today's forcast

it's 55 degrees right now, with a high of 80. i'm gonna be sick as a dog, if they keep this up.

brrrr

it's fucking freezing this morning. it's so cold that during my piping hot shower i was thinking about Christmas gifts for people. then i realized August wasn't even over. not cool, man. not cool.

seriously, enough.

Andrea on Emril

here comes this man bamming some shit that doesn't need to be bammed. you can't bam ice cream.

"For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."

i'm not terribly concerned about my age. i've never been that type of girl. the idea of turning 29 in less than a month is just weird. i am kicking down thirty's door. i'm not nearly as accomplished or where i thought i'd be by now, but it wouldn't be life if it wasn't an adventure. besides, sure i was severely derailed in my academic progress, but on the other hand, i'm about to go through almost every country in Europe come Dec. so, i'm scholastically unaccomplished, but a bona fide world traveler. at least i haven't spent the last 6 years crying in a bottle about how wrong my life has turned out, mad at the world.

it's not that bad. all things considered, i'm having a great time. life has a way of evening itself out.

massawndje quote

"alright, so let me sum up this conversation. you've got Computer Love, you're riddin' dirty, and are about to be in your last year of your twenties."

yea, that's about right.

jeah!

Your IQ score is 135

Your Intellectual Type is Insightful Linguist. This means you are highly intelligent and have the natural fluency of a writer and the visual and spatial strengths of an artist. Those skills contribute to your creative and expressive mind.

"When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross."
~Sinclair Lewis

stars may be blind, but they can still hear.

Va sent me this article of Paris Hilton and titled it,"Modesty, thy name is...well, it's sure as hell not Paris, anyway." to which i replied:

i'm sorry, what part gave you the immodest impression? wait, no, let me guess. um...was it..."I, like, cry, when I listen to it, it's so good." ? was that it? maybe they're not really tears. maybe it's all of the heroine that's got her tear ducts all in a rage. wait, though, the dryness of coke would probably counter act that. or maybe it really just is the angelic tone to her purely studio-created voice.

i like to think of Paris as a lab-created emerald. sure it's completely manufactured, synthetic, and cheap, but is it any less green? actually it's greener because it doesn't have all of those pesky imperfections that natural, raw talent...uh, i mean, real gems have.

the bad thing is that when i first heard her song, i thought it was Gwen Stefani. whoops.

Colbert

confusing Daily Show guest Matt Dillon with Bob Dylan:

"The only thing blowing in the wind is your irrelevance, Bobby."

SoaP

Holy Shit! after all of the months of buzz and anticipation, there's a legitimate worry that the movie would fall way short of expectations. the pressure build with the momentum. studio execs get nervous. the world grows skeptical that there's no way it'll live up the hype. that's fair. this movie, however, is not one of those movies. what a fantastic film.

i can't think of another movie where i laughed and screamed at the same time. my throat is actually sore. you know how, with babies, their laughter can turn to crying in almost record time? well, that was me. i'd start out with a scream that would magically warp into raucous laughter. the best part is that they sustained 2 hours with no real excitement but snakes. you'd think that'd be enough, but there are only so many ways that a snake can bite someone before it just gets lame. i would've loved to have been a fly on the wall of that process. a bunch of dudes devising innumerable ways of killing people with snakes. let me tell you, they left no stone unturned. i, obviously, can't tell you, but there were many times when the audience was yelling out "no" because they knew there was just no way the movie would go there...and then it did.

i went to the 10pm pre-showing tonight. i almost didn't go, because i tend to punk out of social engagements, especially when i'm alone. i'm so glad i bought the ticket on pure adrenaline. there was no better crowd to be there with. the beauty of the pre-show is that only die hards go to them. so, you know you're going to have a crowd that will not only thoroughly enjoy it, but will vocally enjoy it. the single best moment was the countdown. there's a timer to release the snakes and as it counted down the crowd was yelling out, "3...2...1...SNAKES!!!!!" excellent. when the anticipation for the next attack was building, people were hissing. of course, there were cheers for Samuel L. Jackson and you could hear a pin drop when he said his already famous line, "i've had it with these muthafuckin' snakes on this muthafuckin' plane." although, in truth, you really only heard, "i've had it with these muthafuckin' snakes" before the cheers rendered the rest of the line completely inaudible.

there was chanting, there was clapping, yelling, bottles thrown...i think i saw a shoe fly. these are things you can only get from the very first showing. no one's seen it before and everyone is there to purely enjoy the movie and revel in the experience. plus, everyone there is really young, so no one is concerned with composure. undoubtedly, the movie will get, at most, two stars. there were blaring plot holes and the concept is, naturally, absurd, but that's where the critics get it wrong. this not a movie to dissect. there are no parallels to draw or socio-anything issues to explore. not that you couldn't, you just shouldn't. the beauty of this movie is in the title. it is so painfully transparent that it's genius. so no matter how the plot meanders or what the actors say or do, you got exactly what you paid for...snakes on a plane.

