into the wild

lately i'm really obsessed with the into the wild soundtrack, by eddie vedder. in keeping with my general detachment from pop culture, i didn't discover this until a good year after the movie came out, and apparently the album was nominated for an academy award. well done. but regardless, it's such an amazing story. more amazing still because it's true. if you don't know it, i highly recommend checking it out or just reading up on chris mccandless. http://outside.away.com/outside/features/1993/1993_into_the_wild_2.html

while i'm not ready to pack up, burn all my money, and live off the land, i think what resonates about chris mccandless's story is that most people can relate to that feeling of absolute disgust with modern society and its worship of material possessions. that urge deep within to be in nature, to abandon your blackberry and burn your laptop forever. i realize the irony of writing this on a blog, with a photo of a cat that i feed from a can every single day (yes, she is staring wistfully into the wild of uptown manhattan). hell, i'm the kind of girl who gives myself a pat on the back for using natural kitty litter (feline pine baby! http://www.naturesearth.com/). but still, i think mccandless's is a story that leaves you thinking very sincerely about your own spiritual quest on this earth, and how to make the most of the short time we have. check it out. especially the soundtrack.

this is me today

I relate to my fine feline friend as she is captured in this picture. Why? That is a fair question. As you see, little kitty seems to either be attempting to climb up the wall, or simply staring at it. Perhaps both. In other words, kitty isn't really accomplishing much of anything, but manages give the impression she is. I'm secretly beaming with pride on the inside, as this is a skill she has surely learned from example. You will notice she is not engaging in any of the following: 1) Reading the newspaper next to her like a productive citizen, 2) Grooming or engaging in other feline-appropriate forms of self-improvement, 3) Writing her masters thesis so she can graduate in May. Damn...over-identification only gets you so far.

purrfect

as i suspected, i am not quite cut out for this blogging thing. however, i decided if there were ever to be a unifying theme in my blog, i might have just found it. i adopted a cat the other day, and have realized that had I not gotten married, I surely would have become a cat lady. cats are great for a lot of reasons, not the least of which that they are a surprisingly controversial pet. when you announce that you have adopted a cat, people either smile and give heartfelt congratulations, or grimace and try to find a way to gently break to you that they don't share your excitement. i realize that allergies play a large role in this, and that cat allergies are far more common than any other kind of pet allergy...but let's be honest. if you're a cat person, you just don't have that much sympathy for anyone who doesn't like cats. i remember growing up how we secretly villified my uncle and others who didn't think it was just plain adorable that our overfed little beasts used to follow him around and affectionately collapse on his feet.

which brings me to my next heartfelt realization: for better or worse, i deeply identify with cat's capricious, ironic personalities. as i listen now to my neighbor's obnoxious dog barking his head off, and think of just how many dog flops i dodge in an average jog, i remember that i have chosen the perfect pet. you will be hearing more about her, whether you want to or not.

wake up and smell the heaven

i could not love a human baby as much as i love coffee. in many ways, coffee is like my other marriage...i definitely see him more on many days than i do my husband, and we have been together a lot longer.

my love affair with coffee began when i was 13 years old, when my mother first bought me a dunkin donuts ice coffee with lots of milk and sugar. on that hot summer day, i remember how grown up i felt carrying around my oversized D&D mug, and how delicious the sweet (mostly milk and ice) conconction danced down my throat. the coffee back then was decaf, but it didn't matter. i was hooked. from then on if we went out for ice cream, it was coffee flavored for me, thanks very much. chocolate cake? i'll take "mocha." i was an adult now, and knew where my loyalties lied.

as the years went on, and my nerd persona flourished, i found another use for my old friend: studying. it wasn't long before studying and coffee consumption were synonymous for me...and what a glorious pair they were. coffee was a study break and study enhancer all in one. many college friends remarked that they never saw me without a coffee mug in my hand. i would just smile bashfully, as if they had told me they loved my shirt, or asked if i'd been working out because i was looking goood.

living in costa rica was perhaps the icing on the cake of my coffee fetish. not only did i gulp down unprecedented amounts of tropical brew, but visited coffee plantations and witnessed all steps of production from plant to bag. i imagined that i was somehow part of the process- now with an alchemist's secret knowledge of how to turn beans into gold.

when people tell me they don't drink coffee, or smugly that they "never started," i honestly feel sorry for them. they will never know the unfettered joy i feel as my fragrant divine potion drips from my mr. coffee each morning. and they will never have the steadfest friend i have found in coffee. as my semester heats up, and i start to wonder how the hell i'm going to finish all the work i need to do by december, i know that coffee will be my side. glorious, glorious coffee.

