let it (not) be

in case any of you out there were wondering what the results of our mock election were, here's your answer:

w - 393 electoral college votes
kerry - 145 electoral college votes

if this is anything like last time, we're in for a world of trouble

so we're holding a mock election at work. today is the first day of voting. as of 10 am this morning, W was in the lead. there were about half a million votes recorded, with W getting nearly 300,000 of them. granted, the polls weren't open on the west coast for very long. but still, i can't help but worry.

last time, by a gross majority, the ineligible-to-really-vote youth picked the guy who currently resides in the White House. and that just scares the shit out of me.

i know our demographic, so i shouldn't be too surprised. but come on, kids! how can you still like him these days? don't you realize how hollow and untrustworthy he is? how dangerous to your future and to your country?

i know there's something to be said for having the man clean up after his own bullshit, but there's also something to be said for change! and we desperately need change! a change of policy, a change of performance, a change of presidency!

if this is anything like last time, we're in for a world of trouble.

*keeping my fingers crossed for a different outcome*

pointless

i'm so lazy. and warm beds are so difficult to pull away from. but i did it. damn work.

i did a lot of nothing this weekend. but at least it was raining so i didn't feel too guilty about it.

i don't know if it's because of all this grey cloudiness, but i'm in a really good mood today.

oh - and i feel a bit like a bear today in my faux-fur hooded parka. :)

this is such a silly post.

pretty pointless. heh

odd dreams

i rarely dream. or maybe i should say i rarely remember my dreams. but last night i had a couple of them (both incredibly short) that i do actually remember. and i'd like to take a little time to share because i've begun to think of them as bad omens and would love for people to nay-say me. :)

dream the first:
night. late night. maybe 1 or 2 in the morning late. i'm at my parents' house with someone (don't know really who this was). i'm standing on the landing near the laundry room. i'm talking to whoever this person is. probably saying goodnight or something when these two men start running down the street past the house. they looked criminal. like they were trying to outdistance the hand of the law. and they were yelling things like "hurry up!" and "run, fuck, run!" me and this person look at each other as if to say, "that was weird," when suddenly the two criminal men are racing up the stairs at us. i think one of them had a gun. and they were telling us to give them the keys to our car. so me and this person try to run into the house and shut the door on the criminals. we get inside my parents' house, but one of the thugs, the with one with the gun, slips his hand in the door before we can get it shut. so we're slamming our weight into the door trying to get the bad guy to drop the gun or recoil his arm. the gun goes off.
end of dream.
it was very scary. i remember feeling startled and panicky after this dream.


dream the second:
i think i'm in college still. and i have to pick up some prescription from the pharmacy. so i drive to the pharmacy, put money in the meter, and pick up my prescription. i walk outside and my car is gone. not only is my car gone, but my keys are gone, too. not only that, but my license is missing. and wait, so is my bag and the prescription i just picked up. everything has disappeared. i reach into my pocket and have 15 cents. i decide i will take the bus home. i wait at the bus stop for a little while. the bus comes and i board. unfortunately for me, bus fare is $1.35. i put my three nickels in the machine. the bus driver is waiting for me to put in more money. i ask the bus driver how much a single ride costs to stall for time. he says it's $1.35. i just stand there in the bus well not knowing what else to do.
end of dream.


yeah, so those are kinda weird dreams to have. i know i probably shouldn't feel scared about them, but it's just weird when i remember dreams, because they're usually not good dreams.

political design

this is fucking nice. the design, the message, the music. i want to see this on tv. but i know i won't. so pass this on, cause it deserves to be seen.

the other odd occurrence

i was in my car, headed for the gym, when i noticed out of the corner of my eye something big flying above a neighbor's house. i turned my head to get a better idea of what it was, and it's some big river bird, like a heron, or an egret, or a crane or something. it had a long beak, long legs, and was either white or gray. it flew from someone's backyard it seemed, and landed on a telephone pole. i would have taken a picture of it but didn't have my camera nor my cell phone with me. i thought at first it was a pelican, but its legs were too long for it to be a pelican. and it didn't have quite the pelican pouch. it was just some long, stringy bird that i imagine hangs out near rivers. i wonder if people will believe me when i tell them what i saw. even i have trouble believing it. (unless this is not as odd an occurrence as i think it to be.)

