You got to learn to live with what you can't rise above. Bruce Springsteen
31 July 2003, 11:13 ayem
Could you just die? Aerosmith and Kiss are touring together! I could just dah!
30 July, 2003, 11:50 ayem
Dear God, is it really only Wednesday? Sheesh. It’s raining and gray and it’s cold in my office.
This morning I installed my co-worker’s new printer, which I had to go and get because he somehow managed to trash his old one in such a fashion that I can’t put it back anyhow, anyway. This annoys me because I don’t know why he can’t install his own damn printer. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist, for crying out loud. It annoys me more that he hasn’t even the gumption to give it a shot. It’s been sitting there since last Friday and he’s just been avoiding printing. I finally did it this morning because I don’t want the additional annoyance of him emailing me things he wants printed.
24 July 2003, 3:59 peeyem
James Brown feels, eh, okay...
James Brown places ad
announcing split
Papa's brand new bag is packed. Never the low-key sort, the "Godfather
of Soul" James Brown has announced his breakup from his wife, Tomi
Rea Brown, with a full-page ad in the show-business trade newspaper Variety.
In the July 21-27 edition of the paper, the ad features a photo of the
couple and their now 2-year-old son, James Joseph Brown II, smiling at
Walt Disney World while posing with the costumed character Goofy.
Above the photo, a statement said that because of their "heavy, demanding
tour schedule, they have decided to go their separate ways. There are
no hard feelings, just a mutual show business decision made by both parties."
The couple, who married in December 2001, added that they decided to break
up "with love and affection." Tomi Rea is one of Brown's background
singers.
In a short article Tuesday, Variety reported: "A colleague of Brown's
said the photo was chosen to emphasize the happy times of the relationship,
rather than the hard times of a breakup."
Representatives of the 70-year-old soul singer did not immediately return
calls for comment.
Leanne and I were talking last night about why we think it's so funny to ride around looking at things. We saw a Very Large Dog sitting on the roof of a Pretty Old Car and couldn't stop laughing. We also were quite tickled by the Big Wheel, skateboard, and ordinary old house broom on the roof of a house. We don't think others wouldn't find those things funny, we just think they might not notice.
In other exciting news, I saw my friend Lara from way back when at Manuel's last night. She looks great and is doing really well, and that just pleases the punch out of me.
23 July 2003, 3:55 peeyem
If you are one of those people who are fomenting, bitching, moaning, or generally adding drama to my life, please to cease and desist immediately.
Of course, if you are reading this, you aren't likely the culprit.
18 July 2003, 4:26 peeyem
Susan has been pestering me for months about her printer not working. Only I know good and well that printer works because I have printed things from it myself. I have shown her me printing, and to pacify her, I even reloaded the software and downloaded something from versiontracker. This morning she sent me a very plaintive email that read, "Will you please, please, please come fix my printer?" I finally relented and went in there and plugged it in and put some more paper in it for her.
16 July 2003, 3:39 peeyem
What a week this is shaping up to be. Not only am I in the throes of new car shopping (which I actually happen to be quite good at), tomorrow I am having my first mammogram (yay me for not putting it off for another year) and my anthrax shot.
Because of the aforementioned things, I made an executive decision that I need a facial, so I'm leaving in a little to get that done.
I hope this is it for my major processes. In the last 60 days I have: refinanced the house, had an MRI, had a spinal tap, had a blood patch, and started car shopping. I also rear-ended a gentleman and had my bumper pierced by his trailer hitch (which I'm guessing he doesn't need, but what the hell). I also have purchased several pairs of shoes, none of which are the ones I need, but they're all cute anyway. It's been a bunch of tall days, all in a row.
14 July 2003, 6:37 peeyem
"If you only remember one date in history, let it be this: July 14, 1789 – the fall of the French Bastille!" ––– David Franklin, history professor extraordinaire.
Lord, it's raining again. It's raining all the time here now. The ground is so soft that trees are falling over. I just saw a car ford the creek in the parking lot and I realize that when I leave today, I will have to tote my shoes instead of wear them.
Today I have been an open-faced crab sandwich. I have just been in the worst mood. For a while there, I was on the verge of tears and I didn't even really know why. I had some chicken nuggets from ChickFilA or however you spell it and that seemed to help.
11 July 2003, 3:14 peeyem
There's another hoo-ha in the parking lot. This one involves a man in camel-colored slacks (not khakis) and a cream shirt, although I think he's that quiet guy who works here, and a lady all in black, except for the white socks with her sandals and an enormous navy headwrap. She is parked sideways, using three visitor's spaces, which annoys me somewhat. I bet in a second she's going to try to go in the out to avoid having to pay the dollar for parking. Oh! No, she went the right way! The angels are singing!
