No, Not Dolly!

"f.d.a. says food from cloned animals is safe"

okay, okay, wait, wait, wait. last i knew we had a sheep and a cat. and now there is a whole discussion about to label or not to label meat from cloned livestock? f.d.a. says no but survey says the people want to know. good lord, we have all kinds of folk who are probably planning on making loads of money from cloned milk and meat talking about how there is only need to label if the food is significantly altered by how it is produced. ummm, hello, it's a clone!!! i am thinking somewhere in there somehow there is some significant alteration of something. but they are doing it for us. apparently they don't want to " misinform consumers with some sort of implied message of difference". that translates to, we don't want to lose a whole lot of money when people just won't touch the meat labelled "cloned". blah blah blah goes the rest of the article and for some reason i am deeply disturbed by it all.

am i going to have to become vegetarian?

I'm Signing Up For Classes Tomorrow!

tonight i went to watch an alvin ailey dance theater performance. well i watched most of it, except for the parts that were blocked by some woman's head, bopping back and forth. i almost knocked her in the back of the head. then i thought to myself, i need to be more like her. she obviously doesn't care whether or not those behind her see what is going on, as long as she catches every move (including those in the wings). and of course that head would appear just when things got interesting. one moment i am watching the most incredible physique ever ever, did i say ever? and then next thing i know all i see is fuzzy silhouette.

at a moment like this, i wish i wish i wish i could draw like oscar because not even my thousand words will come close. but you know that's not going to stop me from blabbing...

honestly, i didn't get the first piece - the music had my mind drifting but when pas de duke started, i was all there. from 'such sweet thunder' through 'old man's blues' i was wishing i was in a club, dancing with a partner and looking like i actually know what i am doing on the dance floor. then we were taken to an enchanted forest in existence without form. i was thinking druids (maybe because i had just done a puzzle and 10 across was droid). as the blurb in the playbill said, it really did fuse classical elegance with contemporary action and poetic lyricism.

finally the piece that made me pick that night. i had read about it and convinced my friend to pick tonight because if it. she leaned over and said "this better not disappoint" and, whew, i didn't. the golden section totally rocked, or should i say disco'd? lovely lovely lovely. uplifting (with lots of lifts - i did say disco, right?). gyrations. and, naturally, lots of fuzzy silhouette.

i tell you this, fuzzy silhouette better be on its knees thanking god that it is still connected to neck and body.

They Dodged A Bullet

you know what i am doing right now? of course you don't. i am listening to my ipod. and the big deal is? i have speakers on my computer and loads of music but i am listening to my ipod right now because i can. i have not listened to an ipod since two weekends ago when my trusty ipod quit on me. i guess she didn't like her xmas bonus and decided to go and work for someone else or perhaps not... the replacement i received did not work either. was my old ipod spreading horrid stories about me? and apple help was not really helping.

maybe this is why my fuse was particularly short. and cnn really pushed my buttons while it was at it. some reporter referred to zimbabwe as a rat-infested nation of beggars. i mean, if we are going to be comparing rodent populations, i think new york has zimbabwe beat by a mile. so i sat down and wrote a lengthy missive to cnn that, let's be real, probably no one has read yet. so i wrote a second - to increase my odds. i had to. the piece was recorded for anderson cooper 360 - thankfully not by coop himself (i would hate to have to choose between my principles and my future best friend). but that reporter needs to learn, first, the difference between a rat and a field mouse and, second, that, if you are going to claim rat infestation, you need to show us more than one field mouse on screen (one fieldmouse, a rat infestation doth not make). i mean, a million little pieces, the people are not as gullible as they were at the beginning of 2006!

so, i was fired up when i approached the genius bar in the apple store. i made a conscious effort to wear no black and of course today everyone in the apple store was wearing xmas red. my zen genius took the sluggish ipod and said nothing to me. so i did the crossword. and still he moved back and forth, pausing only to tell me that my ipod did not seem anything but supremely happy and perky. so i told him to try to load more files. and i did the sudoku. and still nothing. i said, please try a larger lot of data. and started plotting my attack on apple. and then he came back.

okay, the ipod seems a little sluggish and maybe if we give you another ipod we will be able to tell if the problem is with the ipod or your pc (i could see what he thought was to blame). i took my ipod and you know what?

right now, i am listening to my ipod. norah jones. don't know why.

Thank You! I Couldn't Have Done It Alone

now that i have calmed down a little from my wild celebrations, i can share my fantastic news with you. i picked up my copy of time magazine - the most highly anticipated copy - and was amazed to see me staring back at myself. granted the picture was a tad distorted, but i have seen me at my worst, i could recognise myself. and time, just in case i thought i had a long lost twin out there, made sure to write "You are the Time's Person of the Year"! wow! i mean, i knew this was coming but i never expected it would be this year. though every day i wake up thinking, yes, i am going to change the world, leave my mark, do what i gotta do, i must say i really thought the world was taking more notice of ahmadinejad and folk in iraq. well, ha to you both! i may not have been in the news like every day but i'm person of the year! are you?

