i meant her no harm when i left her unlocked outside the orange street food farm

i was just running in didn't think i'd be that long....
yay for orange street, food farms, and glorious greek food.







this one's for christine:


Classes are good. Tons and tons to read, but its all lovely stuff. So very tired. Greyhound is ridiculous. I miss my kellen. I think someone is drumming outside. Its time to sleep.
lovealison.

wow.. interesting.

I saw this on Rian's blog and thought it was interesting:
"If there is someone on your friends list who makes your world a better place just because they exist and who you would not have met (in real life or not) without the internet, then post this same sentence in your journal."

I met Kellen on the Internet. So, as much as it is ridiculously annoying, it is all right too. What site you ask? No, not a dating site. God no. here it is: http://p076.ezboard.com/fbarenakedladiesmessageboardfrm1. I first talked to him about four years ago and haven't posted there forever. We've been us for about three years now. So yes, the Internet is all right sometimes.

So there you go, if you didn't know that already. We saw Steve together this past summer in Portland. It was really, truly, fabulous. I wish I would have talked to him and thanked him, but I was sort of freaking out that I was standing next to Steve looking at CDs. Music Millennium is great.

Aaaaand, Kellen is coming next weekend, to the fair city of Missoula, come say hi.

I also met Sam from England on the BNL message board. Hi Sam.

So, never make fun of The Barenaked Ladies, or me for liking them ever again (ahem..Christine :p).

She likes to sleep with the radio on
So she can dream of her favorite song
The one that no one has ever sung since she was small

She'll never know that she made it up
She had a soul and we ate it up
Thrown away like a paper cup
The music falls

The only flaw in her detailed plan
Is where she wins back the love of her man
Everyone knows that he's never coming back

He took her heart and she took his name
He couldn't stand taking all the blame
He left her only with guilt and shame and then she cracked

Won't it be dull when we rid ourselves
Of all these demons haunting us
To keep us company

In the dream I refuse to have
She falls asleep in a lukewarm bath
We're left to deal with the aftermath again

On behalf of humanity
I will fight for your sanity
How profound such profanity can be

Won't it be dull when we rid ourselves
Of all these demons haunting us
To keep us company

Won't it be odd to be happy like we
Always thought we're supposed to feel
But never seem to be

Near where I live there's a viaduct
Where people jump when they're out of luck
Raining down on the cars and trucks below

They've put a net there to catch their fall
Like it'll stop anyone at all
What they don't know is when nature calls, you go

They say that Jesus and mental health
Are just for those who can help themselves
But what good is that when you live in hell on earth?

From the very fear that makes you want to die
Is just the same as what keeps you alive
It's way more trouble than some suicide is worth

Won't it be dull when we rid ourselves
Of all these demons haunting us
To keep us company

Won't it be odd to be happy like we
Always thought we're supposed to feel
But never seem to be

Hard to admit I fought the war on drugs
My hands were tied and the phone was bugged
Another died and the world just shrugged it off

good stuff.

lovealison.

another one in the why-does-he-keep-pointing-that-thing-at-me series 

Raaaain.

Over winter break it rained almost every day. It was really awful. But today in Missoula it rained. That means it's warm enough to rain. And that is a wonderful thing. In the second week of a new semester now. Its going pretty well so far. Not so sure about physics 141 though. I thought I'd really like the class but it's not turning out how I thought it would. All my other classes are awesome though. Philosophical perspectives on women in the western hemesphere....rules. The first day we discussed what we meant my "women" and by "western." It was so cool. Shakespeare with Bob is lovely of course. We're doing Hamlet this week. History should be good. The professor is also my discussion leader which is nice. 20th century yeahhh. Every wednesday I have current events. I think I'll like that class, but it definitly has too much work for only being two credits. Then there's western jitterbug and swing. It is fun. 1 2 3 hold 4 5 hold 6 oooh yeah. Stayed up waaaay too late this weekend talking to kellen online. Its hard for me to sleep in here. Very annoying. So it is time to work on more homework.
lovealison.
ps: my lovely kellen has a blog now! (which I'm pretty sure he said he'd never do...) Anyway... here it is. http://picturefuture.blogspot.com/

We're On Our Way Home.

