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Bitterblue
(7-16 May 2003)
16 May 2003
-I've been meaning to comment for a short while on the
illegal immigrants, many dead, found in the back of a truck in Texas. I love how the first reaction of the government
is not a sympathetic one, but to charge the driver with smuggling. Doesn't anyone see something in the desperation
that brings 140 people to voluntarily stack themselves in the back of a truck in 100-plus degree weather? Doesn't
anyone remember that these are HUMANS being "smuggled" & not illegal drugs? Many of the people who
believe that abortion being made illegal again would be the worst-case scenario for modern America use the coathanger
argument, asking us to contemplate what horrors people would inflict on themselves were abortion illegal. Well, look
what horrors people are inflicting on themselves while immigration is illegal. When are we going to legalize becoming
an American?
15 May 2003
-I'm having a rough time
staying focused today. I just feel ambly.
-Well, I'm trying to quit my Saturday job but
thus far both of my bosses over there are refusing to acknowledge my e-mail regarding this.
Which I have a feeling is their way of throwing their hands over their ears & shouting
"Ba ba ba, I can't hear you!" I'm hoping that by mid-June, I will have weekends
once more.
14 May 2003
-Amy Flaster didn't turn out
to be so bad after all. A day after hurtling mud at the Country Quiz (see yesterday's entry),
she admitted that my defense of the Quiz had made her think twice, reconsider her opinions, &
come to respect mine. It's not changing the world (or even her opinion in the end), but
it's as close as I've come to debate in a while. Sweet.
-Signed, sealed, delivered, it's
almost ready to go.
-Today the big project at JMMC was to mail out the late groundbreaking
article on hypertension. This article was so big that its publication made CNN's website!
Apparently (they think today... science is fickle fickle fickle), blood pressure is an
even bigger problem than they thought it was yesterday. So people with spot-on blood
pressure are also at risk. Woops. Our 40 cardiologists got news of this via a
mass-mailing I conducted. This meant that 1,840 pages flew through the copier this morn,
followed by 40 fun encounters with licking the BIG envelopes. Yum. I'm just waiting
for the announcement that the only people with "healthy" blood pressure are Em, whose
limbs regularly fall asleep in under 2 minutes, & John Schneider, who is considered to be in
a constant state of shock by medical pros.
-The survey I linked yesterday came full-circle
to Lisha before my Country Quiz did. She knows those people! Too bad they got rid
of the "Small World" ride at Disneyland.
-Speaking of Small World, John Hill/Grotz
got back in contact with me after years of lapsed communication. Seems like he's doing
well from what I've heard so far.
-Archiving all over the place. Yes I know the graphic
looks marginal up top, but it's a sketch outline of what it will look like for the next few
months. I just need to work with more seamless graphics editing.
13 May 2003
-Feeling much improved,
maybe up to 85%. Of course that required staying in bed for 12 solid hours overnight,
something I never do unless I'm sick. I pretty much got home, hit the pillow, & left
when it was time for work again.
-Among many pieces of news today is the fact that the $20
bill is getting a new look. Though it's the 2nd new look for the bill in less than a
decade, the key flaw of Andrew Jackson's face remains. Kevin Grinberg's old case about
getting one of our worst Presidents off the bill may not have been popular, but it was
right.
-Another hot new thing is banning Ephedra. I only wish that tobacco had just
been released in the last 20 years in the US. That way, when the first person anywhere
died from it, they'd ban it right off. Instead, we have something that kills one person a
year being made illegal, while something that kills 400,000 Americans a year being widely
promoted.
-Someone unknown to me wrote me a short but scathing e-mail that twice accused my
popular Country Quiz of "anti-semitism". I wrote a very lengthy point-by-point
reply because I take such a harsh allegation quite seriously. The more I've thought about
it, I don't think the author of the original e-mail took it that seriously at all. I have
a feeling she uses the term several times at breakfast, as in "pass the anti-semitic toast,
would you Dad?". I may post both e-mails somewhere on-site, just because I was pretty
perturbed. Besides, as I pointed out to her, it was the first negative e-mail I've
received about the Quiz ever & it's been taken 21,955 times as of the end of last week.
