the thoughts and experiences of Heather Meadows
I keep wanting to link this comic to people, but I always have to go search in the archives for it…so, to save myself some trouble, I’m going to blog it here, and now whenever I need it I can just do a Google search of my site for the term “thank you for welcoming me back!”
And here it is.
Brooke and I went to Outspoken (wish they had a website!) and Andy Jordan’s (they don’t have a website either, but meh) today to look at bikes. Here are the bikes I tried out:
Giant Sedona
$289
In terms of names, obviously the Fuji is better. I think “Giant” is a stupid name for a chain of bikes. But regardless, nothing could beat Fuji Syuusuke. (And you know if I buy that bike, its name will be Syuusuke…)
Anyway, you might be able to tell that these aren’t particularly fast or rough-and-tumble bikes. I want the bike for riding on trails; good exercise, but nothing hyperintensive. Both bikes were a comfortable ride, but the Fuji was the best. It handled well, the seat was comfortable, and I just felt at home riding it.
I’m going to check Wal-Mart and Target, too; I don’t have to make my decision until the end of the month. I’m really leaning towards the Fuji at this point, but we’ll see.
And now I’d like to leave you with a message from Fuji Syuusuke…
This week I’ve been getting up reluctantly, slouching onto my computer, and leaving late for work. I come into work with a bad attitude and am extraordinarily happy when it’s time to go home.
This is not how I want to feel about my work.
Part of it is adjusting to the fact that I’m not on vacation anymore, I realize. Part of it is unhappiness with the same situation I was unhappy with before. The rest is probably due to the fact that I haven’t worked out properly in over two weeks.
I did go bike riding last night with Mari, Kelly, and Chris. That was good; 7.3 miles. I had to stop at the midway point both on the way up and on the way back, though, which was annoying, and on the way up I had to stop and walk twice. I was pretty unhappy with myself, even though I knew I wouldn’t be doing it at the same level as before. What I need to do is just get my own bike, and start riding more often. There’s a trail near here, I’ve heard, so I can go there when my friends aren’t available. It’s not paved, from what I understand, so when I pick out my new bike I will need to get one that can handle that.
Speaking of which, I am going to buy a bike and a bike rack at the end of the month. Brooke and I are going to go looking around at bikes today, so I can start to get an idea of what I like. I’m probably going to get a $100 or $200 bike from Wal-Mart or Target (or a bike shop, if they actually carry bikes that are that inexpensive), and then snag some gear like gloves, rear-view mirrors, reflectors, and a battery-powered headlight. (The bike I rode in Japan had a headlight that was powered by pedaling, but the intermittent light annoyed me.) I also want an odometer, and if I’m really feeling silly I’ll get a bell too. I love those bells…
Well, time to get working. Positive attitude…positive attitude… At least this morning I forced myself not to turn my computer on, and instead just came directly to the office.
I’ve added two new blogs to my blogroll. The first is that of my new friend who recently posted comments to this site. She is very cool, into the philosophy of language and feminist just enough for my liking. I’ve been speaking with her off and on for the past few days, and I’ve really enjoyed our conversations. I’m looking forward to seeing her write more in her blog.
The second is that of Jennifer Garrett, a writer and editor living in Boston(!). She also seems very cool, based on an article she recently wrote for Blogger and on the posts currently up on her page, but as I don’t know her personally I can’t say for certain yet. We’ll see what I think as I read her further.
Or so I’d like to tell my boss, anyway.
I am very, very angry with someone right now. “Furious” is too weak a word. I feel betrayed, I feel condescended to, I feel underestimated. I expected better of this person and now I don’t even know if I want to remain friends.
The problem is that this person reads this blog, so I can’t write about it here.
I’ve written about people who read this blog before. Once, I did so with what could have been devastating results. Fortunately, the person in question cared more about keeping my friendship than the betrayal of having our disagreement aired publicly.
I want to be the bigger person in this instance. I’m the one who’s mad and frustrated and betrayed. I don’t know if I want to stay friends with the person who hurt me, but I might want to later. I don’t want to destroy any possibility by ranting about it in a place that person reads.
I don’t know if I can express how I feel directly to the one who made me feel this way, though. Right now I feel as though my words would fall on deaf, callous ears. And so I’m hovering in a limbo, wondering if I’ll ever see closure…
And I’m still pissed off as all hell.
Call me a hypocrite if you like. But watch this first. :> (I know, the narration sucks…and is waaaaay too similar to that for the Special Educations…but I mean…Star Wars, man!)