Going back to college after the long winter break is weird. It's like leaving home and going home at the same time. So happy Bridget has a car. The taxi to or from the airport is $15.50. Retarculous.

Colin Meloy was lovely last night.

Don't know how much I'll update this blog. I want to though... so we'll see.

lovealison.

War Is Over If You Want It.

Most of you know that my favorite Beatle is George Harrison. This is true, but my first love was John Lennon.

His music has affected me since before I can remember. When I was a baby my parents played a tape in my room called “Baby Road,” a tape of Beatles lullabies. When I was ten I picked out “The Magical Mystery Tour,” by my self when my dad told me I could pick out a CD. John’s voice and lyrics mesmerized me. “Strawberry Fields” was one of the songs that first spoke to me. My favorite line in the song is, “Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.” It reminds me to pay attention to my life, right now, and to analyze the things I experience as much as possible. “All You Need Is Love,” is also on that album. That song has meant so much in my life. Every line is full of advice and reminders.

Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love.
There's nothing you can do that can't be done.
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung.
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game
It's easy.
There's nothing you can make that can't be made.
No one you can save that can't be saved.
Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time
It's easy.
All you need is love, all you need is love,
All you need is love, love, love is all you need.
Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love.
All you need is love, all you need is love,
All you need is love, love, love is all you need.
There's nothing you can know that isn't known.
Nothing you can see that isn't shown.
Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be.
It's easy.
All you need is love, all you need is love,
All you need is love, love, love is all you need.

It is so tempting to get wrapped up in the drama of everyday, but this song helps me slow down, and remember that the best things are often the simplest.

John’s solo music has also affected me more than I can say. The first solo John song that I, and most people ever heard was “Imagine,” a song that asks people to forget how live is and think about how it could be if we all worked less to build barriers and a little harder to love each other.

One of my favorite things about John is that he was so personal in his lyrics. He wasn’t afraid to show his weaknesses, like in “Jealous Guy,” (I was feeling insecure, you might not love me anymore, I was shivering inside, I didn’t mean to hurt you, I’m sorry that I made you cry, I didn’t want to hurt you, I’m just a jealous guy.) He wasn’t afraid to admit that he was desperately in love, shown in “Oh My Love,” (Oh my lover for the first time in my life, my eyes are wide open, my eyes can see.) And he certainly wasn’t afraid to express how he felt about the world, society, and politics, as seen in many songs including “Gimme Some Truth,”

I’m sick and tired of hearing things
From uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypo-critics
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth
I’ve had enough of reading things
By neurotic, psychotic, pig-headed politicians
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth
No short-haired, yellow-bellied, son of tricky dicky
Is gonna mother hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocketful of hope
Money for dope
Money for rope
I’m sick to death of seeing things
From tight-lipped, condescending, mama’s little chauvinists
All I want is the truth
Just gimme some truth now
I’ve had enough of watching scenes
Of schizophrenic, ego-centric, paranoiac, prima-donnas
All I want is the truth now
Just gimme some truth
No short-haired, yellow-bellied, son of tricky dicky
Is gonna mother hubbard soft soap me
With just a pocketful of soap
It’s money for dope
Money for rope
Ah, I’m sick and tired of hearing things
From uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocrites
All I want is the truth now
Just gimme some truth now
I’ve had enough of reading things
By neurotic, psychotic, pig-headed politicians
All I want is the truth now
Just gimme some truth now

Many of John’s fans feel like they have an intimate connection with him. I think this is because he was so skilled at expressing how he felt and how he believed the people that listened to him were feeling. He said how he felt about the world and he did so in a plain, sincere, and honest way. It seemed like he had taken the time to reckon with himself and now he wanted to share it with all of us. For many he was a symbol of hope and resistance against the way the country was going.

John was murdered on December 8th, 1980 at 10:50 PM, Eastern Time on the sidewalk outside his apartment, in front of his wife, while his son slept inside. He was shot three times in the chest, and then twice in the back when he turned to run away. Mark David Chapman was an obsessed fan who felt like the only way he would be remembered would be if he killed someone famous. I don’t hate him, but rather, I pity him. I can’t imagine feeling that horrible about myself, or feeling so ignored, so unloved that I had to take someone else’s fame. It’s obvious that something went wrong in his brain and that he is an obsessive personality. He read “Catcher in the Rye,” and identified with the main character, Holden Caulfield. He heard an interview where John Lennon explained that he often felt that his celebrity was “phony,” and from that point deiced he should kill Lennon.

