You don't want to be a lawyer, you don't want to be a professor!

Wow.

There is a tremendous amount of negativity in the world. Has anyone else noticed this? I googled "steps to go to law school" and came up with about 800 websites dedicated in whole or in part to discouraging people from attending law school.

Mmmmkay. Color me crazy here (it's not hard) but isn't the SCHOOL part the important bit? It's SCHOOL, a place where you LEARN. Actually, a place where you ARE INSTRUCTED IN THE FINE ART OF LEARNING.

For instce, I was not at a bastion of intellectualism for undergrad. That's the mild, pc way of noting that I attended a rather notorious "party school." I didn't know I was signing on for a party school, but I can say definitively that I'm awfully glad I did it. I learned to party, picked up some rather fetching career options and broke out into the world utterly prepared to hijack concerts at will AND edit the hot holy hell out of a piece of writing. Most of the people I knew were of above-or-well-above average intelligence and we spent a good chunk of our time admiring the hypersmart drug dealers who were working on their MBAs and Ph.Ds in Pharmacy to truly lock down their markets. There was always someone to admire, is all I'm saying.

As I prepared to leave school there was a lot of yammering about getting a job and prospects and I'd spent 3 years already listening to quite a few of my engineering buddies predict their income upon graduation and rant about EP (earning potential) of girlfriends. Eggheads. They so totally missed the boat. They didn't have nearly as much fun in school as I did, being locked away in the E-building, which wasn't such a bad place as I spent chunks of time there trying to sneak into the chemical engineering labs and see what I could muck up, and most of them didn't find the satisfaction in those Realized Earnings as they thought they would. Many entered the world of work and found that ridiculous amounts of money were not waiting for them, however utterly stultifying workplaces were. Go figure.

I spent most of college traveling, sleeping, recreationally exploring my campus and fellow students, watching clouds cross the sky, scamming free food, writing and wandering the bowels of libraries up and down the eastern seabord. If I couldn't be found it usually wasn't because I was in class (boring!) but because I was blowing the dust off of some tome and dancing little jigs because I'd found some obscure bit of analysis that confirmed my theories on whatever (generally alice walker and toni morrison and exploration of the supernatural in literature). I came out of school making a rather obscene amount of money to do something I would have gladly volunteered to do for the same amount of time every day gratis. And they fed me.

So, now I'm ready to go back to school and it seems the whole world is anti-education. In reality, there is nothing wrong with school as long as you understand some simple rules:

1. School does not guarantee a job - you do. School is the mind, jobs (and careers) are the heart and hands. They require human capital, as in, human you show up enough and you get a job.

2. School does not make you smart - you do. At best, school gives you exposure to smart people and an outlet for learning new things. At worst, you may pick up a nasty drug habit and a brand spanking new disease. Shit happens. School, like life, is what you make of it.

3. Attending college DOES improve your chances of increased income. If you're trying to climb economic classes, school is a handy-dandy way to do it. Yes, the stuff they teach you in class is helpful, but the REAL meat is in the stuff you learn from people in economic classes you aspire to. In school, you get to be around those people, observe and make forays into foreign worlds. You get to gather the tools of assimilation. You learn the language, mannerisms, cultural touchstones - you get exposure and possible acceptance. Again, human capital.

So, this is me going back to school. I'm not going to school for another or better job. That's hogwash. I'm going back to school so that I can spend time in libraries blowing dust and to give myself a break from working full time. No shit. I want to read and learn and become mildly insensible with useless knowlege, but I also want to sharpen my analytical skills and float a bit and come out with some letters after my name.

Cause really, there are few thrills as pleasant as having letters after your name.

Happy Skoolin!

Happy Estonian Morning to You All!

I don't even know where Estonia is. Alright, that's a lie, I did look it up recently, it's Northern Europe. Estonia. Right.

Lately Estonia has been heavy in my life. My friend tried to get an Iphone from Estonia on my advice. I found an ad in the newspaper and the price was right. I figured they got thrown off the back of a bus in China and it would be all good. Unfortunately the phone never showed up. Estonia incident #1.

Then I got hooked on this song Walking on Air by Kerli. I thought the name was a little odd. Well, where is little miss Kerli from? Estonia. She rocks too.

Now I have a new estonian artist, Lakissiva, she's quirky and weird and is like bjork without all the electronica and more fucked up accent.

Maybe I should plan to visit Estonia soon. I do have a free plane ticket and Paris is always there.

Happy Estonian Morning to you all!


