a new clean slate

I thought this was profound and needed to write it down somewhere. This is from the spoken track "A New Clean Slate" on the "iTunes Originals - Ben Folds" album.

"...'Mess' was, this song was about just realizing you've hit the point in your life, where you definitely--it's a loss of innocence song for sure--that you've made a mess. It's like at this point, there's really--'The next person I meet', I thought when I wrote this song, 'the next person that I'm with, I can now no longer completely explain my history. I have enough baggage to where, that's not possible anymore, and they're just going to have to take it from, you know, this is a new clean slate.'"

In truth I haven't been too angsty much anymore...although I see this quote as more peaceful than angsty, and that's a big reason I like it.

I'll try writing more again soon.

random acts of serendipity

Today after work, it was so nice I decided to go for a run. The last few weeks have seen me getting back into running regularly again, but the past week and a half have not been so good. But I made myself go for a run tonight and it was pretty good.

I had to go in to the office today because of some meetings, so I got a ride with the ex. (Who, for those of you that don't know, lives right nearby me.) It's always difficult to see him, even when we get along. Maybe especially when we get along.

So the run after work was good mentally, too. There is a little park with a pond and a sidewalk loop near my apartment complex. Now, this park is a special park.

This park is where the ex would go for walks in the evening and call me to chat while I was still in Vermont. He'd send me pictures of the park via cell phone and I'd set them as my background to remind myself of the happiness I'd soon be with. This park is where the ex ran into a co-worker and effervesced for near an hour on the great love he had found, a story which was recounted for me upon meeting said co-worker when I moved out here. It was nice. Everyone I met was really happy to "finally meet me".

And in this special park there is a special bench. This bench has the best view of the sunset. It has the best shade in the afternoon. It's got the best view of where the little fish like to jump in the pond, and it's offset from the path just enough so that you feel like you're in your own little world. This is where the ex would often sit while talking to me on the phone, and this is where we would often sit while walking in the park together, holding hands.

Tonight on my run, I walked a lap at the end. I stopped to pick some wildflowers from a flower bed that hadn't been tilled under yet for planting. I did this while thinking of stopping by the ex's on my way home and giving them to him as a thanks for the ride to/from work today. But I knew I couldn't do that. He doesn't deserve to see that I still care, and I don't deserve for loyalty like mine to be betrayed or rejected.

As I walked with flowers in hand, soaking in the golden evening sunlight, I tried talking sense in myself. I only had until the end of this lap, when I would be leaving the park to walk home and my bleeding heart would test my better judgement. Despite the haze of my pain, I saw the cheery bench patiently waiting ahead along my path. I then knew what I had to do.

I walked over to the bench as I had so many times before, but not to sit. I looked out over the park, took a deep breath, then worked the little hand-made bouquet of flowers into one of the open stripes in the middle of the bench. I walked away, taking one good look back at the little memorial I had left. It was pretty. It was fitting. And I then had a wisely uneventful walk home.

anatomy of a wormhole

1. Was reading the latest BoingBoing goodness before going to bed, as many self-respecting somewhat-dorky-yet-still-somewhat-socialized types are wont to do.

2. Saw an ad for woot.com, some sweet sale site, and actually clicked through. (I probably click on internet ads at an average rate of one or two per week. Congrats, woot.com.)

3. Noticed the following bit of awesomeness, and surfed over to the totally rad subdomain wine.woot.com. (How's that for a little early-late nineties jargon mash-up. Totally rad subdomain.)



4. Read a decidedly 'Abbott & Costello'-esque blurb about the wine of the day, and briefly pondered buying in--at least enough to check out the shipping info. I then learned that you can't order home-delivery wine in some states:



5. Free the grapes, eh? Funny name; ok, I'm intrigued, so I clicked on over. What I found, was nothing short of awesome. (Probably helped that the funny writing on the wine page was a great opening for the hilarity that followed...)



Awesome.

And now, time for bed.

flaming hot lobsters!