I get chills when I hear the recording of Howard Cosell announcing his death during a football game, “Yes, we have to say it. Remember this is just a football game, no matter who wins or looses.” An unspeakable tragedy….” When I hear people’s stories about how they heard about his death, it makes me feel just as sad as if I was there. Mark Riley, a veteran New York City radio host said about the day after Lennon’s death, “It was one of those days when New York City just stopped. People walked slower, their posture was lower, it was like a piece of the city had been killed.”

I don’t cry too much. I’m not a mushy person. I don’t cry at movies or during TV shows, and I’ve never cried at a funeral. But when I think about the force that was stolen from the world when John Lennon was killed, I feel like I could cry for hours.



"I'm not afraid of dying. I don't know how it feels at the moment. But I'm prepared for death because I don't believe in it. I think it's just getting out of one car and into another."

The Floor Is Different

When I went home for Thanksgiving I expected things to be different. I thought my friends might treat each other differently; maybe my family would be different too. I thought it would feel different to be in my room at home after sleeping in my dorm room for so long. When I finally arrived home after my plane being cancelled until the next afternoon and a three over layover in Seattle, and almost losing my suitcase is that the only thing that was different was the floor.

The first instance that life in Portland had not changed much happened as I was wandering around in the baggage claim area in PDX. I turned on my cell phone and saw that I had a voicemail: “Hi Alison……It’s Clarieeeece…..Just wondering what you are doing……Where are you? Uhh…call me…yeah.” It was the first time I had heard my friend’s voice since leaving, and everything, right down to the intonation of the message (almost identical to every message she’s ever left on my phone) was the same.

Then my dad called. The traffic on the Sunset was awful so my family wouldn’t be at the airport for a half hour. I asked if we could pick Kellen up from Powell’s on the way back home and as usual, my dad was reluctant, (“We might not have room”) and my mom, in the background said that we should (“Of course we have room, the car seats five”). Also in the background was my brother, “This sucks.” It was sort of comforting to know everything was the same, but also disappointing in a way. What…my leaving didn’t cause drastic change in everyone’s attitudes?

I knew my dad was changing the floor at home, but it looked a lot different than I thought it would. Our house was built in the 1970s, and it was quite obvious. Harvest gold (orange-brown) carpet, fake rock on the fireplace, sunken living room, it had it all. Now almost the whole main floor was light colored hard wood, it was all one level, and most of the fake rocks were gone. I like how it looks, and I’m glad I was gone while it was being changed, but it threw me off a little.

Friday night proved that none of my friends had really changed. Clariece was still sardonic and sarcastic, Isabelle was still attached to Seanie by whatever body part was closest, Ruth was still paranoid, yet endearing, and Kellen remains steady when no one else does. He’s also still allergic to my cats but tries to be friends with them. The Christmas Tree lighting was all right, although it became more of a never-ending quest for coffee and dinner. Then not wanting to go home we wandered the brightly lit streets and through the department stores filled with Black Friday shoppers. Clariece and Ruth failed at a game called “Lets Get Kicked Out of Nordstrom,” and we took the Max back to my house and watched “Pulp Fiction”.

For some reason I thought that some, or maybe, all of these things would be different. After thinking about it, it’s less disappointing, and more a relief that things are basically the same. Even though I love it in Missoula I can hardly wait to get home again.

(Picture is Kellen looking miserable because of Licorice the cat. Licorice looks like he's enjoying making Kellen miserable.)

TV is Ridiculous

There are only two TV shows that I try to watch on a weekly basis, “The West Wing” (Sunday night at 7) and “ER” (Thursday night at 9). I have never watched prime time TV on Monday and I probably never will again.