The web is rising up in outrage and disbelief at the fact that George Lucas is unhappy with the prospect of The Three Stooges being colorized.
“Star Wars” creator George Lucas, who testified with Steven Spielberg before Congress in the 1980s against colorization and other forms of alteration, said the process yanks such slapstick performers as the Stooges out of the black-and-white universe they belong in.
“Would color distract from their comedy and make it not as funny anymore?” Lucas said. “Maybe just the fact that they’re in black and white makes it funny, because their humor is dated. But by putting it in black and white, it puts it in a context where you can appreciate it for what it was.
“But you try to make it in full living color and try to compare it to a Jim Carrey movie, then it’s hard for young people to understand. Because you’re then thinking you’re comparing apples to apples, when you’re not. You’re comparing apples to oranges. I’m saying it’s not fair to the artist.”
If you think this is hypocrisy, read this, direct from the Senate Report on the Berne Convention, at which Lucas and Spielberg made their arguments (emphasis mine):
The third panel included Mr. Steven Spielberg, representing the Director’s Guild of America, Mr. George Lucas, Chairman of the Board of Lucasfilm, Inc., and Mr. Bo Goldman, representing the Writer’s Guild of America, West. While supporting adherence to Berne, they encouraged the Committee to enact legislation to enhance an artist’s right to control any alteration to his creation.
So, this isn’t really news. The man is deluded, but at least he’s consistent.
What’s in a name? Linguist Amy Perfors can give you an idea:
Men with “front vowels” in their names — sounds formed at the front of the mouth like the “a” in Matt — were considered sexier than men with “back vowel” sounds like the “au” in Paul, she concluded.
Not sure I agree with her analysis, which is presumably based on prior work that isn’t cited:
Perfors said front vowels are often perceived as “smaller” than back vowels, so the difference could be a sign that women are seeking men that are sensitive or gentle, traits usually perceived as feminine.
I don’t know, I don’t think of Matt as being a more feminine name than Paul. Do you?
The cure for what ails me. Yes, that’s right; scientists have discovered a possible cure for procrastination. (Now I just have to wonder: do I really want to be a workaholic? Meh…I’ll think about it later.)
Colin Powell, the cat, will meet on Friday with Colin Powell, the secretary of state. This is very important.
Colin Powell, the secretary of state, has agreed to a meeting in the State Department’s Treaty Room on the seventh floor — for pictures, not dialogue.
The room has served lofty purposes through history, including the signing of important treaties.
…hence the name “Treaty Room”. Duh. :P
Where our nation is headed. Someday, we will all be grafted to our couches, defecating on ourselves until we die horrible deaths. Thanks to Matt for alerting me to this lovely story, and to BoingBoing for the link to the expanded article.
And finally, people going to PAX are so lucky. Look at this awesome Spider-Man toy they get. Assholes!
I almost got up at 5, but then I decided I wanted to sleep in for an hour. Guess that was a bad idea :P
I dreamed that I was in Japan and there were all sorts of people from my past there, and we were attending school. At one point I opened my notebook and a little folded note was there. Melissa Christopher, my old best friend from fourth and fifth grade, happened to be standing near my desk, and she said, “Yeah, there’s a note in there, but…”
“Read it after I’ve gone home?” I asked.
“No,” Melissa said. “It’s just that you’ve been nothing to me.” As she said the last few words, she started crying and having difficulty speaking. Then she strode swiftly away.
It’s true that Melissa and I haven’t seen each other more than a handful of times since elementary school. I occasionally bump into her at the Nicholasville Wal-Mart. And I do feel regret for how I treated her in middle school, back when I basically dumped her in favor of Noelle. But in the dream all I felt was annoyance.
After that school day, I went by an optometrist’s place because I had read in Michael Jennings’ blog that he was going to be there, and I wanted to say hi. I saw a guy who looked like him sitting in the office with a girl who I believed was his girlfriend, so I waved and smiled and said hi. The guy sort of blinked at me, and then I looked past him and saw the real Michael and his girlfriend behind them. I was really embarrassed.
After awhile, Michael’s girlfriend (who I have never met in real life, by the way, and I have no idea what she looks like, so this is just a pretend person I guess) and I went back to my host family’s house, where we were apparently staying. My host family conveniently spoke English, and Otou-san drove an SUV. The girl and I spent a long time lying around and talking. It didn’t really occur to me in the dream, but now that I think about it, the girl was kind of clingy, and it might have been sexual. But nothing happened, and the evening passed and then it was the next day.