"emergency"

i had the good fortune of spending my saturday night at the emergency room of columbia presbyterian. let me tell some of you who haven't been to the ER lately- it is a shit show. seriously, why spend money on barnum and bailey's when you can hurt yourself and suffer with a cast of characters for FREE. until the bill arrives anyway.

so WHY was i in the ER, you ask? my "partner" (new york parlance. it is VERY uncool to be married, much less legally and *gasp* through the church) cut himself while doing the dishes. now, this was not your average cut. we still have blood stains on our kitchen floor. so dying he was not, but couldn't exactly stick a bandaid on it and wait til monday.

let me give you the short version of our 6 hour ordeal.

8:30pm: enter ER and 2 perturbed women behind a glass shield snottily point toward the triage nurse. the triage nurse proceeds to slap some gauze on wound (no gloves) and tell us to sit and be patient.

10pm: i attempt to ask when we can expect to be helped. a woman who is 8months pregnant and presumably in labor beats me to the nurse desk, and i am encouraged to take a seat.

10-11:30pm: several sick, pregnant, bleeding individuals stagger in in varying degrees of sobriety. a couple of times i ask for updates, and am swiftly reminded i am not the ONLY person in the ER. man with bleeding ear shouts out periodically that he ear is hemorraging, and "this is fucking ridiculous."

11:30pm: we attempt to watch sarah palin on snl on the waiting room television. sound not working, and drunk ladies next to us far too loud. bummer. at least the ladies are funny. apparently they went out on a ladies night and one of their boyfriends got sick on booze. dude in question NEVER going to live it down.

12am: finally, admitted to the treatment area!!!!!!!!!! downside- woman next to us is in septic shock and apparently on the verge of death. i see a catheter get put inside her, and blood spattered all over the floor. said blood was not cleaned up all night.

12-1:3oam: i compulsively apply purell to my hands from nearby dispenser about every 10 minutes and rub vigorously.

1:30am: hubby is assessed by doctor, told he will receive stitches.

2am: stitches finally applied, woman in next bed transferred to ICU, and a man from another area gets taken away in handcuffs and chains on his feet. i told you this was good entertainment!

2:30am: after half hour waitin for discharge papers, we are at long last discharged into the cold night.

It does not surprise me that people routinely die in waiting rooms. The next time I hear anyone complain about socialized medicine, I think I will urge them to wash all their sharpest knives next Saturday night.

in case you didn't already hate bush

yes, that is gargamel from the smurfs. why gargamel, you ask?

last night on my new favorite channel, pbs (seriously guys, pbs rocks. check out http://www.pbs.org/ for upcoming programs), i watched torturing democracy, a documentary about bush and cheney's horrific policies on torturing prisoners of the "war on terror." my stomach turned. my blood boiled.

here we are, demanding that the rest of the world treat our soldiers humanely, per the geneva conventions. yet we think it is appropriate to employ emotional, mental, and physical torture on people who haven't even been formally charged with a crime? we "opted out" of geneva, people, and the orders to do so came DIRECTLY from cheney and rumsfeld. rumsfeld was signing off on the kinds of torture tactics that could be employed, which included, among other gems, chaining people's hands to the floor in a dark room with a strobe light blasting headbanger music for 24 hours on end, waterboarding (creating the sensation of suffocation by sticking a wet cloth over someone's face, and pouring water on them until they puke), and a chaining people's wrists above them to slowly dislocate their shoulders.

not only are these tactics inhumane, but they're not even effective- confessions produced can't even be used in a trial because, shockingly, most prosecutors believe people will say anything when subjected to such intense physical and mental stress.

international conventions condemning these practices NEED to be enforced. i think instead of taking the third grade approach toward resenting America and its foreign policy (which does, admittedly, suck), whispering behind its back while continuing to eat at the same lunch table with the cool kids, the UN should grow a pair and put this administration's ass on trial. guantanamo, abu ghraib- how much evidence do you need?

so yes, in my endless sophistication, in my outrage i thought of gargamel.

on the bright side, it is a BEautiful day and obama is running for president.

ADD

i knew i would never be much of a blogger! over a month and not a peep to my faithful readers (all 2 of you ;) ). i could make lots of excuses- in fact, the nyc default is just "i'm so sorry, i've been really busy."

but the truth is i just didn't feel like writing about the election or about school, which are two topics that have been preoccupying my feable mind. what can i say? summary: i hope mccain and palin suck an egg and realize that racist, low road tactics and lies will only win you a trip back to wasilla, alaska. i actually watched a pbs special about richard nixon the other night, and the comparisons between his campaign tactics and the current ones mccain has employed are striking. and look where THAT got us! (cough, watergate, cough)

i recommend that pbs special by the way. in fact, i just recommend pbs. it's fantastic.

so in an unpolitical, unrelated vein: tasmanian devils are becoming extinct due to an aggressive species-specific cancer. how fucked up is that?

that is enough out of me for now methinks. back to my stewing about john walnuts mccain.