February 26th, 2008
this little blog is being dwarfed by my other super duper library blog, and my whole no blogging at work thing has slowed it down.
school is boring and painful. work is busy, stressful, and exciting all in one.
last night i saw dr. frank read from his book at moe’s. it was nice. i hadn’t been to raleigh’s in a while and they were bumping “straight outta compton”, pretty good stuff. i also got to talk to frank about politics and how insane this race has become. i’m really excited about tonight’s debate, if i can stay awake.
i also received a summons for jury duty yesterday. i have to show up on march 12. that’s two weeks! i thought they usually gave you more time.
today i went back to the doc for a check up and found out my plastic surgeon’s leaving kaiser. what’s it mean to me? means i gotta stop dragging my feet on reconstruction, so i have to go get cut up asap. i’m meeting him tomorrow to see what i can do. luckily, i think i got time to take off of work, but i need to get in gear because it’s the conference season.
today i went to the store to start planning my garden and buy lots of fruit. i need fruit.
February 23rd, 2008
feel like buying me something for living after a pretty hellish year? you know… just to say, “well done, kendra. you’re alive and you still have your pluck.” or something like that. i want this usb owl. seriously. it’ll be out in may…
thanks!
by kendra | Posted in
weird stuff |
1 Comment » | Tags:
owl
February 19th, 2008
remember that neighbour i talked about before? anyhow. she moved out, big ass burning van and all. it took a couple of weeks longer than we were told, but her junk is out of the basement. her long goodbye? she took the one bike of my five that worked, yet left her two mud-caked bikes she only used for burning man. when this made itself known to me, i was perturbed but i thought, “oh well, i’ll get it back.” well, tonight robojoe called her and guess what, she sold the fucking bike on craigslist! why? because neither she nor her friend/room mate remembered the bike being theirs, so why not sell it? they could have thought, “oh my, i wonder if this belongs to the people we used to share a storage area with?” but no, they sold it. along with the bike was my lock, my lights, and my helmet. so right now i’m sort of out of luck. robojoe, being the nice guy he is, said something like, “it’s ok, kendra didn’t ride it much.” neglecting to say, “because she was recovering from chemo and cancer and didn’t have the strength to ride.” whatever, this isn’t a pity party. yeah, last year sucked, but i was looking forward to free time for my sweet ride. now, i’m out the ride.
i am sort of tempted to say, “look michelle, i’m pretty bummed you took my bike and sold it on craigslist. that was a pretty short sighted and selfish thing to do. how about you give me $100 towards the helmet, light, and lock that you also sold and promise not to be such a dick to future neighbours?” that’s not going to happen. i’ll chalk this up to life, be mature, and buy a new lock myself. she’ll continue to be oblivious to those around her and nothing will really change.
ugh.
by kendra | Posted in
blagg |
6 Comments » |
February 18th, 2008
this weekend has been pretty stinky. even with the extra day, it was rough going. the culprit? long hours in the library and three midterms for “library school”. i say “library school” because none of the exams actually had anything to do with library science, and this is the quarter where i begin to question school in general. i know i want to be a librarian, and i know i need a different skill set than librarians of the past (maybe), but do i have to learn business finance? seriously?
midterm 1- programming. meh. i got it done saturday night after kimbo spanked tank abbot. i didn’t mean to start it, but it was once time only, timed exam. i panicked a lot.
midterm 2- finance. it took me 10 hours and i bet i failed. i need to get somebody to tutor me.
midterm 3- information visualization. this class is extremely vague and academic. i wrote some really bloated sentences.
three midterms in three days. it makes me think that i would enjoy life so much more if i wasn’t working full time and going to school “full time”. i hear people talk about how they don’t have time to write a three page paper or study for an exam and i wonder what they’re doing with their time. i mean seriously. i wish i had more time to dick around on the internet and stuff.
the highlight of the weekend? playing snakeball and finally folding all my clothes. i’ve been living out of hampers for months. i’ve also caught up on reading blogs and talked to my friend who got her gallbladder out (which explains the previous post). other than that, i slept till noon saturday and sunday. i didn’t want to, it just happened. i guess my body hates me.
now i’m going to go drink some flax and read in bed. it’s been lovely.
