SaveDarfur.org has a post called "http://www.savedarfur.org/pages/background/">Background</a>" that's worth checking out...
DOWNLOAD: Policy Talking Points (Updated 1/22/07)Darfur has been embroiled in a deadly conflict for over three years. At least 400,000 people have been killed;…
oh boy, there are some things you find on the internet that really make you glad to have been born after the 60's. this is one such project.
i hope you enjoy half as much as i did!
http://www.demonbaby.com/blog/2004/04/first-annual-myspace-stupid-haircut.html
p.s. here's one of my favorites, hee!
| MySpace Name: xmatthewx | Marvel Superhero Alter-Ego: Maelstrom | |
 |  | Style: The Hipster Helmet Stylist: Conor Oberst on crack Super Powers: Deceptive ability to fool enemies by hiding half of his face to appear more attractive than he actually is Secret Weapon: Dual-action straightening iron |
so tonight is christmas eve. most people are with their families drinking egg nog, maybe singing carols or watching 'it's a wonderful life'. tonight i won't be doing much of that. you see, fianceeman is jewish and we have chosen not to celebrate christmas. the last five years have been strange, breaking away from my family traditions to celebrate hanukkah, instead. in the beginning, i struggled with him, to get him to see the beauty of christmas. to see that it didn't have to be about jesus' birthday only, that for many people it was about the joy of giving and a feeling of gratitude for family and friends. a month to take stock of what we have in our lives.
when i was young, we had stockings to look forward to on christmas morn. my poor mom had probably been up until dawn wrapping our presents and arranging them under the tree. she and my father left us a note at the top of the stairs to tell us when we could go downstairs and open our stockings, unchaperoned. we would always run to the tree to look at all the tags with our names on them, imagining all of our hearts' desires wrapped in beautiful paper and bows. then we'd dash into the living room, to the fireplace. each stocking stuffed with a new toothbrush, movies (vhs!), cassette tapes, books, sometimes a watch or jewelry, perfume and chocolates! we'd pull out treasure after treasure and marvel with the simple joy we felt in all of our new loot. then we'd snuggle up on the couch and watch our new movies, waiting for my mom and dad to wake from their two hour nap so that we could open presents.
after the present madness subsided, mom and dad would start on christmas brunch. all the most delicious and non-nutritious food that we rarely got for breakfast. yummy pigs in a blanket, orange danish, home fried potatoes and even christmas chocolates, if we liked. we would play christmas music and the house would be full of energy and contentment. for the moment, we didn't have to clean up the paper strewn everywhere or start on our thank you notes, all we had to do was enjoy each other and our newest toys.
fianceeman and i have spoken many times about how we'll celebrate a holiday in december, but i don't think either one of us knows what it looks like, yet. hopefully, we can meld the best parts from both of our traditions into something magical and meaningful. whatever it is, i don't think my children will ever experience a holiday quite like i did when i was young. but i hope to give them lots of warm, beautiful memories of family and giving to one another, nonetheless.
to all those who do celebrate it, have a merry christmas! and to the rest of you, enjoy your day off ;)
smashing pumpkins was my favorite band at the age of 16, something about the melancholy and the raw guitar rock made them very appealing to my angst-ridden psyche. i fell in love, for the first time, to a boy named randy and smashing pumpkins' 'disarm' was the soundtrack. i was full of insecurity and painfully self-absorbed, as most teens are. and for some reason i thought the love was unrequited. the boy followed me around everywhere, but i was convinced i wasn't cool enough. i had started hanging out with the rebellious kids in my upper-middle class neighborhood, the ones who wore flannel shirts and listened to punk, some with dyed blue hair. i'm not sure what they were rebelling against, they had just about everything they could ever need or want. maybe they just wanted their apathetic parents' attention.
so i started wearing edgier clothes, emulating my contemporaries, i even bought combat boots from the local military supply store. but my bright blonde hair and babyface never really lent itself to hardcore sensibilities, as much as i wished it would. i started dating randy my junior year. he was a jack of all trades, we dubbed him 'macgyver' for his genius abilities. he could fashion a bong from a honeybear container and knew how to disable most of our homes' alarms so that we could all sneak out without alerting the wardens.
to me, he was like a modern day james dean, quiet and brooding. he was very tall and thin, but had a slight athleticism about him. he rode a skateboard everywhere and barely spoke. i never really knew if he was just shy or didn't have much to say about the topics we usually batted around. whatever it was, it added to the mystery of my first love. i wrote endless diary entries about what he said or did around me, whether he tried to kiss me or if someone saw him talking with another girl in the hall.
i would listen to smashing pumpkins for hours on my walkman and take long walks around the neighborhood, i can still feel that heavy sense of being distrusted and tied down by my parents and wanting so badly to go out on my own into the adult world. looking back i think i was just like most kids and i think my parents were doing the best they could with a boy-crazy girl like me.
i was 19 when my old best friend from sixth grade knocked on my parents' front door. i was living with my parents and going to college full-time. i was surprised to see erica, we were neighborhood friends, but had drifted apart many years earlier. she looked mournful and asked to come in. we sat down in the formal living room and she told me randy had been shot. that he had died a few nights before. disbelieving, i sat there, my body slowly growing numb. the next few days were almost an out of body experience. randy was still a teenager, he had been shot at a party by someone i knew. the investigators deemed it accidental, but i didn't believe that. the guy that shot randy was one of his hoodlum friends, this guy gambled, sold drugs, had stolen cars and was a creep in most respects. he knew his way around firearms, he used to sell them in high school. but i had no explanation for why he would kill randy intentionally.
