Okay, there's one politician I like

This guy. What a novel idea, attempting to be inclusive rather than exclusive -- scolding his own party, and rightfully so, even as a junior senator.

This is why minority (and female!) presence in positions of power is important. Different perspectives matter.

Go my school for hiring him as a professor.

Pet peeve of the day

Cashiers who hand you your change, coins on top. Coins should be placed in the hand *first* so they don't slide off the bill, and so you don't have to crumple the bill to keep the coins from tumbling to the floor. Coins first, bills on top. Is it really that difficult??

On a more humorous note:

The car insurance company who took care of my claim when Rudolfo broke his bum has taken to sending me flyers with insurance rates, trying to get me to switch over.

Um.

What I recall is that, yes, the claim agent was very nice, but he was *way* too eager to give me money. I told him that I didn't really think it was the fault of their client, it was really no one's fault, and the repairs were not that expensive, so I didn't care about making a claim. The agent was surprised and said he had never had anyone say that before. I said that I didn't see the point in raising her insurance rates to make a few bucks for myself, but if they were going to raise her rates then, duh, of course I'd take the money. He said he couldn't tell me any information about her rates, but that the company had already accepted liability for the accident. Read: her rates are going up.

Now why would I want to be insured by someone who raises rates when the other driver *says* she's not concerned about pursuing the claim???

I want my own wikipedia entry...

I'll admit it. I'm an attention whore. My desire for attention is so overpowering that, even as a full-grown working attorney, I still feel a twinge of jealousy when someone else reasonably close to my shoes gets some kind of award or notoriety (the good kind, anyway). This probably doesn't surprise a lot of you, particularly the cynics in the bunch, since you already know that secretly, everyone living in Los Angeles wants to be a movie star.

So it should come as no surprise to you that I'm now craving my own internet phenomenon. If someone can become famous by blogging about a friend's stolen sidekick, why not me? Hellooooo, GMA, I'm right here!

Any ideas on how to make myself famous in a matter of hours? I won't eat spiders or puppies. But other ideas are welcome.

Badness

Loving people is just not worth it. The people you love the most are the ones who always turn around and attack the second you let your guard down.

I fucking hate being a cancer.

Water, water, everywhere...

My latest goal is to drink more water. I've heard that you're supposed to have a glass of water for every cup of tea or coffee you drink -- I've never really followed this rule. I've also heard that drinking water helps with weight loss. Randomly, I heard that chugging cold water is particularly helpful and even burns a bunch of calories, or something. I have found that chugging cold water makes me feel full, so that is probably helpful (rather feel full with no-calorie water than calorie-full food).

So this week I am making a conscious effort to drink more water. Yesterday every time I got up I made a point of bringing back a tall cup of water to my desk. All that water led to lots of getting up to haul myself to the ladies' room. I don't want to think about what the guy whose office is next to mine thinks.

Oh well. Just flushing out the impurities right? If a few extra bathroom breaks are all that stand between me and fitting into my size 4 skirt again... I think I can handle it.

"Hm" and wide, "hm" and wide...

Two big things happened in the Anglican/Episcopal church yesterday.

New Hampshire consecrated a gay bishop. The article I link to quotes Anglican church leaders bemoaning Gene Robinson's consecration as "tear[ing] at the fabric of our communion at its deepest level."

Also yesterday, the Episcopal church elected Katherine Jefferts Schori as the presiding bishop for the United States. Rev. Jefferts Schori will be one of only three women serving as bishop of an Anglican province (the Anglican Communion is comprised of 38 provinces). A priest in the article is quoted as stating he is shocked an saddened by her election.

As a Christian and an Episcopalian, it saddens and frustrates me that culturally-ingrained sexual mores have so overtaken and overpowered the church that its true message is obscured. Here's a newsflash: there's no such thing as a perfect Christian. Every priest and every parishioner sins multiple times a day. Leaving aside the debate of whether things like fornication and homosexuality are even sins at all, why do conservative church leaders treat them as though they're the only sins that matter? What about the greed, pride, and hypocrisy that run rampant in most conservative churches (at least, most conservative churches of which I've been a member)? As Jesus said, it's time to ignore the mote in your brother's eye and take care of the beam in your own. Even *if* conservative leaders are correct, and homosexuality is a sin, and priests should not lead homosexual lifestyles -- so what? Doesn't the Bible say that all things work together for GOOD for those who love God and are called according to his purpose? (Hint: it does). Maybe instead of worrying about the theological dogma that divides us, we should be focusing on the message of salvation which unites us.