February 16th, 2008
congratulations to my villain friend cat who just birthed these:
ok, she didn’t really birth them. but these gallstones are her babies and they are now out in the world. she had them (and her gallbladder removed yesterday).
treat them well, cat, and i hope they last till you have a real baby. get well soon.
February 15th, 2008
here’s a blog linked on metafilter that made me chuckle many time- stuff white people like. the funny thing is- i don’t think the items listed are exclusively for white people, rather indie hipster, yuppies, and anybody who listens to npr could be on this list. it just so happens that that demographic is mostly white people. (though in the bay area, there are lots of other people included as well.)
what do white people like? they like driving the prius, owning lots of kitchen gadgets, sarah silverman, irony, owning as manyapple computer products as they can, eating at breakfast places, watching the daily show/colbert report (only if they have a tv), smoking marijuana, dancing at 80s nights, reading david sedaris, drinking wine or microbrews, working for non-profits, watching wes anderson films, shopping at farmers markets, and going to film festivals.
wow. i know so many people who fit that description, it’s scary.
of course, i shop at wholefoods, listen to public radio (though i hate ira glass and terry gross), listen to some indie music, own the arrested development dvds, am vegan, and drink too much coffee. i’m so white! anyhow… i’m going to go watch a netflix.
by kendra | Posted in
rants |
9 Comments » | Tags:
white people, yuppies
February 12th, 2008
blog’s been slow since i stopped blogging at work and i stopped doing much outside of work besides sleeping. i saw this today and thought, “how could this not be free advice?!?” but then i got home and was knocked out from the noxious fumes emanating from the downstairs apartment. not really, but our whole place smells like lighter fluid. i think they refinished the floors downstairs and now i’m getting high or sick. anyhow…
margo?
DEAR [KENDRA]: I met this terrific man on an online dating site. He had been widowed for 14 months and I was divorced. We fell in love and both felt confident that we’d found what we were searching for. We married, and since we lived in different states, I moved into the home he shared with his late wife of 21 years. After his wife’s passing, my husband had a portrait drawn of her that is absolutely beautiful. However, he has it displayed on an easel in the living room where we all gather to watch TV or entertain. One day, a member of our church came over, and while we sat talking, he asked if the portrait was of me. (I was both embarrassed and flattered; she was a beautiful lady.) My issue is that initially I said it was OK to leave it there, but now I feel like he has two wives sharing the same house. I asked him to remove the portrait. He said he would … but it’s been weeks and it’s still there. In addition, he and his late wife adopted two sons who are now teenagers, and he said he didn’t want to be insensitive to them. Am I being selfish for wanting this painting removed from my sight? I also feel the children would benefit from not having it in daily sight as well. He said he would move it to one of their bedrooms, but is this fair?
— L.L. IN N.C.
dear l.l.,
your problem is a common one for people who marry widow(er)s. it’s a delicate situation- where does the memory of the deceased loved one end and the new life begin? basically, you’ll have to compromise. unless it’s a painting of his dead wife, straddling a tiger on black velvet, the portrait can’t be that awesome. don’t put it in a closet, but it seems a but much for the family room. moving it to one of the kids’ bedrooms seems fair- this was their mother, and you can’t expect them forget her. you need to accept that this woman will always be part of your new family.
i hope this helps.
DEAR [KENDRA]: I am a 20-year-old college student and an anime fan in a relatively conservative household. My family is intolerant of other cultures. Here’s how my family sees my hobby: “Japanese b.s.” Here is the crux of my problem: I had decided to save money for some anime that was only available online. I had the money in my hand, which was a gift from this Christmas. When my parents found out, they refused to allow me to purchase the products because I am “becoming un-American.” (I should note at this point that I am a dependent because I am a full-time student.) I would like to know what I should do to let them know I am not un-American.