i wonder what it was doing in my neck of the woods. in the city. in the valley. maybe it found someone's pool. or pond. or hot tub. heh. and just the other day my friend warned me against keeping the hot tub lid open lest i attract some water fowl. (he meant ducks. but he'll totally flip out when i tell him what i saw. flip out or be impressed.) what's even stranger (or coincidental) is this same friend went to sit by a river today. hmmmm, i wonder if these two things are related, like maybe they magically traded forms for the weekend. gotta tell him about this when he gets back.

my second "super power"

so continuing with my walk around the park this morning, i noticed a few other strange, curious, mundane things. i think the ability to notice these things might be my second super power. because i catch these things all the time, including the infinitesimal, inconsequential things.
so anyways, here are a few examples of the things i noticed while continuing on my walk:

- a squished earthworm
- an (empty?) stroller stationed beneath a tree with no people near it
- scattered peanuts along the base of a tree
- the one tiny blue flower amongst the ivy
- a tree branch that looks like a dead squirrel

hmmm, i also have this knack for spotting roadkill while i'm driving/traveling. i don't want to see this, but i always happen to look at the right moment to see some dead animal on the freeways, in the street, against curbs. it's actually quite mortifying.

so yeah, one of these things might be a sub or second useless super power. lucky me.

picture day

this morning i took the dog for a walk around the park. on our way over, i noticed a photograph that had been ripped into little angry squares, the pieces littering the sidewalk. i couldn't exactly make out what the image was, and i didn't want to bend down to inspect the scattered lot lest someone spy on me and wonder why i was crouching with a ripped photo jigsaw puzzle at my feet. so i let my curiosity subside and continued on.

i walked another five feet and noticed that the local elementary school was taking class pictures. there was a class of what looked like third graders arranged on stands, tall kids in the back, shorter kids up front. i don't know how long they had been standing there, arranged as they were, but already some of them were getting restless. some of them scratched at their hair, other kids fussed with their clothes, and still others (perhaps the most impatient or easily distracted of the bunch) were pointing at the dog, and yelling "oooh, look at the dog!" this made me smile. crazy little kids.

i noticed that a lot of the girls were in casual wear - sweaters and pants or jeans. actually, most of the kids were. no one was really dressed up. i don't recall a single dress on display. none of the girls had ribbons in their hair or any fancy hairstyles or anything like that. maybe picture day isn't as important or as big a deal as it used to be.

then i got to thinking about picture day when i was a kid. i remember i had to wear a lot of dresses. which really was a bit of a pain because then you're forced to wear the outfit for the entire day, making recess problematic. what if it was kickball or dodgeball that day? you'd be screwed because no matter how tomboyish you are, you can't wear a dress and play those games. it just wouldn't feel right.

i was always in the front row for class pictures. sometimes dead center. sometimes on the sides. depending on how the photographer wanted us positioned: pyramid or half-pipe. and there were a couple years in elementary school where i knew exactly who i'd be standing next to. MB. the shortest boy in the class, and consequently, always my partner for class dances. this i didn't mind so much because he was my friend. and i probably had a crush on him (whatever that means to a kid of 6 or 7.) he was filipino, had a bowl cut, and really deep dimples. i passed by his house everyday on the walk to and from school. and our moms were friends. so this made it easy to like him.

continuing with the walk, i found another photo jigsaw puzzle. but this time someone had been brave enough to do what i couldn't. someone had pieced the photo together. and the offending image was some curly-haired blonde lady in a business suit of either black and white check pattern, or houndstooth. across the woman's chest was a sash, one of those "ms. america" type sashes. but i don't remember what she won or what was written on the sash. but she was smiling, dorky-looking as she was. perhaps she was slightly embarrassed. or nervous. who knows. and who knows why there would be several copies (there were a couple more prints scattered in the roses and plants of the school premises) of this moment ripped apart by whoever.

