, would you like your complimentary ass-raping now or later?

up until now i have been avoiding talking about my mediation and the utter disaster that it was.

right now my lawyer is trying to get me as much money as he possibly can.

i'll be lucky if i get a quarter of what the case is actually worth.

but, c'est la vie. the world is out to eat your soul every time, kids.

at least if this ends soon i'll be able to finally marry joel and move the fuck on with my life and put this utter bullshit behind me for good. it's just too bad the fucker who put me in this position will have had a victory over me after all.

t.a.n., i hope you rot in hell, you vile fucking piece of shit.

aw yeah.

this is what sleeplessness does to a person. it makes them search for pictures of mr. dressup from what appears to be the 1970's.

i miss finnegan. best dog ever.

friday.

she's captain bananahammock to my capitaine du porkenbeans.

two beers in and the night is ours.

consumerism summed up on my fridge

thank you, whoever invented poetry magnets.

raynna is going to steal this.

this is my execedrin headache

so. took the flight to vancouver. sat next to two giggling lesbians. they were pretty but in a very granola kind of way and one of them had a rather large hickey on the side of her neck. there it was, staring back at me - a giggling granola hickey.

i focussed my attention on the sattelite television. they were playing wayne's world. i was surprised, they didn't cut out cassandra calling wayne an asshole as he strode around her warehouse of an apartment wearing her bra and humping the life-size mummy statue she had in there. i was so distracted trying to figure out who the hell has a life-size mummy statue in their apartment that i hardly noticed mr. myers's giant ass-cheek bearing wedgie.

when that movie came out, i had a huge crush on garth. i think it was his quietness, his shy nebbishness and that dance to jimi hendrix's foxy lady that incorporated oh-so-many pelvic thrusts. yeah, i wanted to be the donut lady.

so sue me.

anyways, i get to the hotel - oh the accursed holiday inn on west broadway - and yet again, i am met with an agent at the front desk who demands a credit card imprint. i want to tear my hair out. the exact same thing happened to me back in august and they turned me away and i ended up sleeping on my friend katie's couch. it was alright, but the night before one of my appointments i had to skip out on going out with the ladies so i could sleep and they - though they tried very hard to be quiet, bless their hearts - woke me up when they returned.

it's hard enough sleeping in a strange bed, but to sleep on a strange couch with people traipsing around, it's too much.

this trip is already difficult.

i'm tired and restless enough. i want to see people, but i also want to be alone. i don't want anyone to ask questions or give me either that anxious, sympathetic look or the "don't worry! it's going to be okay! there's nothing you can do - at least you know when it will end after monday!" but at the same time, having all this space in my head to myself is a little frightening.

i'm trying to download episodes of trailer park boys. hooray! escapism!

wish my work friends were here - we could hit the town and paint it red and no one wouldask me a goddamn thing.

just the way i like it.

a sign in a cookie.

today i am leaving for vancouver to mediate my case. potentially, by this time tomorrow i could know whether or not i will be going to trial with all of this business.

on friday i had chinese food and my fortune said, "financial prosperity is coming your way." i take this as a good sign.

it always good to have the chinese in your corner. especially since they're soon going to have a military worthy of flattening us all.

don't let raynna near your chest once she's had a pint.

you'ved been warned.

pilsner urquell

for the sophisticated nerd.

eff the nuge.

i did it.

i figured it out.

alright alright...

due to insane pressure from the blogspot community and the sheer amount of my co-workers on ths damn thing, i have arrived at blogspot so i can rock the worlds of all the little bloggers up in this hizzay.

i'm trying to figure out how one posts a picture on this thing. damn my newbie status.

as soon as i figure this shit out consider your eyes prime for assault.