I got bored last night so I turned on the TV to NBC, I usually like their shows. I came in part of the way through a show called “Surface,” a sci-fi show about aliens or something. I had seen previews for it, and even though I’m not usually in to alien shows I decided to give it a try. It was really…really weird. Two people floating on a raft in the ocean in a pile of alien eggs, little green dragon looking things, (maybe the aliens?) running around in suburban homes, and a boy in the hospital with a bad bite on his leg who says it wasn’t the little dragon dudes who bit him and is apparently some how connected with them. Slightly intriguing but I don’t think I’ll be tuning in next week.

The next show on was “Las Vegas.” Usually I jump to find the remote to turn off the TV as soon as I hear anything about this show, but last night I figured that as long as I was watching mediocre TV I would check this one out too. The show started with some woman (the owner of the casino, I found out later) getting blown off a roof…by a strong gust of wind I guess? Although most of the characters were shocked at her death, none of them were sad. Apparently no one liked her. When the other hotel higher-ups found out that she had left the casino to a charity (The Foundation For the Blind) one of them said, “Maybe we were all wrong about her,” and another replied, “Or maybe she was just a total bitch.” I assume that the meanness of the characters, and their apparent apathy about her death was supposed to be funny, but I thought it was totally ridiculous. Also ridiculous was the ease in how the management and ownership of the casino was handed after her death. In the show, one of the higher-ups (I don’t know any character names) convinced the blind representative of Foundation for the Blind that the charity would be better off selling him the casino, so he did. Then the positions that the now deceased owner had recently switched were switched back. I don’t know much about the way casino buying deals go down, but it seems to me that more care would be taken in a multi billion-dollar sale than was portrayed in the show.

I also watched “Medium,” which I really want to hate, because I don’t like the premise of the show, (giving hope to people with missing children that a psychic might be able to help them) but I end up kind of liking it anyway, so I won’t go into detail about how ridiculous it is.

All of the shows on Monday night were about things that the people watching will (most likely?) never experience; alien invasions, glamorous and disgustingly rich Las Vegas life, and psychics solving their problems. It seems that the writers of the shows are trying to help the average person escape from their mundane life, if for just an hour, though in my opinion are doing a less-than-average job at it.

My Step-Dad’s Not Mean, He’s Just Adjusting

If you read Christine’s blog, you know that the two of us spent most of the day trying to avoid working on our essays. What she didn’t tell you is that she was sitting in my room while she was writing that blog while I worked on my essay and we watched “Death to Smoochy.” It’s a great movie that shows how corrupt the children’s entertainment industry is.

Robin Williams plays the disgraced children’s entertainer Rainbow Randolph. He is found to be taking money from parents so that their kids can dance on his show and sit in the rainbow chair. This is freakish because I can just imagine how truthful it is. How cutthroat to you think the parents were whose lovable children were on “Barney and Friends” or “Lamb Chop’s Play-Along?”

After Rainbow Randolph leaves the kids network has to get a new squeaky-clean replacement. Enter: Smoochy the Rhino. Shelton Mopes, who plays Smoochy, is a vegan; gun-hating, clean-cut musician who plays guitar for heroin addicts at a methadone clinic and loves his wheat grass. Although the character is exaggerated I think this is just the kind of guy who America needs running its children’s entertainment, especially on TV. Mopes actually cares about kids, not the money he gets from performing for them. He’s horrified at the thought of telling kids to eat refined sugar loaded cookies. He prefers to tell them about snacks “sweetened with juice for an energy boost.”

This brings me to real-life kid’s entertainment. If you turn on a TV channel geared towards kids today the first thing you’ll notice it tons of commercials. We spent a lot of time talking about the effect of the media on kids in my Intro to Mass Communication class. A video we watched showed how both TV show programmers and ad agencies hire psychologists to tell them what will get kids to watch, and keep watching. It turns out that kids under about five years old can’t tell the difference between when a show stops and the commercials begin. In commercials geared towards kid’s adults are almost always shown as mean and stupid people who can’t possibly understand children. They are mean because they won’t give the kids what they want. The good parent is the one who lets their child stay up later, and gives them the product being sold.

If Smoochy ruled the airwaves of kid’s programming this would not happen. Shows would be educational and entertaining for kids. They would not be mindless entertainment filled with violence and unhealthy foods. Kids on Smoochy’s show are encouraged to dance and run around during the show, very much unlike most shows that hypnotize kids into watching for hours as they sit on their ever-growing larger bums.