So evidently there's a bill in the Maine state legislature right now to legalize same-sex marriage, and to repeal the current state statute declaring that marriage is between one woman and one man. Upon learning this, I decided to check out the Editorials chatter on the Bangor Daily News website. I'm happy to say that there's definitely more support for the bill than I had feared. Maine can be one of the more conservative New England states sometimes.

As anybody might predict, people on both side of the issue have plenty to say. But what I really liked about reading those editorials was the great juxtaposition of discussion of these revolutionary civil rights issues alongside equally vehement chatterings about some lobster industry woe or another--I had no idea wtf they're talking about of course, as I hail from the "lake and mountain set" not the "trap and docks set" (as I once read it succinctly put), but I can tell that this lobster concern is at least something very important. Anyway, for the most part, I liked reading these editorials. Even the people whose views I disagreed with, even this one chick who felt it necessary to imply women's inferiority to men (whatever the fuck that was about), I was grateful that they decided to share their views. Disagreement (hopefully?) marks the beginning of social progress. So for the most part, I read most of the crazy talk with a chuckle. (Yeah, even that one subservient chick...most of the time I'll get mad about sexism--especially when it's self-enforced--but I instead just felt bad for her for some reason...)

That having been said, there is just one argument in this mess that gets me truly, emotionally angry; one statement capable of luring me down from my cool, objective perch and into the immature, name-calling fray. It's when the hyper-religious types start whining along the lines of "but the state saying that marriage between two people of the same gender is 'real marriage' would mean somebody else is forcing their views upon me!". Ok, so then what (the fuck) would you call attempting to force religious views of marriage on the state definition of marriage?! How is THAT not forcing beliefs upon unwilling others? A point that really seems to be lost on these people is that the state is not going to walk into a church and demand that a religious establishment recognize a same-sex marriage before God. So in turn, the church should not walk into a statehouse and demand that the secular establishment be stripped of the right to recognize same-sex marriage before The People.

I'm going to drop the pleasantries now and just be bare-naked honest. Despite some of them making me angry, I like reading editorials from hyper-religious types about how sinful/nonsensical/akin to bestiality same-sex marriage is. I enjoy it in the most unadulterated, smug way possible. (And I mean like, "I EAT ARUGULA AND I LIKE IT!" smug.) And instead of apologizing for that, I'm letting myself celebrate it. I've worked--and continue to work--faithfully to be a self- and well-informed person capable of tolerance. It really makes me feel good about myself, and comfortable with who I am as a person, to read these fuddy-duddies working up a lather about something that really has nothing to do with them.

You know what? I think football is dumb-ass stupid--I don't think it deserves to be called a "real sport". (And you know, I'm only half-joking here.) But instead of getting all upset about football, I just watch/play the sports I like instead. There are plenty of other sports that are already played the way I think "sports ought to be", so however the institution of football feels like playing its game is up to its members. They can even keep on calling football a "real sport", and I couldn't care less. Doesn't make my beloved basketball any less of a "real sport" in my eyes or practice, and doesn't mean anybody is going to be forcing me or anyone else to play the non-sport of football. I don't even have to call football a sport if I don't want to! (And I don't!) But it does mean I have to let other people call it a sport, at least the ones nice enough to mind their own business. I'd be pretty sad if someone told me basketball wasn't a "real sport" anymore and everybody was outlawed from playing, so I guess I wouldn't want to do that to football either.

spring cleaning

Just un-facebook-friended the other half of the most significant relationship in my life to date.

Kind of sad. Kind of necessary. Hurts but was the healthy choice.

In other news...all rejections from grad schools so far, save for the two applied math programs, still waiting to hear from those two. Things are not exactly looking up for me right now. Granted, the rejections were from physics programs, whereas I realize (but only realized halfway through the apps process...) that I'm a better fit for an applied math program...but who knows if such optimism is founded. Maybe I just suck.

