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Tuesday, 30 August 2005

Life's tough right now.  It doesn't mean that I won't get through it, but it also doesn't mean that I'm going to be Mary Sunshine 24/7 because it's the "adult" thing to do.

 

I'm just going to take it one day at a time.  That's all you can do and hope for the best.

 

On a related note, are you aware that there is a Ben & Jerry's flavor called "Chocolate Therapy." Oh how appropriate!

by: DJGroovySlug at August 30, 2005 19:58 | link | comments random thoughts

Thursday, 25 August 2005

Veronica and I are trying this new fad called uh, jogging. I believe it's jogging or yogging. It might be a soft J

(virtual daiquiri for the person who correctly identifies the movie for the above quote)

 

Thanks for all the kind words from everybody on my last post.  Everyone was right of course, especially with the whole Just Do It© attitude.  Yesterday I refused to just sit around the house, so I went to the mall. Okay, okay, I know it's not the healthiest place to go, but I needed earrings.  Yes, I needed them, the same way some people need food, water, companionship.  Yesterday I needed earrings.

 

But that wasn't all.  I did a little job search grunt work and sometime in the afternoon/evening, when I really hit the "I just want to lie in bed listening to my headphones" point of the day, I decided to go running instead.  Since my current favorite pastime is daydreaming in bed and listening to music, I figure it wouldn't hurt if I was upright and running while daydreaming and listening to music.

 

And it was like when I got back from running all this good stuff started happening. We had burgers for dinner.  Friends called.  I went out for some drinks.  It was great. 

 

Can exercise really change your life?  It probably didn't make all those things happen, but it feels like karma was willing to start taking care of me when I started taking care of myself. 

 

Okay, so I went running once  since I got back from vacation.  But everything seems to be going better thanks to that one afternoon jog.

 

After all, I finally got a job.

 

 

by: DJGroovySlug at August 25, 2005 10:40 | link | comments (5) random thoughts

Tuesday, 23 August 2005

While the posts continue to slow down from this side of the computer, it's good to see that other people are still faithfully blogging away.  I'm having weird problems, mostly in that I sit around moping in my bed from morning til night.  I feel like a pre-pubescent teenager but without the pimples, thank god. I'm sure it has to do with all the changes going on right now, mostly with looking for a new job and the prospect of becoming an "official adult."  I'm just stuck in this weird rut and, honestly, part of me wants to stay here and be miserable for a while.  Is that okay?

by: DJGroovySlug at August 23, 2005 16:41 | link | comments (7) random thoughts

Thursday, 18 August 2005

Bringing You Another True Random Thoughts Post

What do you do when you find out when one of your acquaintances is the most obnoxious, irritating person while intoxicated?  Do you say something or just avoid them in all situations that may involved alcohol?

 

I was reading a long forum discussion on airplane horror stories and I recently figured out that the prayer of choice for the fearful flyer is the "Hail Mary," used even by myself, President and Founder of the "I'll Never Fly Again if I Just Make it Off This Plane" club.

 

P is back from Ecuador and now we can commiserate together about missing it.  And gossip about Christian.

 

I’m finally getting a few nibbles from my job search.  I’ve been MIA for a few days because I really hit a high point in the search, since a lot of great jobs were popping up.  But I will say this: a few of my friends (boyfriend excluded) are giving me hell for not having a job.  Ummmm, thank god the ones that have stuff to say about my employment status don’t read this blog because I don’t think IT’S ANY OF THEIR BUSINESS THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

The boy is signing his 2-for-7 papers tomorrow, which is a big deal. Basically he's signing his commitment to the Navy: two more years of school and then five more years of service for a total of seven more years in the Navy.  If he signs on Friday and then decides it's not for him and leaves on Saturday, he will owe the Navy approximately $75K of back pay for the first two years of free school, room and board and military salary.  So yeah, it's a big deal.

 

Moonglow was tagged for the 5 Idiosyncrasies Post and like a good sport I volunteered for it.  Here are five of my idiosyncrasies (I can only list five?!)

1.  I hate air blowing on me, including air conditioning, fans, breezes, wind, and people just blowing air out of their mouths.

2.  I have an adverse reaction to velvet and velour.  Like touching them actually makes me feel ill.  I can’t explain it.

3. I despise warm fruit.  This includes pies, cobblers and those syrupy concoctions on top of pancakes.  Here is my theory: fruit already tastes good in its natural raw state.  Items that do not taste good raw (meats, grains and sometimes veggies) are cooked in order to alter the proteins and improve their flavor. There is no need to improve on the flavor of fruit, it tastes great to begin with.  Yes, this means I don’t like pie and if that makes me an anti-American terrorist then so be it (as has been claimed by some).  The only exception to this is pumpkin pie which is easily explained because pumpkin does not taste good in its raw state and therefore tastes excellent in cooked pie form. 