Monday Blues

oh man, such great plans for today...
notes for the best blog ever!
i plug in my replacement ipod, speedily sent compliments of applecare.
and i think, that doesn't sound healthy. then i think, oh you are just being paranoid.

then...

the blue screen of death.

and i think, oh, it's just a glitch. i was in the kitchen when it happened, maybe i knocked something on my way out of the room.

i try again...

unexplained error, followed by numbers. and then, just in case i missed it...

the blue screen of death.

and now, my great day of blog glory,
that blog, so great, the devil would give me back my soul in exchange for it,
lost forever...

trumped, yet again, by those awesome computer gods

When Selling Your Soul...

as i was leafing through my morning paper, during this season to be jolly, and i am greeted with these figures:
new york city's capital budget for 2007 $52.9 billion
total wall street bonuses $36 billion
bonuses at goldman sachs $16.5 billion

thanks newspaper. way to make me feel better about the bonus i am going to receive this year... or not.

no worries, what i lack in billions of bonus dollars, i make up for in mad lurve!!!
fa-la-la-la-la la-la-la-la!!!

Oooh Oooh, Let Me Guess!!!

yay to anderson cooper for asking the questions that burn in our hearts but for which we just cannot find the words:

how many blood diamonds will be sitting under christmas trees this year?

What's The 419?

having failed to find my metaphor...
i tuned into 20/20 which had a segment on the infamous nigerian internet scams, known as 419s in nigeria, after the law that bans them. and boy are there ever many, beyond the usual emails asking for help accessing millions in frozen bank account funds, in exchange for a reward of a couple of million (some even come with photos!) to "black money" scams. a lot of thought goes into tapping into greed. i guess that is why it is one of the seven deadly sins.

i was stunned. it goes to show why folk need to watch 60 minutes. it would save a lot of people their life savings. i mean, people sent their bank details, gave over briefcases full of money or plain old wired money to, basically, emails. it's hard enough for me to lend money to a relative. i am a horrible horrible person.

20/20 even took us all the way to lagos, nigeria, a "crime-ridden disgrace of a city" where "the average wage is $1 a week". seriously lagos, your peeps need to use that $1 a week to clean up your disgraceful city. forget that, according to sally struthers, it takes a dollar a day to feed a child. no food. we want crime-ridden city of pride, gosh darn it! and in lagos, we watched the special task force bust internet cafes full of young men searching for that one person who fall for that email plea that offers riches beyond belief.

i'm thinking sacha baron cohen needs to get in touch with these guys. together they can find those who are left to fool.

And I Am The Children... Sha Dee Day!

You are the World

Completion, Good Reward.

The World is the final card of the Major Arcana, and as such represents saturnian energies, time, and completion.

The World card pictures a dancer in a Yoni (sometimes made of laurel leaves). The Yoni symbolizes the great Mother, the cervix through which everything is born, and also the doorway to the next life after death. It is indicative of a complete circle. Everything is finally coming together, successfully and at last. You will get that Ph.D. you've been working for years to complete, graduate at long last, marry after a long engagement, or finish that huge project. This card is not for little ends, but for big ones, important ones, ones that come with well earned cheers and acknowledgements. Your hard work, knowledge, wisdom, patience, etc, will absolutely pay-off; you've done everything right.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

And So It Continues...

yesterday i got home from work to this question from my houseguest:
"i couldn't switch on the tv"
for a second i was confused but then i realised...

a few weeks ago, a good friend of mine bought a new house and decided that the house and television did not go together. so i gained a new tv as a great birthday gift, since my old tv was tottering on the brink of usability. the television came with not one but three instructions manuals - one in english, one in spanish and one in french. so i did what was right. i piled all three on top of the microwave, plugged in the television and worked out the system.

i use the universal remote to turn the television on. i pick up the television remote control to switch off the guide that, for some reason, always pops up when the tv is turned on using a remote control. i make sure the tv is on channel 3 (or else the screen is blank with an 'unusable signal' message floating around). then i have to switch off the vcr and dvd players (or else the screen is blue). and make sure that the cable box is on. if ALL of that is done, voila tv!

houseguest looked at me and said - "what?"

okay, okay, so maybe i should try reading at least one of those manuals but as long as the batteries in my four remote controls are working, i got my system and i don't need no stinking manual!

Le Roi Est Mort... Vive Le Roi!!

it seems the gods have not yet been appeased.

almost two years ago i got an ipod - a gift from my poetic friend. i took it to a friend to fill with much music. a few minutes into the whole deal, the ipod stalled. so, i took it back and dude took the thing to the back. he came back and said it was fixed. i said, are you sure and he he looked at me like i was stupid. since he works for apple and i just buy product, i took the ipod home and connected it to my computer, crossed my fingers and made some tea (i couldn't watch). two gig into the deal, just as i was relaxing, sputter, sputter, death.