The only thing that gets me up in the morning these days is that I have set a personal deadline of June 1 for me moving out of this stupid town I currently live in. Seeing as how I still have two schools left to hear from, I don't know where that will be to yet, but I am confident it will be somewhere better than this. Also, the not-knowing the details has not stopped me from already looking into summer sublets in the two prospective towns. Got a bunch of craig's list bookmarks, send out some emails, have already gotten some responses. Either town I'd be happy to live in for the summer if I don't get into either school; I would be living somewhere where I can find my happy while sorting out what the next phase of my life is going to be.

78 days. That's all I have left in this town. Better get moving.

the ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny

To the dear, few readers of my little blog:

Sorry I've not been much for writing lately. The waiting to hear back from grad schools on my applications is really taking an emotional and mental toll on me. Don't worry, I'm not a total mess or anything...I'm just very spacey and drawn inward. So the free time which I spend on the internet has lately been spent perusing a message board forum for people in the exact same situation as me.

This evening, this video was shared with me, and I in turn wanted to share it with all of you. If you are in need of a good laugh, like I have been, then do give this a watch. Laughs guaranteed.

the good life

If you have spent much time with me at all, you've surely heard at one point, "I'll know I've made it in life when I have a place to live with a piano in it."

That having been said, I really enjoyed this article from today's nytimes.com. But perhaps what struck me most was the final paragraph:

"But he is not a butler," she said. "He is a guest." She explained that having houseguests was a way of life that Americans don't always understand. "I grew up in a situation where you would never ask guests when they would be leaving," she said. "In Poland we have an old saying, 'Guest at home, God at home.' "

One of the things I really miss about the northeast is the innate sense of community its people have. (And actually, I even missed it a little in Vermont...for all of its self-declared progressiveness, its hospitality facet of community-mindedness is a shade weaker than Maine's.) In the midwest, there is practically no "innate sense of community" whatsoever. Still, it sounds like Poland has us northeastern-ers even further beat still, in terms of community-sensitivity, and it sounds rather pleasant.

(Side note: I always wondered how Erdos could've actually lived just hopping from friend's house to friend's house...but I guess now I have my answer...)

i want my free time back...so that i can prepare for giving it all up again to more fun things

Spent a lot of the weekend doing work for work. Sigh.

So, instead of working until ungodly hours trying to fix problems created by other people on the project (I haven't even had time to fix MY OWN bugs lately!), I am drawing a line in the sand, and going to bed early for some reading.

Recently picked a book back up that I had started last summer: "Chaos" by James Gleick. It's a fun read, but just reminding me of the fact that I still haven't heard back from any grad schools yet and am obviously starting to freak out a little bit about it.

Universe-- you are on notice. If I don't get an acceptance letter this week (even if only one of those infamous NYU "oh you're accepted but we can't fund you" bullshit acceptances), bad things will happen. I may just need to stomp on a bug or something, to feel like I'm getting back at you, but you know what they say about a lady scorned...

Just saying. Don't fuck with me, universe.

soul (sole?) education

Got back into running today. Was a pretty pansy run, but one has to start somewhere. A very cheerful FedEx lady delivered my running shoes this morning, and I decided it would be a travesty if I didn't take them for an inaugural run today.

Excuse overcome today: "it's too late in the day". Sure, it was 6pm and more or less dark outside, but half of the park near my apartment is lit--so instead of loops around the pond, I just ran "c"s. Plus, the weather was remarkably summer-like, with a breeze and everything...this is such a strange land.

Anyway, now, I'm going to try and get something done for work before I go to bed. sigh.

ode to a pair of running shoes

I used to have an awesome pair of running shoes when living in Burlington. Awesome does not even begin to do justice...I mean, these were the sort of magical running shoes that could inspire epic poetry and paeans of timeless caliber. (My knees have never been so happy in a pair of shoes--ever.) I ran these shoes until they wore out, and then they eventually died a fantastic mud puddle death. (I mean, why not go for a mud puddle run when your shoes are done for anyway? Might as well go out in a blaze of fun.)