it was very strange, very strange indeed, this picture day.

live a little love a lot

i'm relistening to some cds i bought a while back by this band, moose. i really liked the album high ball me. their other albums are mostly out of print and kind of hard to find in the used bin (let alone new sections) at music stores. so i bought a couple of their older albums off ebay.

i gave them a quick spin when i first got them, but soon forgot about them. (i'm horrible about music that way. i buy and buy and buy and then they get lost in the shuffle.) but now i'm listening to them again. in particular, live a little love a lot and wow! very pretty! shoegazing music to the extreme. melodic sweeping guitars. good for blue days. songs that have a hint of sweet solitude. if only it were raining. and i were home. i could really enjoy this. enjoy it to the extreme.

i suppose the solution is easy enough. just put the cd in the stereo. listen wholeheartedly to it. pretend it's raining. perfect.

yes. perfect.

4-0-5 F-O-G

so i'm driving home from getting bitch-slapped at poker tonight when i passed into the fog. 405 fog. that sometime occurrence when the ocean mist gets carried away on its travels to the valley and then runs back round on itself to settle in between the canyon walls because, in its awkward meandering, it now wants to fuck with people out of spite.

so this fog was fairly dense and fun to dissect. cutting through with my car at 80mph, clearing the path seconds at a time, i liked how the highway half-resembled a disney ride. space mountain.

which reminds me...i want to go there. disneyland.

when it shines...

i'm out there with heavy boots, a slicker, a paddington hat, a scarf, mittens, and an umbrella.

for whatever reason, i just could not get the forecast right today.

i should have known today was gonna suck. but every once in a while things would level off enough to make it so-so. so things were bound to look up, right?

so i look up expectantly. like maybe the clouds will roll in, turn the sky a cat of grey, and even toy with the idea of rain. (if for nothing else than to make me feel less ridiculous for the get-up.)

but NOOOOOOOOOO! everyone around me is enjoying the light, mockingly basking in it. and i'm waiting, miserable as can be, for my life to self-destruct. because honestly, it would have been fine-- even welcome -- for things to go kaboom. because it would have been change. ahhhh there it is, the admittance that the complete explosion (maybe implosion?) of self is a far better choice than things being constant shit.

and who knows, i might have been reincarnated as a solar panel (a flower being too precious) or something useful like that so that i might make use of the sunnyness of everyone and everything surrounding me.

or if today had blown up i could feel prescient in my imaginary downpour gear.

instead i'm writing to you through empty space to complain of my metaphorical meteorological misfortune. in the dark. at night. with heavy boots, a slicker, a paddington hat, a scarf, mittens, and an umbrella.

cause when it shines... oh fuck off already.

from plan to process

i want to take scraps of materials - like felts, and ribbons, and silks, and stuff like that - to make other stuff out of. make a quilt of sorts. tell a story that's tactile.

and i want to finally make use of the canvases and paints that i bought.

maybe i will start these projects on friday.

i want to make cute stuff and maybe sell them somewhere.

or even just put them on display.

so i can look at it and think to myself, "i made that."

motorcycle diaries

went with lk on friday to see the motorcycle diaries. not sure that it's one of those movies that blows you away necessarily. but it does give you an itch for adventure; stirs a romantic desire to be young and impressionable, leaving you wistful and hopeful, and fairly satisfied.

it's a love story between a man and the land, an epic or ode to south america and its people told through the convention of a coming of age story where we witness a young ernesto guevara develop into the iconic figure "el che." you experience the people, places, and events that shaped his political and social beliefs. the burning love is evidenced by the director's vision and the enormous talents of both the movie's lead characters. there is passion and an unending service and devotion to the land represented as two distinct approaches. one loving with reckless abandon, a carnal infatuation. the other with delicate, intense purpose. love with light touch and soft whispers in the ear.

this seems to be coming out as a garbled mess of a "review." so i will stop here.

but might i add: gael garcia bernal is an amazing talent. and not too shabby to gaze at on the big screen.