entertainment in its purest form.

it is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool,
than to open it and remove all doubt.

niggers and the white man

yea, i said it. i meant it, too. i live around a bunch of fucking niggers. i know i live in the Amherst version of the hood, but give me a break. i've never seen a hood with so many rolling green hills. these are nice apartments in the middle of the scenic New England woods. there's nothing ghetto about this place...except for the niggers, which is a real shame. i don't live in some dangerous, over poplutated, congested with both people and traffic brick city. nope. these are bastards who've moved from Holyoke, Springfield --which i'll grant is a shit city-- New York or some place that feel the need to bring their ghetto culture to a nice area. you know, just because a bunch of minorities live in a concentrated area, doesn't mean you have to go buck wild. the only reason we all live here is because these are one of the few apartment complexes in the area and this a very expensive area. most everwhere else are either houses with rooms rented out or houses. you don't live in the hood if your rent is at least $700, off top.

so, what brought this on is my dad's car. my dad loves shiny baubles. he's very much like an infant in that respect. anyway, he has this electric blue car and wanted to put a bunch of Christmas bows on the back window in the shape of a cross. he had them arranged with blue and silver bows to have the cross adorned in alternating colors. it's cute. it's a bit too much religion for me, but i respect his gangsta.

he's been out of the country since the end of July and i have his car. this morning i went out to buy some milk for my breakfast and took out my trash. as i'm coming back to the car from the trash bin, i notice that some rat bastard has torn off all of his bows. that's why niggas can never have nice shit. there's always some hatin' fucker to ruin it for everyone. then, i'm coming back from the store and decide the check the plates. i've had my own experience with people deciding that your car doesn't need tags as much as their wall does. my culprits, however, were a bunch of hippies. you know, just because my plates say "GRATFL" doesn't mean i mean The Dead. so, that happened...twice...to me and i wanted to make sure someone didn't want to do the same. his plates are in Ukrainian and are, essentially, unintelligible to the masses, but you never know. so, i see that one of the screws in the front is popping out. i go to the back and find no screws in the back. now, i don't know if that's always been like that, but you have to forgive me for blaming the niggers, seeing as how they've already fucked with his car once and tore off the bows.

you know, for all of shit people talk about the white man keeping us down, that sentiment certainly doesn't apply here. i'm not, necessarily, a bootstraps kind of girl and do believe that there is a certain amount of validity to that, but most of the time, i think, black people keep themselves down. the white man may put more money in bombs than they do schools, which continues the tradition of oppression due to lack of education and, therefore, barring black people from a myriad of options, but they never told you to be a piece of shit asshole who wantonly seeks to destroy someone else's joy.

nope.

them niggers came up with that on their own.

heart of darkness

i'd like to believe that i'm a good person. everybody would. life sends you certain obstacles that challenge your beliefs, strength, and resolve. i was presented with such an obstacle and found the true darkness inside of myself. it's not very pretty, but it is what it is.

Amanda is dying from breast cancer. she is the mother of Shawn's kids and facilitator of his death. i found this out a little while ago. i knew she had cancer months ago. my initial reaction to that was that i couldn't think of a better person to have it. yea, i know. that's so fucked up. i wouldn't wish cancer on anyone, but if it has a quota to fill, better her than someone...anyone else. with her, i see it as a tangible manifestation of her corroded soul.

i'm not proud of myself and i feel so bad for the kids. Christ, they're going to be orphans barely into double digits. i found that i feel nothing concerning her. last week, Andrea told me that she was basically on her death bed. i was surprised --and a bit saddened--to find that i had almost no reaction to it. it would be the same as someone telling me that the car that just passed by was blue. a minor point of interest, but more of just a random fact.

i was saddened by this, because i thought i'd have more sympathy, if not for her than at least, for the human condition. nope. i've got nothing. i've never really felt this way before. academically, it makes sense, but emotionally, i'm sort of disappointed in myself. i guess there's just a point to where someone has wronged you in so many fundamental ways that you actually couldn't care less about them. i literally don't care whether she lives or dies. maybe it comes from my inability to forgive her for what she's done.