Well I set myself to the semi-indulgent task of buying a new pair of running shoes this afternoon. I did some searching online...wanted to see what there might be out there by this same company that made my once-upon-a-time dream shoes. Turns out--they still have some of the same model of shoe, and they're trying to get rid of them, as they're now discontinuing the line!!



Guess who's getting a sweet new pair of these puppies delivered to her doorstep this week...

maybe tuesday will be my good news day

So. A few thousand fellow dorks and I across this country (and, the world) are currently sitting on the edges of our seats, repeatedly refreshing our email inboxes. It's decision time.

The Grad Cafe has a database of user-submitted decision stats. You can sort the data by program, school, date, etc. It shows what decision a person received, and how they received it (email, postal, phone), as well as whether they're American or from abroad. There is a place to write comments, too, so you can say something like, "accepted but w/o funding". (No funding is basically a rejection...and, as it turns out, NYU mathematics is notorious for doing this...and yes, I applied there, well before I found out about this site. Damn it.)

The other cool thing is that you can look at the years previous (they've had this database up for three or four "seasons" now), and see when the schools you've applied to usually start sending out their decisions. For UMCP, the school I think I have the best shot at, it looks like they usually send out their first round offers any day now. So, this will be a weekend of anticipation for me, I imagine.

Anyway, usually these boards are alternately filled with woeful rejection and joyful victory. But sometimes you get people with their heads up their own asses writing plain stupid stuff. But also sometimes, they get put in their place.



In other news, it looks like Cornell sent out their decisions today; as they pretty much dominated the math board today. Not a whole lot of activity yet from any of the schools I applied to; a couple early Columbia (physics) and NYU (math) admits. (Although as I mentioned earlier, NYU doesn't really offer funding for many people other than their first picks, so they may be a moot point for me by now...who knows.) I just need one "yes" and I'm good to go...

banks gone wild

This is a surprisingly clear (and hilarious) explanation of the financial crisis, in so far as it was caused by bad mortgages. I really liked the explanation of "leverage":

"i'll pay you back tomorrow"
"ok"

(you'll see what I mean)

I think with the economy imploding as it is and all...we'd all do well to improve our understanding of the financial system a bit. I took an intro to macroeconomics course my senior year in college, and then really wished I had done it sooner, so I could've spent more time in some intermediate courses. (I think every college student should be required to take a macroecon course, and possibly a microecon course as well...and yes, this is in addition to my infamous "every college student should have to take two semesters of calculus" rant.) So, in that spirit, I am bookmarking this blog on my list of daily-ish reads.

Anyhow, without further ado...


The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

As you can see, I'm not much for my own thoughts this past week or so...instead just posting various internet clippings. I've got a lot of projects going on right now, but things will be calming down soon enough. Until then, I hope you are enjoying my little findings from the interwebs...

update (9:52 pm): just found out this video was picked up by BoingBoing as well...see, told you it was cool.

low-tech hackery

I think my favorite part is the one about using your head as an antenna:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/19/technology/personaltech/19basics.html

e-time capsule

There are only two relationships in my life so far that I've haven't deleted all the "love emails" from. And before the year is out, that might be truncated down to one.

I was digging around the depths of my UVM email inbox tonight, looking for a class-related email from fall 07. In the process, I stumbled upon one of the aforementioned emails...and sort of stared it down for a minute, while it dared me to read it.

So I opened it. (I can be a bit of a masochist sometimes.) Turns out, it contained exactly the words I needed to hear right now. Besides reminding me I'm lovable, besides reminding me to take care of myself, it told me this:

Keep your chin up sweety. Everything's gonna work out. I know what it's like to feel overwhelmed when you got a lot of stuff going on. It happens to me on a regular basis. But things always end up working out in the end.

When I finally perform the electronic exorcism of this relationship past, this email will definitely be spared.

(It has been a rough past week. I needed to be reminded that I always land on my feet. And it doesn't hurt to read it written with such warmth.)

ah, the refreshing awkwardness of laundry day

You know in college when a buddy would show up to class in a really nice pair of dress pants or something, and you'd ask, "hey, what's the occasion?" And your buddy would reply: "oh, no occasion--laundry day."