P.S. - Katinka-the-big-white-dog is now declared to be from Estonia.
P.P.S. - My word. Estonian Reggaeton. Get OUT!!!!

The big white dog & vodka gimlets

LOL.

Ya'll are fools. Maya wants to know if I'm happy to see her if that's just a big ass dog in my pocket and Exodus gives me a tongue-in-cheek lecture about bleaching defenseless animals.

Tink - as I call her - is just pale as all hell. She found the family a few months back. Actually, she found the chickens on the farm and was hell bent to get her some wings and drumsticks, but I was outside and (i use this word very liberally since walking was not my strong point) chased her away. She just kind of hung around. My stepmom tried to run her off. No dice.

Fast forward a few hours and the little sister gets home dark-ish. We mention there is a ghost dog outside hellbent on eating Robin and the girls and she becomes obsessed with seeing said ghost dog. She trots out with the father and they capture said ghost dog and bring her in. She's thin and, we suspect, abandoned. Oh, she's also batshit crazy. Everything looks like food to her (cept the humans, we disabuse her of that notion with alacrity).

One day she gets loose and runs straight for the horses. Sure, they outweigh her by 1100 pounds and 15 feet, but she's a huntin' dog dammit and she's gonna get some horsemeat! Well, they kicked her little ass around like a soccer ball. Ever see horses play soccer? Probably not, just imagine Ronaldo, Beckham, and any other fancy-footed futbol player having at a ball with three of his best mates. Yeah, she was the ball. Hilarious. She could have died. But, you have to give it to Tink, the girl has moxie and she wouldn't give up. She was gonna hve some horsemeat if it killed her (nearly did too).

My dad had taken up teaching her a very nasty trick of taking your hand into her mouth but she doesn't have enough self control to NOT bite the holy hell out of you in the process. That merited some re-training of dog and father. She's a good friend, though. Very curious and intelligent and likes to talk. She's also funny to watch, highly destructive and still inordinately interested in the chickens. Quietly, though, I can't hate on her about the chickens. They look like walking roasters as far as I'm concerned.

Is anyone else out there enamored of vodka gimlets? Vodka and lime juice, does get any simpler or tastier? So wonderful, especially on a hot summer day when you've decided working is for suckers, and working at a bitch-ass job is for people who don't value their souls as much as you do.

Holla!

Wow, it's been forever

but i've been tied up living life. it's god awful early, but here's a little poetry to start the day.

Woke up this morning not so much in love anymore
No one’s fault, maybe mine, for dwelling on a past full of passionate mishaps and raunchy sex
Woke up this morning and really wanted some time to hold me close
And spread my legs in both directions of the bed, to remember my name
Whatever it is.

There’s a problem with living life with a vengeance, too much to remember, too much to leave behind
Too many friends who care to remind you what you prefer to put out of your mind

This morning you brought in a stray, said she weaved between your legs when you stepped just outside the house
As she climbed your back and around your collar I refused to leave sleep
Now she stretches in a cat-coma that has lasted for hours
What has been is not nearly as important as what is

There’s a problem with living life with a vengeance, too much to remember, too much to leave behind
Too many friends who care to remind you what you prefer to put out of your mind

Brick Walls made of Flesh

If you haven't yet, take a few minutes and view this vid by Randy Pausch on his Last Lecture, which really was his Last Lecture and was definitely time well spent.



I laughed a lot while watching this. It's a fabulous reflection of how fun and fantastic life can be.

Okay, that's all I feel like sharing right now.

Tata!

He's ready to get drunk

And so am I! Man, I have a slight headache and it's only 2:00 in the afternoon. I could use a beer in the most serious way imagineable.

Hm. Wonder if I'm hungry...

I digress, here I am on the plantation. Annoying people abound. Today is one of those days where I constantly resist the urge to roll my eyes. Over and over and over again. Recently I stopped resisting the urge. I just roll with it now.

I think I'm also entirely too sendentary. Life requires movement and i don't move a lot when parked in front of a computer. Right before I started typing this graf I lapped around the office a couple of time.

Oh lord, my boss is back. We'll just call hime the 'overseer' cause he certainly isn't boss of me!

Camille

A whole frier and a big desire

Alright. i have a whole chicken, an infusion cooker and i don't want anyone to get hurt!

I feel so accomplished right now. I just put my chicken in the oven and uncooked it smelled divine. Truly. I doused it with olive oil to make the skin all crackly and tasty then i rubbed it down (a sensual massage if you will) with garlic and ginger, sprinkled with salt and pepper and popped it in the heat.