— TRYING FOR REALISM HERE
dear trying,
this letter is trying. your parents sound xenophobic and stuck in the 80s, when people actively boycotted japanese goods and touted “BUY USA!”. fine. you can’t really argue with that sort of attitude. you can tell them that anime is just animation like disney or looney toons, but they probably don’t care.
you’re also in a tough situation because you live at home. as long as you’re under their roof, you sort of have to listen to their craziness. how can they actually prevent you from buying it? do you not have your own debit card? do you have a job? you might be in college but it sounds like you have less independence than lots of high school students. work on that, and the rest will follow. (unless you want to be one of those cosplay freaks or you have a sailor moon fetish.)
i hope this helps.
p.s.- what’s wrong with “the better choice”?
February 6th, 2008
it’s been almost 24 hours since the polls closed here and probably closer to 24 hours since the media proclaimed clintonthe winner in california. i was planning on rushing home and giving a big blog post about my day at the polls, but i was cranky, tired, and frothing at the mouth about the whole electoral process. the fact that they were reporting clinton winning this state before i had a chance to deliver my ballots was just a great way to cap off the day. it made me wonder if i had just wasted the previous 14 hours and that none of my precinct’s votes mattered.
yesterday just showed to me how poor voter outreach has been in the state of california. my precinct wasn’t beset with all the problems of some other precincts in alameda county, but things definitely could have been smoother. the biggest issue i saw was a lack of knowledge in the electorate of rules for voting in a primary. california’s weird “modified closed primary” only added to the problems. lots of people were upset that they were registered with one party and therefore unable to vote in another party’s primary. many people registered as green wanted to vote democratic. i tried to explain to them, as nicely as possible, that in primaries you get the ballot of the party you registered (if registered partisan), but many seemed confused.
“i voted democratic in 2006, doesn’t that count?” i tried to explain that in general elections (like the 2006 midterm), you can vote for anybody regardless of your party affiliation. “but i voted for feinstein.” that’s great, you’re still registered green! actually, the saddest cases to me were the people who registered as american independents but probably wanted decline-to-state/non-partisan. we’d give them the a.i. ballot and they would ask if they could vote for the democrats. i tried to explain that in california there is the independent party, and that’s how they registered, but that seemed to confuse them more. in the end, for anybody who was dead set on voting in the primary but lacked proper party affiliation (or lack thereof), i gave them provisional ballots. at least that way their votes on the propositions and local measures will count.
i think a lot of the problems people had stemmed from a lack of knowledge about the system, which the state (or at least the county) should have taken some steps to correct. the secretary of state’s website made sense if you’re pretty familiar with election terminology, but the average voter isn’t, nor are they going to take the time to sift through pages to find their answer. that’s assuming they would take the time to look on the website. most likely they will search the internet and find misinformation in some random person’s blog, and then tell their friends, and the whole cycle continues. i know from working in libraries that just having information around doesn’t mean people will find or read it. i wish the state did a big more than just print the party affiliation abbreviation on the back of your sample ballot in the midst of a page full of text. perhaps if they made it easier for lazy people to double check their registration and possibly change it.
i have more to talk about, but i’ll do it tomorrow.
February 4th, 2008
hillary clinton is crying again. it makes me feel cold and cynical to say this, but i definitely feel that she’s just pandering for votes. i imagine her inner dialog being something like this:
“oh crap, obama might win in my backyard.”
“how can i seem more human?”
“smile more? nah.”
“i know! cry! it worked in new hampshire.”
i know her supporters will tout the tears as showing that she’s a caring, compassionate woman. but seriously- it makes me even more sure that she’ll do anything for a vote. it really angers me that this historically strong woman will retreat to stale tactics to get empathy of the voters. instead of crying when it seems advantageous, why doesn’t she try to come off as sincere most of the time? smile like a human? stop moving like a robot? oh, that takes work. i know lots of young people love obama, and it’s because he’s too busy seeming genuine to be pulling crap like this.
remember to vote tomorrow.
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