randy's death wasn't the first i experienced as a teen, but it was the most painful. he was a very intelligent and sensitive young man. he hung out with some delinquents, but he would have outgrown that. it pained me to know he would never get married, graduate college or have children, that his body would now lie in the ground. forever.
i think of him every now and then, i wonder if we would have remained friends, what he would look like now had his life continued on. his death never had closure for me. even months later, i expected him to come over to my parents' house in his ridiculous baggy pants. i wish i could have told him goodbye and that he was the first boy that i truly loved.
when i hear smashing pumpkins, i remember the feeling of my first love and a boy named randy.
i wish i could remember the moments leading up to, and even more momentously, my birth. how amazing it must have been. was i frightened? how could i be, i didn’t even know there was anything else but the warm undulating embrace of my womb before that moment. did it hurt? what did i feel as they laid me next to my 18-year-old momma? was i relieved that the voice i heard for so long was now clear and close to me? i think i was tired, after many months in the dark, now sounds, lights, movement, were swirling around me, requiring perception and attention on my part.
i imagine i closed my swollen eyes and rested in the arms of the woman who courageously gave me the best gift i’ll ever know. thank you, Momma, i’m sure i’ve reminded you of times you felt inadequate, but look how many beautiful choices you made for me. i love you.
i promise this is not a sign of things to come. my vox blog will not become a place to watch insanely ridiculous videos. on this you have my solemn vow.
*but* if you know anything about peter andre and jordan (formerly katie price), from our wonderful cousins across the pond, you will enjoy this video. and when i say enjoy, i don't mean with your eyes or ears, but more with the organ that gleans comedy from terrible artistic endeavors.
i can't resist. you know i am a child of the eighties when i tell you that wham's last christmas makes me nostalgic, right? something about george michael and andrew ridgley just seems right for christmas, no? enjoy, my little lambs!
do you have any favorite holiday songs that embarrass you? do tell.
part of my excuse for not posting daily is that i've been busy studying for part 2 of 4 of the cpa exam. for you non-nerds out there, that's the certified public accountant examination. they've relaxed the timing of the testlets, to allow you to 'sit' (read: take the exam) during two months in each quarter of the year, so eight months of the year. it was previously held twice a year, in three day intervals. i have only taken a three hour exam and have no idea how you can keep up test-taking for three days.
so with all of this easing of the exam, they have made the actual test more challenging. the part i am studying for is called regulation, it involves business law, bankruptcy, contracts, securities law, and all taxation (e.g. individual, partnership, corporate, estate and trust).
gross.
passing this exam means that i get to keep my manager position at my public accounting firm, the opposite is true if i don't pass.
i take the exam monday morning at 9 am and i'm getting nervous. i better get back to studying.
Question: What was the hardest test you took? How did you prepare? Did you pass and how'd it feel?
wow. okay, suddenly this feels so real. i bought the wedding dress that i'm going to wear as i marry the man of my dreams. i want to blog this now so that i can look back one day and remember the excitement of all the events leading up to our blissful union.
so, my momma is coming to visit next weekend from virginia (too far away, if you ask me) to help me find my wedding dress. i've got about seven months until the big day and i had no idea which dress was for me, at least not without the final approval of mom. in anticipation of her visit, i rousted my two best girlfriends, which happen to be my bridesmaids, to get their dress shopping underway. i happened to leave a message at the fou fou bridal salon in town, asking for an appointment for my bridesmaid to come try on dresses for this saturday. they called back and informed me they were booked solid as the designer for marisa would be there with his newest line, a trunk sale, they call it.
it just so happens, that the dress i tried on and love is a marisa, but i received no invite to this event. the dress i love is also way out of my price range, so i shined it on. they let me know we could stop by to browse, but it would be hard to find an open dressing room. so my bridesmaid, ivana, and i went to another store first. we didn't really love anything there, so we swung by the fancy pants place.
as soon as i stepped in, i could feel the energy level, maximum setting! i told them i had filled out a card for a marisa dress and they were mortfied, 'how could have we left you out?!' they cried. 'we'll get you in, no problem, we're so sorry!' i hadn't been that upset by it, but they were offering one on one time with the designer and 15% off, so i was not going to say no to their accomodations.
after speaking with the shorter, jewish new yorker designer, lee, he brought in several dresses which he assessed would look great on me. i wasn't so sure, i had my eye on the chantilly lace number with the champagne charmeuse underneath, from last season's line. i was certain of it, the only thing i wasn't certain of was the price. i don't even want to tell you how much. too much.
so when i took a look at his newest dresses, i could only think, 'sure, like i can afford these.' i humored the adorably sycophantic man and tried on all of his creations. my friends ooh'd and ahh'd at all the right times, but i wasn't feeling anything. then i tried on a wild card number, with a mermaid silhouette and beading everywhere, it was unusual and breathtaking. it hugs my every curve (of which i don't have much), but it made me feel like a million bucks. sexy in the most elegant and romantic way. and one of the best parts, it's cheaper than the older dress. yes, i win! so i bit the bullet, i paid 50% down, it will be mine in four whole months. i really can't believe it, it's real.
i feel a mixture of nerves, anxiety, excitement, love for my future husband and a bit of fear. i'm really happy for this day to come, for this part of my life to begin. one day i'll look back and remember what it felt like to be single, to be planning this day and our new togetherness. but for now, all i can do is gaze onward, straight out to the horizon. and smile.
ok, i finally gave in to my impulses and bought the phone i've been wanting for ages. yay, me! i actually got a deal where the cost of the phone is completely rebated, although not immediately. but i don't mind, 'cause i'll be shinin'!
here's how the phone will look when i get it:
and here's how it'll look after getting all dolled up!
do you love it?!