back in the store, the haughty woman dressed in black took my ipod and loaded test data on it. of course nothing happened. so she asked - mac or pc? she rolled her eyes - well, i can't really help you if you use a pc, there is nothing wrong with the ipod, the problem must be with your pc or your connector cables. buy new cables and try again or, even better, you might want to think about getting a mac. she looks behind me to help the next customer but i am not moving. i said to her, i am not a techie but i do know that today is the last day i can get an exchange on my ipod. i also know that there is nothing wrong with my pc and that the thing was fine for a while but then it died. so she repeated herself - nice and slowly, just in case my pc brain couldn't quite get the intricacies of inferior computing. to which i responded, if you can't help me then why does the ipod claim to be for mac AND pc? and, no matter how many times you say it, or how many more of your dressed-in-black coworkers you bring to back you up, i am still convinced that there is something wrong with this ipod that i am bringing in for the second time for being faulty. frustrated and perhaps made nervous by the lengthening line that i am completely ignoring, she calls the manager. he is friendlier and seems to be listening as i speak to him of doofies and thingies. he then explains that the test data that they generally use is about half a gig but, from what he has heard, he will try to load a larger file onto my ipod and see what happens.

10 minutes later he is back. apparently my totally irrelevant because i use a pc and am dressed in pink opinion is spot on. at 2 gig, the ipod crashed. so i got a new one and, yesterday, the ghost of the black outfit came to haunt me. the hard drive was spinning loudly and clicking away and i got a sad face on my display. well, ghost, haunt me all you like cos the joke's on you! i have apple care. 30 minutes and one apple care call later, they are going to replace my ipod. and i am going to wear my rainbow-hued dress as i plug it into my pc. so... take that!!!

and, um, yes, that is a macbook on my wishlist...

And This Is How It All Begins

so i check the weather report before i leave home - how many layers do i need and how heavy does my coat have to be. this is what i get. All in degrees farenheit:
high - 34
low - 26
current temp - 19.

and somehow, in between exclaiming about how cold it is, my mind has to get around how 19 falls between the high and low temperatures for the day.

Fool Him Once...

on sunday, i was supposed to be making dinner - chicken alfredo (i have never made this before but i am craving it like crazy). instead i found myself on the couch, icing my knee and watching 60 minutes. a piece about a survivor of the rwandan genocide. how she survived? she and 6 other women were crammed into the toilet of a local reverend. a tiny room that they fit into by piling themselves on top of each other. for close to 90 days. a room where they could only flush the toilet if someone else in the house was flushing the toilet (the reverend was the only one in on their secret, apparently). a room where they lived without ever bathing or changing their clothing. a room from which they could hear their fellow countrymen searching for them so they could cut them up with machetes.

but that wasn't even the interesting part of this piece. 60 minutes interviewed one of the survivor's neighbours. seems he served 11 years for killing six people (i need to put his lawyer in my cellphone. the guy is cheap AND effective). and so they asked him - how did you kill the people that you killed?
very matter of fact, he tells us how many he killed with his machete and how many with his studded club.
then the question - why?
again, as though it all makes sense - they promised us land and sugarcane (or something equally offer you can't refusable).
then he adds.
but we never got the land.
i think he is a little bitter about the short end of the stick that he got.
i'm thinking that if they ask him to do the whole killing spree again in the future, he'll make sure he gets his land and sugarcane upfront.

i remembered something today. i have a loud laugh. not as loud as my father's laugh, but pretty darn close. once when i was younger, i was watching a football match on television and i swear i heard my father, that is how loud it was. tonight, office holiday party and i realised that i have become very free with my laugh. there was a time when i tried the silent laugh, the cute and demure titter. i don't know what happened because now my loud laugh is back and it's proud.

maybe i should stick to serious conversation from here on out.

Miracle On Ninth Street

friday i trudged up the subway stairs, on my way home. and as i stepped into the artificial street lamp light, like a beacon in the night, there he was. anderson cooper. larger than life. gazing intently back into my eyes. in his favourite lucky out in the field blue shirt (that i guess goes very well with his eyes). sleeves rolled up - a man ready for work. sitting among common folk - giving me hope that one day i will be his best friend, tagging along on his awesomely important international assignments. granted those he was sitting among were dressed in camouflage fatigues and were holding menacing big guns, but that could easily be me. it could. being a part of that intense, earnest edutainment that is the most trusted news source.

but until then, every evening as i drag myself up those subway stairs, i shall hit the outside world, look up and smile... and dream... and hope. if i'm lucky this will last through the winter. fingers crossed.

1 December

world aids day. the day to stop for a moment and think. about the more than 25 million who have died since 1981. the more than 12 million aids orphans. 6,000 new infections every day. numbers to large to imagine. statistics too overwhelming to stomach.

smaller numbers. those with fewer degrees of separation remember smaller numbers. parents, siblings, friends. struggles to try to afford retroviral drugs. daring to even dream that suffering and death can be postponed. wondering how economics determine the right to life. wishing the six degrees of separation doctrine applied to them. mind-boggling.

so today. december 1. wear a red ribbon. be fashion fowa(red). keep a child alive. watch my man, bill clinton, being passionate about positively HIV negative future. or just watch bill and smile. go out and buy and paint by numbers set so you too can be african. rah rah. i am off to grab my pom poms! (red) of course.