Newest Favorite Quote from a Book

"I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobobdy knows if they're true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen-I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in War of the Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it."--Sam from American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Coffee Colored Morning

Man. It's amazing how two sleepless nights, a stuffed up nose, and a bad hair day can make me feel. I need my vices: coffee, my lesbian lover, and a comfy bed. Don't take poorly to being called a vice my dear; I mean that in the best possible way.

But life doesn't slow down to let me sleep in and my hair won't stop growing, so I was forced to get up this morning and come into work with plans to get my hair cut on the way home...THEN I'll be able to sleep! Which, of course, I won't because by then I'll be pretty damn awake.

I went and brewed myself a cup of coffee. I'm bad. Not because I brewed myself a cup of coffee, but because I am utilizing things that don't belong to me and that I only feel justified in using because I am the only one here. I'm drinking out of a pink mug with a heart-shaped handle that I believe is more for decorative purposes than for drinking. I mean, it's ceramic and can handle coffee just fine, but I've never seen my co-worker drink out of it and it just sits on her upper shelf like a decorative display. Whatever. It's pink and I'm tired.

And I also put some of the eye care department's hazelnut cream into my coffee. Now, I know what my lesbian vice is probably thinking right now. Hazelnut cream!?!? That stuff is so gross!!

Well, so is Hills' Bros. coffee, ok?

Sometimes, when I write here, I feel like that guy from those taxi cab commercials on MTV.

How do you REALLY know?

Frequently, as a switchboard operator at a health clinic, I answer the phone to hear automated voices asking for donations, demanding call backs, or giving out personal prescription information for patients that are not ours and happen to live in Phoenix, Arizona.

By the time the call actually comes to the switchboard, another line would have already "answered" it by forwarding it to the switchboard. Thus, many of the automated calls are half-way through their message before I even pick up the receiver.

I just received a call to hear only this portion of an automated message: "As you know, your generous donations save the lives of many patients. Thank you for donating blood. We know you have it in you."

Chicago Tribune

Here is a short article reprinted from the Chicago Tribune:

Man killed in fall from car

Tribune staff report
Published July 26, 2005, 10:14 AM CDT

A 19-year-old Chicago man was killed overnight when he fell from the trunk of a moving car and struck his head on the ground, CLTV reported.

The Cook County medical examiner's office identified the victim as Nathaniel Hikes, of the 1000 block of West 55th Street, Chicago.

The incident happened about 8 p.m. Monday as Hikes was riding on the trunk of a Chevrolet Corsica in an alley behind the 5600 block of South Carpenter Street, in the Englewood neighborhood on the city's South Side, police said.

The Corsica hit a speed bump, and Hikes fell off the car, hitting his head on the ground, CLTV reported. The car's driver allegedly fled the scene.

It was not immediately clear whether Hikes was sitting or standing when he fell.

He was taken to Stroger Hospital of Cook County, where he was pronounced dead at 8:50 p.m., a medical examiner's spokeswoman said. An autopsy was scheduled for later today.

Police were looking for the car's driver, CLTV reported.

Tribune wires contributed to this story.

Now, is it just me, or does it seem odd that the article fails to mention why the boy was in the trunk of a car in the first place?

Dirty Americans

The Secret Life of Lotah Users - I've never thought about it before, but lotahs seem so much cleaner than toilet paper. I mean, water and rubbing always cleans better than dry flimsy paper. Always.

Upgraded: Platinum Lesbian Card!

We're getting a third kitten! I'm excited, but you know, a little scared too. Under normal circumstances, I would have said no.

But. It just so happened that I was home alone at our apartment, looking at our two kittens climb all over the bath tub, and imagining whether or not I would keep a kitten if I found one that was being abused. This hypothetical situation was in my mind because of a conversation I had with Marla, the Conscious Choice editor, yesterday about an abused kitten that her friend took in.

In my head, I was a really generous thoughtful person that would of course take in any abused little animal and give it the life that it deserves. Then the phone rang and Bonnie asked me if we could take in a little female kitten that one of her co-workers found starving in an alley. The kitten (grey) has already been spayed and seems pretty well-behaved, just thin.

So I told Bonnie I had to think about it, especially considering we will have to figure out how to move three kittens to New York and we'll be moving into a smaller space.

After I hung up the phone to contemplate this decision, I felt that there had to be a reason that I was thinking about taking in another cat right before she called. And I had to take into consideration that this would be our third cat, and threes are always sacred right? And she is a female who is already spayed and she is grey (my favorite kitten color). It all adds up to make me feel like the universe needs me to take this kitten.

So more out of superstition than the pure kindness of my bleeding heart, I called Bonnie back and told her that I think we should take her in. I am excited now. I can't wait to get home from work and meet the newest little kitten in our apartment! Yay!