bye bye 2005

gosh dang! get yourselves ahold of some mary gauthier, that's music, of the countryfied kind, right now! i was doing the dishes, listening to the radio, saying goodbye to 2005, a pretty good year, i think i'm getting used to this being happy stuff, and "mercy now" came on, and i started bawling like a baby. i know it's lame to quote songs in blogs, and if you didn't know, you know now. but this is my goodbye to this year and part of my plea for you listen to this gal.

Mercy Now

My father could use a little mercy now
The fruits of his labor
Fall and rot slowly on the ground
His work is almost over
It won't be long and he won't be around
I love my father, and he could use some mercy now

My brother could use a little mercy now
He's a stranger to freedom
He's shackled to his fears and doubts
The pain that he lives in is
Almost more than living will allow
I love my bother, and he could use some mercy now

My church and my country could use a little mercy now
As they sink into a poisoned pit
That's going to take forever to climb out
They carry the weight of the faithful
Who follow them down
I love my church and country, and they could use some mercy now

Every living thing could use a little mercy now
Only the hand of grace can end the race
Towards another mushroom cloud
People in power, well
They'll do anything to keep their crown
I love life, and life itself could use some mercy now

Yeah, we all could use a little mercy now
I know we don't deserve it
But we need it anyhow
We hang in the balance
Dangle 'tween hell and hallowed ground
Every single one of us could use some mercy now
Every single one of us could use some mercy now
Every single one of us could use some mercy now

poo

xmas

bear with us. xmas recovery in progress. [whimper.]

strike over

how exciting! it looks like the workers may have won! of course none of the articles i read yesterday announcing the end of the strike, from the times to cnn and the guardian, mentioned that the MTA had retreated on its pension demands, which had been the last minute surprise deal breaker that had forced the strike. all of the articles i read talked about the stiff fines and fear of legal repercussions, implying that that was why the workers went back to work. but the real reason, being reported today, when fewer people will read beyond the headline, is because they got what they were demanding.

transit strike day 2

according to Democracy Now today, the "Deal-Breaking MTA Demand Would Have Saved Only $20M."

remember, the MTA admitted that it raised the subway fare the last time unnecessarily and had cooked their books! they said the only reason they couldn't lower the fares again was because it would be more expensive to reprogram the turnstiles. remember that?! the MTA admits that they are a bunch of crooked liars, and we are supposed to believe them that they can't afford to give these workers what they're asking for?

transit strike

photo by flickr user stevenfromqueens
it was so quiet this morning! like a snow day. how heroic these workers are! standing up to the man. while the media and all the idiots are calling them "morally reprehensible". not one source is covering the event from the worker's perspective. all the stories are about the inconvenience to the "stranded". i think we should celebrate people who aren't willing to just passively accept what's being offered to them. it's so impressive, all of them standing together like that. using their power. it's the kind of power that's disappearing more and more from our planet. power that doesn't come from the top down. american citizens can't give away fast enough the power that our predecessors fought so hard for. listen to any phone conversation you want, NSA guys! it's s'posed to be necessary! it's sad that it seems almost anachronistic, this spirit of struggle, troublemaking, courage. i wish i had been there to hand out sandwiches or something when they walked out this morning. at the world bank protest, in washington dc, in april 2000, after hundreds of people were "preempively" arrested, a group of central american guys from a fast food place handed out sandwiches to people from big boxes as they were released from jail the next day. no one gets a pension any more! but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't. i am all for fighting to keep the idea of a pension alive. i want a pension! wish i had a union. amazingly, there are some people left in the world who will still fight for a better life. over the weekend, farmers from all over the world, mostly south koreans, stormed the WTO meeting in hong kong. they actually made it inside!

people getting maced, photo by flickr user sgrah
more pictures from hong kong from indymedia

tuna noodle casserole

i am making tuna noodle casserole for dinner tonight. it is in the oven right now. i had to call my sister for the recipe because she used to make it all the time when we were kids. she would get home at like midnight, high, and start making it, and then we would watch tv together and fight over what to watch. she liked b horror movies, and i liked the movies in which they talked a lot. she would never let me have any because i didnt help make it. and she would proceed to eat the whole thing by herself. and remain tall and thin our whole lives. according to her, the recipe includes an entire cup of mayonnaise. that is just too gross. on top of the cream of celery soup, butter and melted cheese! and she uses half and half. i skipped the mayo. i can't believe that's what i was eating all those years!

guest

today's guest blogger is my boyfriend, warren.
it was his birthday yesterday, incidentally.
yeah, yeah, i know, everyone loves a sag.
take it away, warren.

