bad american

I am a bad american, maybe. I turned on NPR this morning and heard the news, that Al-Zarqawi had been killed. I got to work and opened up washingtonpost.com and was confronted with a close up picture of Zarqawi and yes, he did appear very dead.

My reaction is not happiness here, its something closer to disgust. I realize we are at war, and I more than realize that this man is a very very bad man. But I will never be comfortable with the celebration of death. Never. And I wonder why the rules of decency change so much. Why is it ok to splash photos of a dead man, even a horrible human being of a dead man, all over the paper with 24 point font screaming He's Dead! Really! We know its him!

I get it, I do. War is horrible. People get killed. Americans kill people. People kill Americans. Where do you draw the line between decency and exploitation? We are, through sensalization of his death, making this man a martyr, which is precisely what he would want.

I wouldn't want to see Hitler or Mussolini or Stalin or Jeffrey Dahmer or Timothy McVeigh laid out dead in front of me in some kind of sick showcase and I don't want to see this. Forgive me for not being overjoyed.

i can't really concentrate on much today

so I've completed this lovely oscar speech slash mad lib. Enjoy, or make your own!

Sara's Acceptance Speech for the Best Series of Special Effects Passing as a Story Oscar:

Thank you! Oh! Thank you! I can hardly breathe! I feel so blessed! And this statue - it's so suspiciously phallic! Oh, thank you again! I just want everyone to read in the tabloids that even in my wildest fits of self-loathing, I never would have fantasized that this could ever validate my mediocrity. And to the other second-rate nominees, I want each of you to know how totally mega-pumped your jealosy makes me feel right now!

You know when they first told me I was n't blonde enough, I just had to take a Xanax and think about how great my fans have been. I guess it all just makes me feel kinda numb

You know, there are so many back-stabbing two-faced harpies to thank! First off though, I want to thank the senile old bats of the Academy, who looked deep within their lint-encrusted navels before giving me this fantastic award! Also, I want to thank Vishnu, for being such a powerful force in my life. And to my sister, who taught me to take life by the fifth of bourbon. And finally, to all the personal assistants I fired - I couldn't have done it without you!

Thank you America, and good night!

dreaming

I had a weird dream last night, which I meant to write down upon waking, but then all this work stuff got in the way, so now I'm doing it. Yes, it IS my last few hours before a 4 day vacation and I'm procrastinating in new and exciting ways.

Okay, so it started the way many of my dreams do, with drunk driving, which is actually a very uncomfortable dream state and is supposed to indicate a lack of control over one's life. I get it when I'm stressed, usually. Anyway, this particular dream, the drunk driving ended fairly quickly, and I ended up at Cornell, yes the University, for some reason. I was attending an information session for my friend Rachel, and I think I was posing as her. Anyway, I ended up filling out an application with my real information and then stressing the entire dream about if I was going to get into Cornell or not.

Throughout this whole strange montage I was fielding cell phone calls from Ed who apparently was rampantly cheating on me, but was being terribly honest and matter-of-fact about it, and I was attempting to break up with him. For some reason this was a tough decision, even while he was recounting the, seriously, like 15 daliances he'd had over the course of our, in dream time, fairly short relationship.

Any thoughts on this one?

diego

diegogael,
originally uploaded by saralyn.

I've just discovered a new blogger, actually another Fish, and she has pretend celebrity boyfriends, a position for which Clive Owen and Blair Underwood are currently fighting to the death.
In homage to Fish, I'd like to present to you, the interwebs, my new pretend celebrity boyfriend. As you may recall, I introduced you to my current PCB, Jon Stewart. Jon is not going anywhere, I just need to supplement with someone a little, well, younger, more energetic, if you will.
So, may I introduce my new PCB, Diego Luna. I've loved Diego since Y Tu Mama Tambien, and I've watched Dirty Dancing Havana Nights like 5 times for him, really. Look how adorable. Yes, I realize most of you are drooling over Gael right now, but my heart stays with Diego. How lovely. Let's everybody ponder Diego and Gael for a few minutes before returning to our normal days.

nerdy fun

This is a macBook switching between 3 operating systems. So cool. (Source:Blurbomat)

ill tell you what i want

what I would like, really, is to spend about a week sitting outside in a very comfortable chair with anything and anyone I want around available to me. I just want to drink wine, and talk to everyone, and have fun, and never really get drunk, and play cards, and have it be about 80 all the time, maybe 70 at night, and just not work, and play guitar and tell stories and just be. but this is what everyone wants, no?

reading

Oh, by the way. Finished reading two books this weekend. Love Walked In, by Marisa de los Santos (thanks to PH's recommendation), and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer. I highly recommend both of them. Oh, and if you've read Extremely Loud and.. then you know, what on the last 7 pages or so? I'm haunted and saddened by those images, particularly in reverse, but there is also an eerie calm and acceptance like somehow seeing the images that way makes it all better, and holy shit, that book still broke my heart and I am so not ready for the Oliver Stone movie, that ass.

french to english

ok, so regarding the french, this is what I meant to say. I am exhausted, I stayed up too late last night and it was fun, and I am smiling, but I am tired.

this is what babelfish says I actually managed to write en francais:

I am exhausted. I remained to the top of the night too spent late it was recreation and im smiling but I am thus tired.

sweet. You get the general idea though. "it was recreation". love it.

francais

je suis épuisé. je suis resté vers le haut de la nuit passée trop en retard. elle était amusement et im souriant mais je suis l'ainsi fatigué.

jest checkin in.

hi blog. how ya doin? I don't have shit to say today. It's Friday, so there's that.
what are you doing this weekend interweb?

you're a winner

this just amuses me to no end.