I turned on an episode of Sailor Moon in the living room (it didn’t seem to be my host family’s real house; there was a separate den and eating area), but then it was time for breakfast before school so I turned it off and we went to eat. While we were sitting there, the girl suddenly started saying things to my host family about how mean and stupid I was. This was, of course, a shock, because I’d thought we were getting along fine. She started bringing up all sorts of things that I had apparently done back in elementary school–somehow the girl had become a childhood friend rather than Michael’s girlfriend. (Dream logic…) And she said that I had turned on the wrong TV in the den because I was so stupid. I could tell that she was mad at me for something else, and I assumed it was because I had kept out of touch–the same reason Melissa was upset in the dream. But she wouldn’t stop insulting me, so I was wrestling with her trying to make her stop, and we were both yelling “I hate you!” at each other.
Then my alarm went off, so I have no idea how it would have ended.
I don’t know if this dream is a product of me not needing to sleep anymore plus reading Hyper’s blog post yesterday about losing old classmates as friends–maybe that affected me subconsciously, while consciously all I thought was “Yeah, that happens, and it’s sad”. Maybe I still have some guilt left over from school, from not keeping in touch with classmates. (Even Noelle, who I do keep in regular contact with, went to Hawaii and I didn’t even know until she sent me a link to her pictures from the trip yesterday.)
I do think that I’m afraid that I don’t know how to be a proper friend. I seem to have two attitude “poles”: “oh well, screw ’em” for people who I don’t see much for whatever reason–i.e., I don’t think about the fact that I’m not seeing them, nor do I try to come up with ways to keep in touch; and “way too clingy”, for friends who I see every day and who I spend time with frequently. The thing is, people can easily drop from the clingy category into the screw ’em category, just by not being around enough. I’m not happy with that.
I want a better way of keeping track of people and staying in contact with them, I guess…and I want to be a better friend to the people who care about me, and who I realize I care about when I actually bother to think about it.
I’ve uploaded, organized, and captioned the pics. They are available here.
It was a really great trip. I loved meeting David; he’s a great guy and a wonderful travel companion. Boston and Providence were both beautiful, and I really enjoyed taking pictures of both. I wish the trip had been a little longer, but I guess it’s better to leave wanting more than to leave thoroughly tired of the place.
The bad thing about vacations is how much I eat, and how I get used to having dessert with pretty much every meal. I made grilled chicken, onions, and bell peppers with egg noodles tonight, and it was very filling, and I was content when I finished, but now I’m thinking I should be eating some sort of brownie or pie, with ice cream. It’s just wrong! I don’t need dessert! O_O
I wish I could just travel all the time, and that I didn’t have to go to work…or, if anything, I could do my work from the road…
AJ was checking Google to see if he was spelling “Winnebago” correctly, and happened upon this fantastic movie. It’s almost as good as those Thundercats outtakes. (And if you’ve heard those, that should give you an idea of the content. Grownups and very mature kids only, please.)
i’m still hoping that if i drive my car around enough, i’ll pollute the environment enough to trigger a massive advance in global warming, shifting wind currents and altering the drifting patterns of certain north atlantic icebergs, provoking an acclerated rate of polar reversal. then i can make a snow angel.
Goei, you rock.
Air traffic controller on Coruscant ;P
After The Pallbearer ended, I watched Episode II, which was on HBO. And you know…I like it. It’s a good movie. There is only one thing that annoys me, and that’s Threepio’s overdone puns. Otherwise, I’m really happy with it.
Even the so-called “wooden” acting…I think Padme and Anakin’s scenes work because their love isn’t pure, isn’t true, isn’t based on a solid foundation. Their love is based on a mutual desire to escape their societal roles, roles they took on before they were old enough to understand what they were doing. The rest of it is simple lust. They feel trapped, and the only way to express this emotion, to “fight back”, is to love each other, to indulge in the exciting feeling of doing something “wrong”.
It’s ironic that this forbidden love, this betrayal of the very rules the two of them pledged their lives to protect, is actually, in the end, what saves the galaxy from Palpatine’s Empire.
This is only the second time I’ve seen the movie. I think I was afraid to watch it again because I kept hearing how other people dislike it. I was afraid that I would realize that my first impression was wrong, and that all it was was bad acting after all. But no, I think I’m right.
Either way, I enjoyed the movie :)
I guess I should have dinner at some point.