The secret though is the spiced Kweyol rum with ginger and garlic that will infuse as it cooks. I don't know how to tie birdie extremities so I didn't even bother.

i hope it doesn't catch aflame in there. Bird flambe is not what I was aiming for.

So, happy Monday readers (or Tuesday if you're getting to this late). How be's you? I am well, spent the weekend with the fam. Experienced my second flat tire in three days and had an unholy good time waiting for the tow truck.

Well, it's time to eat. I have a cranky visigoth to deal with. Anon, anon,...

Pavarotti Perspective

So, the day started out shitty. I've not wanted to wake up for three days in a row. Just haven't wanted to, couldn't make myself blah. Then, I drag ass to work and I have an employee with THREE teeth that need to be extracted (wtf? how does it get so out of control) and another one in the middle of a lovelife crisis (again, WTF?)

Needing some *assistance* and being unable to smoke or drink at 10:30 am, i pop in a little pavarotti. He makes it all better. Opera lends a sense of grandiosity to ones life. Suddenly all the little things happening around me seemed insignificant. Patients who show every sign of serious drug abuse - no problem. Bills need paying - whatever. Life is life, Opera is life, such is life, get over all of it.

I spend my day hashing out a new direction for the company and wondering why I didn't take up escorting when I was young and nubile Heh Heh Heh. The music lures our newest MD into the office and since I find her entertaining that's not a bad thing. I also take a great deal of amusement in guessing her sexual orientation. They always turn out to be straight as blades, but this is fun for me. Is she, isn't she, is she, isn't she??? She's a jock, but she does her nails. Gender identity is so fawking confusing nowadays. It was simpler in the wilds of San Francisco when you could just say MtF, or FtM, or gay, Straight-ish - you know, it was easier to tell.

Oh well, I just finished Walter Moseley's Blonde Faith so I'm on to a new novel.

Mazel Tov!

That would be me

That would be me
Okay, I have to share this with ya'll:

"Not necessarily. Some might instead ask why the Bush White House didn't replace Michael Chertoff as secretary of homeland security after a House report condemned his bungling of Katrina. The man didn't know what was happening in the New Orleans Convention Center even when it was broadcast on national television."

This is from an op-ed piece on Charlie Black's interview with Fortune where he said a terrorist attack would help McCain gain the presidency. What made me laugh was the last line about Michael Chertoff not knowing what was happening in the Convention Center even when it was broadcast on national television. That is so something I would do. Completely oblivious. Of course, I would not have settled for TV, I would have been telling the Air National Guard to get me down there on the ground, but still, I would not have been watching TV.

Really, the article is precious. And it taught me a new word this morning: Bloviating: to speak pompously. Used in a sentence (again, thanks and shout-outs to Mr. Friedman) "These nights you can still find Mr. Rove hawking his numbers as he peddles similar G.O.P. happy talk to credulous bloviators at Fox News."

Bloviators. What a GREAT word! Sounds like Bovine...So you just get the idea of something large and filled with air and maybe not all that bright and booyah - it's the truth!!!

Okay, I have to get back to IMing at work...I am working too though. Just on hold...forever.

Sittin' on a GoldMine

I have to thank my buddy TeraByte for that phrase. Apparently she was complaining about being poor and hungry freshman year of college and her mother made the comment that she didn't know why our Terabyte was complaining when she was sitting on a goldmine.

Yes. I'm going to let that sink in for a bit. Sitting on a goldmine...

Speaking of, I have a goldmine on my shoulders. Tonight I wandered around Borders with J-Boogie talking about the emotional differences between men and women. The conclusion? Men are slower to feel, but feel as deeply as women. As such, it's very easy for a woman to shatter a man - and all his hopes and dreams focused in her direction - with a casual word or deed. It's rough out there for the fellas, I tell ya.

We also hashed out the redeeming qualities of arranged marriage (personally, I think it's a fairly responsible concept and for years I wished my family was cohesive enough to choose me a husband and then marry me off. I mean, really, dating is for the birds), and the importance of clear, structured communication within the context of a relationship and what types of relationships (clearly defined roles of influence and power) feature structured communication. In all it was a very stimulating evening.

Tonight I also came up on the final book in the Bartimaeus Trilogy. Ptolomey's Gate! Yeah!!! I'm so excited. The book practically leapt into my hands as I was standing by the clearance racks. Very, very cool.

So, I'm yawning and I'd like to read a few more pages before fading into the ether. I just had to share the whole "sitting on a goldmine" phrase. It was too perfect to pass up.