Yeah, so today I'm wearing my skinny jeans to work. The jeans I wear when going out to a bar, or even if I just feel like feeling cute on the weekend when I go to the grocery store. But today I'm wearing them to a place where I usually try to dress on the androgynous side. I had two pairs of jeans in the dryer that I was waiting for this morning, but they didn't dry in time...and I wasn't about to wear dress pants, so...the skinnies it was.

<seque style = "questionable">
But if Sens. Collins and Snowe can get it done at work while wearing skirts, I can certainly make it in a similarly male-dominated workplace in skinny jeans.
</segue>

Ok, so I have one more news story to share (that refers to Mainers as "pragmatic and independent people")...but I promise I'll stop gloating after this last link on how awesome Maine's senators are:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/11/us/politics/11cong.html

"respectable" media fucking up their numbers as usual

There's plenty to laugh about in this article on CNN.com, but the ending is what really gets me:

Nationally, a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Monday showed a slight majority of Americans, 54 percent, favored the stimulus bill while 45 percent were opposed. However, only 32 percent of Republicans said they favored the bill.

I think what they should've pointed out is that only 3 out of the 200+ Republicans in Congress had the grit to vote for the stimulus package (and to work hard to negotiate a bill they felt was worthy of a vote)...despite the fact that a whopping 32 percent of Republicans out and about in America support the bill.

Less than 1.5% of Republicans in Congress << 32% of Republicans in the general American public.

Can you say partisan politics? (And oblivious journalism?)

hero-worship

What can I say? This lady is my hero.



And maybe the role model the little girl mentioned in two posts previous needs.

(I will partially justify said hero-worship by stating that: anytime you can say everybody where you're from has bought lumber from your senator's siblings at their hardware store, it definitely humanizes said senator. I mean, I would be a huge fan no matter where in Maine she was from, but the fact that she is actually from true "northern Maine" is just all the more awesome. I would probably freak out in full Obama-tron-like undiginified-ery if she were to run for president someday. She's too cool for president, so she won't, but I'm just saying. I'd be completely intolerable. =) )

hooray for political moderate-cy

The state motto isn't "Dirigo" for nothing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/washington/10stimulus-web.html

somebody get this girl a role model

The final passage of this article from the NY Times is quite possibly the most depressing thing I've read so far this year:

And when a little girl at the charter school visited by the Obamas announced that she dreamed of becoming first lady, Mrs. Obama flashed her self-deprecating wit. “It doesn’t pay much,” she advised.

I could add my own thoughts here...but I think I will just let the quote speak for itself. If you don't understand why this is depressing, then you are not very in-tune to the ongoing oppression of ladies in our society, and I am just not prepared today to waste my energy trying to enlighten others through writing.

I guess my only question is, Ms. Obama being the bad-ass career woman that she is, why didn't she suggest to the little girl that someday she could have her choice of first lady or president, instead of cracking a joke?

Oh, wait. Right. I forgot about those 2008 primaries already.

those fuckers messed up my cookies!

http://www.kashipeanutbutterrecall.com/

And here I thought I was immune to the recall. I didn't think Kashi (a food brand which I admittedly, borderline, hero-worship) would buy ingredients from such an idiot company:

Federal health officials have begun a criminal investigation into the actions of the Peanut Corporation of America, which they said knowingly sold contaminated peanut butter and peanut products to major food makers.

Knowingly?! Those bastards deserve jail, and a full psychological workup. What strand of wonky produces people that will sell products even after they know they've tested positive for potentially fatal bacteria?

I'm now wondering if my recent case of food poisoning was actually due to those damn cookies, and not the tuna from a restaurant as I had originally suspected...

Either way, it will be a while before my FAVORITE cookies are back on the shelves. Which means I will probably just take to baking my own in their likeness, and won't bother buying them again once they are back on the shelves. Epic fail on this one, Kashi. (But I will still religiously buy your "U" cereal...and would still buy your seven-grain nuggets if I could find them out here...)