But I guess that would mean humbling ourselves and allowing God to work through other imperfect vessels instead of praying loudly in public and thanking God that you are such a "good" Christian who is not like those sinners. Silly me.

Okay, not to go all serious on you guys, but...

This really, really scares me.

Look, I love my country -- or at least, I love the ideals my country is supposed to stand for. But I don't love seeing those ideals bastardized in the name of "patriotism." I cannot think of a more ironic amendment to add to the Constitution.

I hope the Senate will do the right thing and defeat this. But if we can't trust our leaders to do it, I hope that the people will stand up for their own rights. But I'm not confident -- perhaps Americans will surprise me, but I'm worried. I see far too many people willing to simply give everything over to the government -- money, power, discretion -- so that they just don't have to worry about it anymore.

Ugh. I just. I'll just stop now.

Oh good God

This makes me so very ashamed of my idiotic home state.

I'm sorry, I missed the part where the Disgusting Pervert Creep was charged with statutory rape.

And don't even get me started on the differential age of consent for boys and girls. I swear to God it felt like I was reading something out of The Onion. I sure wish I was.

250th post!

I think I will make this post... a girl!

I was going to post something serious about how incredibly and deeply disturbing the above article is... but I am feeling lazy today.

Confirmation that our tax money is being wasted

on dangerous people like me who dare to try to bring pocketknives onto the plane, rather than people who forge invalid id cards in an effort to prove how useless the government is. The dude who actually did this probably thinks they need to step up security, but I have a much better idea -- just document better who goes through security. ID cards all have magentic strips on them by now, so swipe them for a quick criminal background check. That way, you'll have to be a legal citizen to fly anywhere or go into government buildings, and TSA will be able to screen out 95% of the people who get in currently who are actually likely to do any damage. I mean, seriously, so much time and money gets wasted on stuff that doesn't even matter.

Holy shit

This kind of makes me want to throw up a little.

I have to admit, though, this puts a new spin on "beware of dog."

Go California!!

My awesome state has defeated a retarded measure that would have taxed only rich people (including rich singles) to send other people's kids to preschool. Good for California. I am so proud of my kickass state.

In other happy news, the Senate has opted, for now, not to write the first Constitutional Amendment that carves out an arbitrary group of people for targeted discrimination. My memory is a little foggy, what with discovery disputes and such to worry about these days, but if I recall correctly, the only other amendment to ever deny rights to the people, rather than guarantee them, was such a massive failure that it was promptly undone with, yes, another amendment. What a pathetic waste of money and textbook space that mistake was.

My spine is shivering

I've complained before about how bad the construction workers near my apartment suck. Now, on top of being loud, at least one of them is Creepy As Fuck.

Now, I get that constructions workers as a whole are not the most sophisticated or enlightened men. It's not *okay* that they catcall women or make unintelligent and offensive remarks, but it's not particularly threatening. It's easy enough to write someone off as a primate as long as he's not running toward you with a sharp object or something.

But it's another thing completely when Creepy As Fuck knows where you live and is always standing there, right there, in front of your car, every morning when you go to work.

I noticed him a couple days ago staring at me when I was getting into my car. He stared the whole fucking time I backed my car out and peeled out of the driveway, which I did in the fastest and unsafest manner ever, since he was creeping me the fuck out.

Today (the devil's day, if you're superstitious) he worked up the nerve to talk to me. Look, I am not a complete bitch. I try generally to be friendly, even to people I don't particularly want to talk to. But he was already creeping me the fuck out, so I tried to ignore him. But he just said the Weirdest Thing.

"You have a beautiful car."

Huh?

I asked him to repeat himself because I wasn't sure if I'd heard correctly.

But, no, I had: "You have a beautiful car."

Now, I am sure Rudolfo appreciates compliments, especially after the nasty incident earlier this year. But, um. Huh?

Has anyone else ever heard of construction workers being sexually attracted to cars? Because it is Creepy As Fuck.

He better leave Rudolfo alone.

Random thought for the day

Since I can't even bring an empty lighter onto a plane these days (since me plus dangerous contraband like a Swiss army knife equals trouble), I wonder if Chuck Norris is simply denied boarding?

And you thought your family was messed up

At least they didn't put out a hit on you right before you testified at your dad's rape trial.

Well, maybe I am making assumptions here. If your family did that, then, yeah, they're messed up. And somebody, I don't know who, but somebody, owes you like a gazillion dollars to pay for all your counseling bills. Or drinking bills. Whatever floats your boat.