from the archives
I posted this some time during my senior year of high school. It is presented here as part of Western New York television history:

My new favorite commercial is for a local “law office.” One middle-aged insurance fellow goes up to an old, eating, insurance fellow in a restaurant. He describes a case to this muncher, who looks up at the end and says “Who’s representing this ‘victim’ ?”

CHOKE, CHOKE, CHOKE goes the muncher. “Let’s settle THIS one.”

quote
“For he so loved the world that he pretended to put up with it.” — Patrick

quote
“We find enemies among our peers because we know them better, and their proximity and familiarity means we don’t even have to get off the couch to dismantle them.” — Dave Eggers

today
Eliina, Amanda and I made sandwiches of egg salad and tuna salad, heated a can of baked beans, took some red grapes out of the freezer and headed for the park across the street. We spread out on Amanda’s soft quilt under a tree with a trunk big enough to live in. Then we ate our picnic, talked about silly things like childhood nicknames and brushed roaming insects off each other’s shoulders.

this time last year
I was in Normandy with my mother. We piled into a tour guide’s truck with a man from New Zealand and a family from Oklahoma City and bounced across the Monet-colored landscape of wildflowers and dirt roads until we reached the beach. We scooped sand into an empty water bottle for my grandfather. We climbed in and out of old German bunkers: rusted barbed wire and broken slabs of concrete, guns bigger than me. At the American cemetary, I stood on “U.S.” soil for the first time in a few months, an intruder on an endless field of perfect white crosses.

quote
“I’m kidding.” [pause] “I’m half-kidding.” [pause] “I’m serious, actually.” — Amanda

update
Saw Star Wars last night, and so did Patrick. He wants to hang out with Natalie Portman. I’m hoping for something much more realistic. There were two guys at the movie theater dressed up as a Storm Trooper and a Jedi, hired to patiently pose for pictures with all the movie-goers…. After the show we walked home, dissecting the film. And when we turned a corner, there they were — packing up their car, looking like rejects from a Star Wars backlot. Love a man in uniform.

site
Guy with temp job + war + clip art = Clip art characters debate U.S. policy in Afghanistan.

headlines in my head
It *is* possible to create weird habits spontaneously. Recently I started thinking of my life in headlines. “Girl eats entire pint of ice cream for no reason.” “Girl crosses street unscathed.” “Girl screws up sandwich order, recovers.” Hopefully this is just a short-term quirk.

site
If you thought weblogs were revealing, try this: A family is living in a Harrod’s store window for a week. Friends, the future has arrived. (via girlhacker)

metablog
Elisa’s take: “We want to hear stories, heartaches, successes because in some way, these tales make us more human. The touch is a split-second of anonymous bonding that in some unexplainable way makes your life richer.”

quote
“In a way, apartment searching is a metaphor for life, or at least the part of life that is spent searching for apartments.” — Tim Kearns, Iowa State Daily

housekeeping note
In an effort to actually put something in the Randomness section, I’m trying an experiment. It could be interesting. It could suck. We won’t know until we try. For now this site isn’t form-enabled, so I’m taking the cheap and lazy way out with a Lycos feedback form. I promise that’s temporary.

local wildlife update
Charlie and I were walking down the sidewalk yesterday evening when a fox ran across our path. It was a little surprising. I didn’t know foxes still lived around here… didn’t we kill them off? Or maybe it was just a really big squirrel.

the new plan
I will buy a used car that’s almost on its last legs. But not too close to death. And then, I will drive it until it can drive no more. That is where I will live. Hopefully there will be a tow truck/public transportation nearby.