4.  This one is sort of strange so bear with me: whenever my mother sits in either of the front two seats, she frequently pulls down the visor to stare at herself in the mirror.  But rather than simply look up and reach for the lip of the visor to pull it down, she doesn’t look and sort of claws around the ceiling with her nails until she finally hits the visor and then pulls it down.  And I have no idea why but it drives me crazy. CRAZY.  Just thinking about it is working me up.

5.  I am very secretive about the strangest stuff. Not just what I choose to keep secret, but also from whom.  Like my parents have no idea what my current position in the job search position is going – they have no idea what I applied for or even that I’ve been on any interviews. And I refuse to discuss my relationship with my boyfriend with most people, at least nothing beyond the “We hung out last night.”  I guess everyone has a weird system of revealing themselves, but the choices we make & our reasoning for our priorities are always interesting.

 

And finally, American Girl has dared all to reveal the contents of their purses:  I dumped mine out onto the computer desk:

Purse Stuff!

 

 

Nothing that interesting.  The best part is, given the obviously small size of my purse, it’s quite a challenge getting everything to fit.  I feel like I’m playing Tetris.  But now I my system is so good that I can make almost anything fit into it and when I pull stuff out of it it’s like a bunch of clowns piling out of a mini-car while people stare and wonder where in the heck all this stuff is coming from.

 

 

by: DJGroovySlug at August 18, 2005 14:22 | link | comments (4) random thoughts

Thursday, 11 August 2005

I got turned down for another job this morning and I was immediately hit with two simultaneous and equally strong reactions: "My life sucks, nobody wants me and I'll be unemployed for the rest of my life" and "Damnit, I'm going to work my butt off trying to get the best job out there!"  The one good thing I've pretty much learned in this whole process is to avoid discussion with ANYBODY (except the boy and here in my blog).  That way no one goes "Oh, did you get the job?" and I can avoid sounding like a loser when I say "No, I didn't."  It's just so frustrating!!! 
by: DJGroovySlug at August 11, 2005 12:18 | link | comments (4) random thoughts

Wednesday, 10 August 2005

Wednesday Poetry

Never would I forget about Wednesday Poetry, even though I haven't actually put any up for probably four weeks.  I'm actually thinking of just changing it to Random Day Poetry since sometimes I want to post poetry but it isn't Wednesday so I don't and that's just not right.  We should enjoy poetry anytime we want!

 

Because I still miss South America, here is an Argentinean poet, Alfonsina Storni, and her poem "Cuadrados y ángulos," in both the original and translated versions.

 

Cuadrados y ángulos

 

Casas enfiladas, casas enfiladas,

casas enfiladas.

Cuadrados, cuadrados, cuadrados.

Casas enfiladas.

Las gentes ya tienen el alma cuadrada,

ideas en fila

y ángulo en la espalda.

Yo misma he vertido ayer una lágrima,

Dios mío, cuadrada.

 

 

Squares and Angles

 

Houses in a row, houses in a row,

houses in a row.

Squares, squares, squares.

Houses in a row.

People already have square souls,

ideas in a row,

and angles on their backs.

I myself shed a tear yesterday

which was — good heavens — square.

 

by: DJGroovySlug at August 10, 2005 09:56 | link | comments

Tuesday, 09 August 2005

Tales from the Trip: Mountain Ponies and Cheesy Music Videos

So I told you about getting up to the top of the Pichincha yesterday.   Eventually, after much waiting in line and gawking at the gringos we made it up to the top.  So now for a little lesson.  There are technically two Pichinchas: the Guagua Pichincha and the Rucu Pichincha.  Don't ask me which one we stood on.  The last time the volcano erupted (technically) is 2004 although I believe that last time it erupted and something actually happened was about ten years ago. The summit elevation is approximately 15, 600 ft (Quito itself has an elevation of around 9200 ft).  Naturally, we didn't climb the summit, so I believe the highest point we reached was approximately 11,000ft.   Of course, I could be totally wrong about everything.  It was high.  It was windy.  It was cold.

 

Anywho, Quito's high elevation already had our poor American hearts and lungs working overtime.  So when we got to the top and had to climb a little ways more to reach the observation area, we just about died.  Meanwhile, Tio Marco just strolled along as though we were out for groceries. 

 

These poor ponies waiting to haul paying gringos around the moutain.  I'm sure they were used to the wind and the cold but I still couldn't help but feel bad.

Ponies!

 

Remember the view of Quito from the top? Here's the view of the other side.  Ecuador has such a huge number of volcanoes, a point which the Ecuadorians are very proud of.  We passed a few on the plane on the way back from our excursion to Cuenca, a small city in the south.  But I took those pictures with a film camera so hopefully I can get that developed and scan them in.  Provided that airport surveillance didn't zap the pictures to oblivion with all that X-ray stuff.