-Is
Nikki crazy? Survey says... Yes! & this isn't even regarding the roller-coaster.
Steve Yuhan's page, long in the lowlight of my page's links for barely staying out of
Italics Purgatory, has made good, with a link to this survey. It's truly
excellent & you should take it. The winning point on Nik's nuttiness though, comes in
question #108 (of 122), where the survey boldly asks: "What vowel do you use in
bag?" While most of the world chooses option A (as in "sat"), only 0.56% of
those responding say Nik's option B (as in "set"). Perhaps more amazing (&
making Nikki more crazy, of course) is that only one or two dots for option B on the question 108 map are
from Washington state, with none of them from the Olympic peninsula! Actually, the highest
concentration of Miss Hay's crazy pronunciation are in & around New York City. Game, set,
match.
-Also, whoever claimed to be from New Mexico & answered option G ("I have
never heard of drive-through liquor stores") on question 118 is just
plain lying. Or has been living under a rock.
12 May 2003
-Nobody's that sure that
I should have gone back to my jobs today. Least of all, me. I just hope I can avoid
a 2nd relapse.
-My webpage, like my apartment & my perspective, needs a lot of
work.
-Speaking of that last entry, I just caught up with the SOTW/Quiz Stats for the past
2 weeks. Being sick delayed most everything I was working on, but especially that.
Some people are really bored when conducting some of these searches...
11 May 2003
Happy Birthday to Megan
Dean
-Actually feeling SLIGHTLY better. Like back up
to the level I was at on Wednesday maybe. Work might even be viable tomorrow.
-Actually
made it out to Tracy to see some of Em's siblings who had gathered there. Food & TV.
Most of the talking ended up being in bite-sized one-line responses to small questions.
It's tough to start conversations in big families.
10 May 2003
-At work today (I felt like
I had to go in, since otherwise the whole campus would be closed), I created a mountain of tissues.
It was one of those scenes people only imagine or see in comics until they actually create
them. At least there weren't too many SARS jokes today.
-Everything in my life is in
disrepair. I feel like this illness is a metaphor for a whole lot of things I'm doing.
Or not doing.
9 May 2003
-Home sick again. Party
on party people. If I didn't know better, I'd say I was getting a lot worse rather than
better.
-Will I ever have energy again?
8 May 2003
-I had the energy to work yesterday entirely because
I'd rested the whole day before. Strangely, this pattern does not actually
aid recovery from illness. So I'm back at home, utterly exhausted, hangin'
with the cat.
-Everyone's posting these very sweeping reflective things about college... either
they're leaving it or remembering leaving or something else sorrowfully reminiscent.
I guess I'm just not in tune with the school-year schedule anymore, since
the schools I work at have 5 10-week terms, one of which we're in the middle
of now. But it's also wrapped up in the fact that April & May just
bring lethargic dismay. It doesn't matter what happens in those times...
be it getting engaged last April or getting Loosely Based accepted this
April, the 2-month span still finds ways to degrade into doldrums. I really
try to work on it every year. Maybe when I'm not sick it will be easier.
7 May 2003
-Went back to work, mostly feeling guilty. I
guess it was the right decision, but I have less than no energy now. I
may be on the road to relapse.
-Somebody asked me today if I had any kids yet. This question was quite
jarring to me. Not because it's crazy for a 23-year-old to have a kid
(I guess) or for me to look older than I am (I guess), but mostly because it's
absurd that I would have a kid now. I still haven't ruled it out altogether,
but four years from now would be too soon.
-If you're expecting wedding invitations from us, just sit tight. Life
has been beyond hectic for a while now, & that's making fun projects like
making invitations hard to do. Don't worry, no one's been invited yet.
You aren't missing anything. Just be a little more patient, please.
Introspection, My Worst
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