So remember kids, a step dad is a lot like a new puppy. They need patience and love while they adjust to their new surroundings. But remember - if he is ever abusive to you or mommy, what are the magic numbers?

I thought this was kind of a weird topic. Write about my experiences with a minority group? Like: I knew this Hispanic guy once. He had a sweet car. Like that?

I thought about writing about how in Envi Club and Young Democrats last year we always had our weekend events on Sundays. This was because the majority of both clubs were Jewish, so Saturday was off limits. But that is actually all I could think of about my experience with Jewish people, (besides Fiddler on the Roof last year, which was amazing but an entirely different group of people… and I’ve been to a few Bat- and Bar-Mitzvahs).

So while sitting here thinking of my experiences with minority groups I thought, “hey, some of my best friends are minorities!….cool.” I feel weird about writing about them, but I’ll try.

Ruben Palacios grew up in South Central, Los Angelis. His parents are from Mexico. I met him in my freshman science class when he would sit by me and try to copy my homework at the last minute before the teacher came by to stamp it. I didn’t really like him at first because he’s one of those people who will babble on incessantly whether they think you care or not. I was in science with Ruben again when we took biology sophomore year. In that class we became better friends. He thought I was amusing because I called him Ruben and everyone else called him Ru. We sat next to each other and could commiserate over Ms. Schat’s ridiculous tests and massive amounts of homework. Although he had trouble his freshman year, he was determined to work hard and get good grades this year. That class was one of the hardest classes I took in high school and although I was a bit resentful at the time, I’m happy now to say that Ruben got a better grade than me.

The science theme was repeated again in the second semester of my junior year when we were both in an Environmental science class. Through all of these classes Ruban continued to talk…and talk…and talk. Amid all the small talk, he would tell me stories about when he lived in LA. About how he was in a gang, how he had to take care of his younger brother when his mom wasn’t around. He told me once that one night while he was watching TV a drunk man came into the front door of their house, shot his dog in the head and ran out the back. His storied were shocking to me, but he explained that for him it was just growing up. Although I didn’t have any classes with him my senior year I saw a lot of Ruben because he dated another one of my friends. I worried about him a lot. He was still taking care of his brother and lived in an apartment complex known for nightly visits by the police. I’m sad to say I haven’t talked to him since the end of school last year, but I’m happy that he graduated with my class. I know he realizes that he’s lucky to have gotten out of the area he grew up in, and that he’ll make the most of his life.
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Isabelle Shankar has been one of my best friends since second grade. I vaguely remember her first day of school in America. She sat a few seats down from me in our second grade classroom and I could hear her dad speaking a language I’d never heard before in an oddly quiet and gentle voice. From then to know it’s almost all a blur, but in that blur I learned many things. That language I heard was Swedish. Isabelle’s dad is from India, her mom from Poland. They met in college in England, moved to Sweden where they had three kids and then moved everyone to the US because they wanted them to grow up there. I don’t remember how I found all this out, because we never really talked about it.

The Shankar’s story seems a bit like the typical immigrant story. They came here for a better life and worked their way up. One of my most vivid memories of Isabelle from elementary school is of her wishing on fluffy, white dandelions that the bank would approve a loan so her parents could finally buy their house instead of renting. Now that all three of their kids have graduated college or are currently there, the Shankar’s are back in an apartment, this time only temporarily while the house they bought years ago is being remodeled.

I always felt welcome at Isabelle’s house. Both of her parents were always eager to make guests feel at home, usually by cooking food, (oooh delicious food). They also made you feel like a part of their family. Isabelle’s mom would constantly ask us about how school was going, how our families were, and if you ran into her at the bakery in the grocery store where you worked she’d ask you why you hadn’t been around as much lately.

Growing up half Indian, half Polish, in a household with a devout Catholic and a practicing Hindu didn’t make Isabelle as different as people might think when they first hear that. She told me one time that she sometimes wished she could be more European, like her cousins, but is most definitely, in her words, “All American.”
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My friend Rian would like to say that he is also in a minority, “I'm a pale, skinny, effeminate, Irish-Swedish Latinist! Go me/us!” So, there you go. (That's him in the picture).