Let's Go Red Sox!

I am a complete dork about the Red Sox. I just love 'em. So when I went to Camden Yards for my FIRST EVER RED SOX GAME last night I was so psyched. Tired, pained by the 1.5 hour drive, but psyched. And then I got there, and I was waiting in line for the ATM, and I hear over the loud speaker that Curt Schilling was pitching, and he is pretty much my favorite pitcher ever (after John Smoltz and Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux, I heart the mid-90s Braves pitching staff), ok so maybe my absolute favorite pitcher RIGHT NOW. But still, I did a little happy dance and squealed and he of the bloody sock is pitching and I love it and it was great and we won 6-5.

And the stadium was about 50% BoSox fans, at least. Gotta love DC. I felt very much at home in my favorite hat..

(edit. note) and in other news.... shut up.

in other poltico news

I've got a little theory brewing in my head about the natural state of human nature as it relates to political leaning, basically if you are liberal you accept and love your natural state and if you are conservative you are attempting to curb those natural urges. Its basically a parallel with religion and Catholicism in particular. Conservative Guilt, if you will. Although they seem to have no remorse for some actions, I hardly see guilt there. The whole we can be pro-life and pro-death penalty must be figured out. I just don't get it. I'm working on it. Bascially, just trying to prove that liberals are heathens, haha. No, that's entirely not the point. I'll figure it out.

stereotypes destroyed

this morning on the way to work, stopped at a light, I saw a black SUV with the licence plate "NRA 4LF" and promptly puked a little in my mouth. And then I saw the driver, and it was a young african-american woman. My personal stereotypes on gun-lovers - out the window. Then, weird, about 2 more cars passed and the third was a Jeep with the license plate "US4LIF". Didn't see the driver. Do you think these two are related or do you think the Republican party is trying to send me a message? If only I'd seen "JC4LIF" or "CHOOZLF" on a third car, I could be sure.

uhhuh

what he said

TMI

spastic colon + french dip with horseradish and au jus + fear of pooping in public toilets = quick drive home today for potty break and nap. Yes, I AM that kid from American Pie.

please explain to me if I am missing something

If you are a myspace user, or a friendster user maybe, or just read a lot, or what not, you have probably been exposed to one of these urgent messages to collectively not buy gas on X date so that "the oil companies" will know that they "aren't in control". The most recent one I heard this morning was a discussion on Elliott in the Morning about a myspace bulletin looking to harness the power of the 70-however million users. Okay so then I have a question. What does 70-million people not buying gas on a Tuesday, let's say, actually do? You know what? I don't buy gas on what, let's see:
I buy gas approximately once every 9 days, maybe 10. Let's say 10. There are 365 days in the year. So I buy gas approximately 3 times a month or 36 times a year. Which means I DO NOT buy gas 90% of days. How is me not buying gas on that random Tuesday going to make ANY difference. How is 75 million people not buying gas on that random Tuesday going to make a difference. You know what? I don't need gas today. I must be telling those damn oil companies that I don't need them. But then I'll run out of gas! And I'll have to buy it on Wednesday maybe! Oh no!
Guess what, folks. Not buying gas ONE DAY does not do shit. You want to make a difference? Take the bus or the metro or ride your bike or walk. That's the only thing you could maybe even do, and you should do that anyway for the environment, not to push gas prices down.
Take an economics class. Let's say we, as a population, reduced our demand for gas. Well, what would happen is that gas prices would go down. And then, when we started using it again A LOT because OH ITS SO CHEAP? Its gonna go right back up.
Am I missing something?

actually, wait

you know what? f-you you 80%, I'm totally going to write a story. I used to do it all the time. Old fashioned, with pen and paper, cause it's pretty out and that's a damn good thing to do outside when its pretty. now I just need to find time between work/friends/school/remodeling of house. Fuck.

very unusual and random post

Ever feel like you are about 75-80% great at lots of things but not 100% fan-freaking-tabulous at anything? That's how I'm feeling today. Let's look at some examples:
1) I can write a quick email that's 50-100 times better than anything that pops into my inbox all day long and is also polite, thoroughly informative, and maybe even funny, and entirely appropriate for whatever situation may arise. Its a gift. However, I don't think many blog posts here are of the make you cry/laugh variety, and that's generally what I call good writer. Sucks you in. I don't mean I'm going to write a story about drowning puppies or something to pull a reaction, I just want to be able to make you read it as I hear it, if that makes sense.

2)I've got fabulous hair (its ok, I really do) and pretty feet but I've also got like 15 extra pounds. AND see, I'm usually very self-confident, except for those stupid extra 15 pounds.

Ok, so that's just 2 things, but you know. See, I'm not even 80% great at making my point.

its my birthday, bitches!

and I'm relatively ok with being 28. so far. I'm technically not 28 until 1pm.