 

Pichincha

 

And finally, the best part of the whole afternoon.  We reached the observation level (don't be fooled by the fancy name, it was just a dirt path leading to the highest point that visitors could reach, enclosed by a wooden fence).  All of us stood overlooking the grand scene of Quito stretched out in the valley before us, but just to our left was the sound of music blaring from a boombox.  We headed over to the edge of the fence  to inspect and this was what we saw:

Music Video!

 

Yes that's right.   The making of an Ecuadorian music video.  Notice the mullet on the musician.  And that blazer.  Oh you should have scene him dance.  P and I rolled with laughter all the way back down the mountain. 

 

by: DJGroovySlug at August 09, 2005 11:59 | link | comments (1) dj groovy slug travels, dj groovy slug takes some snaps

Monday, 08 August 2005

Tales from the Trip: Those Crazy Tourists

I'm not here to make fun of the gringos.  But it's definitely a long standing joke that Americans are some of the most obnoxious, most obvious, loudest, and perhaps even the dumbest world travelers.  And never was this more obvious than in Ecuador, where gringos stood out more than any other country I have ever visited.

 

Take, for example, this photograph:

Nametag Girl

 

See that yellow tag around that girl's neck? I highlighted it with a red arrow.  I took this while P and I were standing in line for the Telefériqo, which is this sort of ski lift thing in Quito that takes you to the top of the Pichincha, the nearby volcano.  Naturally it's a decent tourist draw and there was this huge group of gringos talking loudly and drawing lots of attraction from the locals.  But what really drew attention were those neon yellow tags around their necks.  Since we were standing right in the midst of them we had a clear shot of what the tag read: "¡Hola! Me llamo Cassidy Smith"  (name changed to protect the innocent).  Then it listed a hotel address and phone number (in case they get lost??).  And they all had these on. 

 

Now, Ecuador isn't Rio de Janeiro but it's not Kansas City either.  Everyone in P's family, especially the men, have been mugged at least once.  Petty theft and sometimes even dangerous crimes against tourists are considerably common.  Someone who isn't from the area really needs to watch their step.

 

Aside from the fact that these were grown people wearing kindergarten nametags, to your typical ecuatoriano thief those yellow tags read, nay, they screamed "Hello! I'm a tourist! I'm carrying at least $20 in cash on me and I probably have expensive jewelry on my person as well!  I don't speak much spanish and I'm very trusting if you just flash me a nice smile!"  

 

And you had to wonder: what fool back in the States (because no one in Ecuador would suggest this) said, "Hey! I know how we can really meet the locals! Let's all wear nametags! Neon yellow ones! That have our hotel address on them!" You know, like it was a good idea.

 

Really, this is why I love America.  No one anywhere else would come up with this stuff.

 

Here's what it looked like from the Telefériqo:

 

 

Teleferiqo!

 

P almost had a panic attack from the height.  Tomorrow I'll tell you what it was like being at the top of the Pichinca.

 

xxx, Luv, DJ Groovy Slug

by: DJGroovySlug at August 08, 2005 13:16 | link | comments (4) dj groovy slug takes some snaps, dj groovy slug travels

Thursday, 04 August 2005

I'll admit it: I'm no chef.  I watch Food Network religiously and buy Cooking Light whenever the new issue hits stands.  But I really don't know my way around the kitchen, how to recognize flavors, how to tell if something is done.  Having said that, I feel incredibly sorry for the poor sap who printed out this recipe.  Before you know it there will be recipes on how to toast broad and boil and egg.
by: DJGroovySlug at August 04, 2005 22:13 | link | comments (5) random thoughts

Thursday, 04 August 2005

Desperate Housewife Blues

I'm starting to live the life of a bored housewife.  I've been going to the mall.  A lot.  I've called all my friends I know that don't have full time jobs, begging to go out to lunch.   And today was the real kicker. I got my nails done and later, I made brownies.  BROWNIES.  At the nail salon I sat there, looking around at all the other housewives.  "The Surreal Life" was on TV.  And I thought, "Is this my future? Will I forever be stuck with bad celebrity reality television and countless empty afternoons? Should I just start painting my toenails bright fushia (apparently the nail color of choice for bored housewives everywhere) and shopping out of the Newport News catalogue?" 

 

It was so bad, I finally started sending out job apps today.  I guess that was all it took.

 

Now I'm off to cook dinner.  It's tofu stir-fry with snow peas.  I got the recipe from my Cooking Light magazine.  And no, I'm not joking about the magazine part. 

by: DJGroovySlug at August 04, 2005 17:14 | link | comments (2) random thoughts