Firstmost, allow to say what an honor it is to be the first ever guest-blogger on [censored]'s blog. To think that a sharecropper's son from the backwoods of Rocky Mount, North Carolina would rise to such a position through honest, God-loving, hard labor, verily embiggens the heart.
I do have a theoretical blog of my own that may one day manifest itself that will be all about booze, one of my fields of expertise. But I'm not one to seek the limelight. In fact, I actively avoid any sort of attention from the general public. Actually, I am physically sickened by attention getting behavior. Good thing I am writing here, because I know how few people read [censored]'s blog.
Speaking of [censored], she took me to a wonderful restaurant for my birthday where I gorged myself on fresh crabs, oysters, and truffled and chanterelled fishes. Big shout out to [censored]! You're my special lady.
This time of year I like to turn my thoughts to Jesus Christ, lord and saviour to many, personal hero to me; and think about how much consumerist ass he would kick in my wine shop. Christmas shoppers are the worst people in the world. Do they think Jesus isn't going to notice how awful they are?
Well, that was fairly painless. Maybe one day I will have a blog that is even less popular than [censored]'s. Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyful Ramadan, Blessed Diwali, Righteous Kwanzaa, and Festivus for the Rest of Us.

batherapy

people. for what ails ya. i am telling you. the stuff has lithium in it. that is the stuff they use to calm down maniacs. in other words, it keeps people with bipolar disorder from being crazy. it makes people who do not have bipolar disorder feel real relaxed. like me. right now. it's extra good when it's fahreezing out, like it has been lately. i take a batherapy bath first thing when i get home every day these days. there was a natural hot spring near rome, in the olden days, in which the "lunatics" bathed, which calmed them. it has been tested in modern times and was discovered to contain lithium. try it. you'll like it. i gay-run-tee.

december 9th and april 7th

i found a coat yesterday! and i got my airport card in my computer at work today! it must be astrological. i don't necessarily believe in astrology, but i think it's dumb to dismiss it outright. because who really knows? plus i read this book one time that told all about you based on your birthday, and i looked up everyone i knew, and it was dead on for every single person. i wish i could remember the name of the book. it was like *the birthday book* or something. but i just looked that up on amazon, and i don't think that was it. it was a whole series; there was one for your love life, and one for something else, etc. i really want to get all of them. maybe they don't publish it anymore. anyways, the one i read was the one that had 2 pages of general information and advice for each birthday of the year. it told me that i was lucky and that my main spiritual challenge in life was to try to be sympathetic to other people, presumably people who were not also born on my birthday. i have been trying ever since, but haven't really been super successful. actually, i was already trying to be sympathetic before i read the *birthday book*, or whatever it's really called, because i saw something on tv, probably pbs, about a study that showed that kids whose mothers don't show sympathy, like saying "poor baby!" and stroking their heads, when they get hurt, or something else bad happens, don't develop the ability to feel sympathetic to other people when they grow up. it is a common parenting strategy not to make too big of a deal when a kid gets hurt, like if they bump their head, because it just makes them cry more; it probably freaks them out when you freak out. i think that my parents used this strategy, plus i got left with nannies a lot as a child, and that's why i tend to find it easy not to feel sorry for people. but i always make an effort to *act* like i feel sorry for people, in hopes that it will help me to actually feel sorry for people in the future, and also so that those people in turn might develop a more sympathetic personality as well.

help

help. i can't find a winter coat. the wonderful, warm, green coat i've worn for three years has lost it's lining, and one of the sleeves is coming off. i am currently making do with a shapeless, grey, thin coat my mother gave me, and if you know me, you know that i hate wearing grey.

my requirements are:

under $300
has to have a waist, belted even better
size 6 or 8
must be warm
preferably a bright color, but not red, and absolutely not black or grey. maybe brown. plaid, herringbone, tweed ok
can't be fur or have any fur attached to it
not double breasted
preferably a rounded collar
you know, "girly"

i have been unable to drag myself into a department store as of yet, but will if someone sights a coat of the above description in one and informs me of said sighting.

links to items on ebay also welcome.

thank you for your attention to this matter.

world o' craft

i spend all of my online time now, of which there is not much, owing to lack of airport card, see below, looking at crafts. neither do i have time to actually make crafts these days. supernaturale is a very cool site, and it's also a portal to a whole world of people making cool things. there is a recipe for moss graffiti from helen nodding.

and this portrait, by jason kronenwald, featured on extremecraft, is made entirely of chewed up gum. ok, i guess it's not actually cool; it's actually kind of gross.

oopss

sorry about the recent silence, readers. i don't have an airport card in my computer at work. i will soon though, so you're in for plenty of LoCV in the near future. that is if i can get over my embarrassment at having misspelled "tompkins square park". don't go back and look; i've already fixed it. i've lived in the east village for almost ten years, and, at some point during that period, i got it into my head that "tompkins" didn't have a "p" in it. (remember thomson and thompson from the tintin comics?)

i also just realized that i have been using the verbs "affect" and "effect" incorrectly, by interchanging them, for probably decades. which would be fine, not fine, but not excruciating, if i hadn't discovered this by snottily checking the dictionary with the sole purpose in mind of emailing the definitions to someone i thought was using "affect" incorrectly.

mwop, mwop.