she's hurt so many people i deeply love, not to mention caused the death of the father of her own kids. the people that i love the most, who have supported me through some seriously fucked up shit, have been scarred by her and her selfish choices. it took her until last year --a solid 5 years after the fact--to tell his own mother what happened to him the night he died and her part in it. how could i feel bad for her? and that's just the shit she did to the people i love. that doesn't even count what she's done to me. our sordid history aside, she caused the death of the single most important person i've allowed in my life. he wasn't just a boyfriend. he wasn't just about to be my fiance. he was my entire world; my best friend, my lover, my cheering squad, my sounding board, my critic. he was the rock that i returned to after a stint in the clouds...always. he was home. at the age of 22, with one selfish decision on her part, she blew my life apart. it's taken me almost 6 years to finally pick up the pieces and i find it hard to muster sympathy for her and her situation.

i'd like to think i'm a better person, but i'm not. it'd be different if she was just there when it happened, but to know that she put him out of the car, forcing him to walk along the highway and ultimately get hit, makes it difficult to care.

when he first died and i moved back home, people wondered if i'd do anything to her. God knows i was nothing if not a big ball of rage, but i knew that a) all fingers would point to me and, more importantly, b) there's nothing that i could do to her that would be worse than answering to God. i took solace in knowing that there could be nothing worse than knowing you helped kill your own children's father, seeing him in their faces every day and, eventually, having to answer to them about what happened. that would be hell on Earth. i'm a big believer in Karma and life is all about balance. her actions set the world off kilter and it would remedy itself in time. is the remedy cancer? is it death? i don't know.

having a good friend of mine lose his own mother to breast cancer makes me particularly sensitive to it. seeing him, knowing him, and fighting through the series of reinforced walls he's built up around his heart has made me keenly aware of how fucked up all of this sounds. i would never want to see the pain i see in him in anyone else i love. so, for that, i am sorry. for the kids, who are about to lose their other parent, and for her parents who are about to lose their daughter, i am sorry. for her and the pain she is going through, i'm not.

maybe all of this has forced her to confront herself and the life she has lived and the people she has hurt. God know she has a lot to answer for. maybe i will, too, for feeling this way. maybe i'll feel differently when she actually dies. i don't know. the fucked up thing is that, in Jr. High, we used to be close friends. this is what time and choices have led us to.

i've never experienced my heart being so cold towards someone. even in my most angered or aching moments, i've always been able to find compassion and understanding. i may not have liked it or wanted to, but it was always there. i've never felt so apathetic about someone and their impending death. it's sad.

it's sad to know that i'm broken that way.

chi-town

i'm in my brother's place and it's incredible.

he, as the aforementioned title states, lives in chicago. oh, but he doesn't just live in the city. nope, my brother lives on the 30th floor of a building that's livingroom overlooks lake michigan and the skyline. looking out of his window is like looking at a postcard. it's incredible. he has marble floors, a concierge, an exercise room, and an outdoor pool with patio furniture and grills.

this shouldn't come as a surprise since he is a lawyer at a very lucrative firm. what makes it crazy is that it's my brother. the man whose "office" is carpeted with comic books and would rather talk warcraft than torts. it's, naturally, really cool to see him doing so well. it's just funny. here's a guy, when he was in law school at Columbia, would want me to come down every weekend and hang out. whose apartment i would clean --and still do--when he's at work or class. this same man has marble walls in his shower. that's funny. i guess what makes it so good is that, even with all of his success, he's still my brother.

there's just no way to describe this view. oh, and night, fuggitabouddit. the lights of the city are little jewels scattered on the land with a beautiful open, midwestern sky with its respective jems.

i think it's safe to say that i'll be coming here more often. i've been missing home lately and long for the open star-filled skies of the midwest. i miss my brother and hate living so far from him. part of me wants to move back, but i'm undecided. for now, i'll just visit him and live, momentarily, in the lap of luxury.

Hospitaller:I put no stock in religion. By the word religion I have seen the lunacy of fanatics of every denomination be called the will of god. Holiness is in right action, and courage on behalf of those who cannot defend themselves, and goodness. What god desires is here [points to head]

Hospitaller: and here [points to heart]

Hospitaller: -and by what you decide to do every day, you will be a good man. Or not.

TV

i think there should be an "ideally" history channel or the "alternate" history channel...i'm undecided.

i was watching the History Channel and they were talking about some conflict in Iraq and how American troops had some victory that forced the Iraqis to lay down the weapons and disappear into the population.

i only briefly heard that part of it, so i have no other context. i don't know if it's recent history or not, but i immediately thought,"since when?" then i thought how funny it would be if there was a TV station that was dedicated to the optimal outcome of historical events. in a world where there are no blunders, America is always right, of course, and the good guys always win.

now, you might be tempted to say, "But, April, that's called Fox news." and you have a point. the difference is that Fox is trying to fake it until they make it. whoever's opinion that is yelled the loudest holds as truth. i'm talking about a network that is not the tool of the immediate administration, but is, essentially, a delusional, slightly drunk, selective memoried uncle recounting the "truth."

my god, the possibilities. the hyperbole. the humanity.