Do you know what bunges up traffic? No? Well, here for your edification are the answers:
1. People
who don't use turn signals.
2. People who get in the left-hand lane and refuse to go as fast
as the cars behind them want to go and also refuse to yield to faster
traffic.
3. People who don't pay attention to what's going on around them.
4. People who take forever to execute the turn that they have been signaling
for for the last mile.
5. People who stop at the curb to speak with someone standing on the curb.
6. People who do not obey the signs that say no left hand turn between
x:00 and x:00.
7. People who insist upon partnering up side-by-side with other motorists,
as though they are line dancing or something.
8. People who have lane decisional difficulties.
10 July 2003, 4:40 peeyem
The best paragraph in the paper today:
8 July 2003, 4:19 peeyem
In retrospect, she wasn't being friendly when she called me "white slice." I, after all, would have never called her – never thought to call her – "pumpernickel slice." She was being nasty, and I only this morning on the way to work thought about it, and it's been 10 years gone since that day.
It's not easy, sometimes, being from the South and sounding like I do. People make assumptions about your intelligence and your politics and your upbringing and your money that they don't make about Californians or Vermonters or Kansans.
Often they have the gall to make, as one man in a Manhattan bar did, remarks like, "Oh, you're from the South. How many did your family have?" I had no idea what he was talking about for a few seconds, and when I realized what he meant, I moved down the bar away from him.
I think this is all coming up because of the recent deaths of two Atlanta mayors, one white and one black, both of whom did a lot to further the cause of race relations in Atlanta and the South.
But how far have we come, really, when a co-worker has the brass to call me white slice? It makes me sick to think that that was okay, when we all know good and well that had I called her pumpernickel or worse, I would have gotten in deep, deep trouble before I knew what hit me. And it's not about the lack of fairness that represents, but about her lack of equal regard for me.
She should have just called me "honky" and gotten it over with.
7 July 2003, 4:19 peeyem
There's something going on in the parking lot here. The mail truck was here and blocking 2 cars in, but I didn't see the Joe the Mailman anywhere. There's been a man in a vertically striped shirt walking back and forth in front of the parked cars here, and some woman finally went to Wendy's, but she has come back with some biggie fries and what appears to be a Coke. Another mail truck came, but I didn't see any transaction between that one and the first one, or with the lady who went to Wendy's.
The man in the stripey shirt must be the HMFWBIC, because he walked out toward the street and waved in a police car. Now stripey shirt and Wendy's are waiting under a tree and the officer is in his car writing things down.
I can't see any damage to any of the cars, but if I don't stop being so fascinated with the whole thing, I'm going to have to go down there and ask what the hell happened, since I so clearly need to know what is going on with the postal service, the Atlanta PD, and the Wendy's lady, and why the man in the stripey shirt is in charge.
It's not that I have too much time on my hands, it's that I'm easily distracted.
3 July 2003, 3:16 peeyem
Oh, and
Happy Independence Day. Remember what the fireworks are for.
3 July 2003, 3:10 peeyem
When I worked at the paper, I rode the train to 5 Points and walked from there to the office. A few days a week, I'd find myself walking behind a midget lady. She was always wearing little tiny pumps and a little tiny business suit and she had a long blonde ponytail. She looked so much like a playperson that it just tickled me to death. Then one day I got a look at her from the front. Man, was I disappointed. She had a permanent scowl and a cigarette dangling from her lip and her blouse was gapped open at the buttons.
Sometimes it's better just not to know.
2 July 2003, 10:11 ayem
Last night I went home and fried myself a catfish. I soaked it in milk and egg and dredged it in cornmeal and put it in grease hot enough to melt a spatula. Fortunately I wasn't using a spatula. I put it in and turned it over and got it out with my bare hands. Not really; I used tongs.
For some reason, I feel very empowered not that I have fried a fish. I think it's because I feel like it was a death defying stunt, and I did all by myself, just me and my tongs and a box of salt to throw on the whole mess if it got away from me.
Last week Maynard Jackson died, and I have been singularly sad about it. I always felt like he was my mayor, because he was running when I got here and he's the first Atlanta mayor I voted for. I used to see him walking around downtown and he always looked so happy and so sturdy, like nothing bad could happen on his watch. I used to love to see him coming toward me, shoulders back and face to the sun, his arms always swinging freely. I could practically see the bluebird on his shoulder. Saturday morning I sat on the sofa in my robe and watched his funeral. A person should have a nice funeral, I think.
They sure don't make men like that anymore.
6/2k3
5/2k3
4/2k3
3/2k3
2/2k3
1/2k3
12/2k2
11/2k2
10/2k2
9/2k2
8/2k2
7/2k2
6/2k2
5/2k2
4/2k2
3/2k2
2/2k2
