no subway

well, the title for this blog is moot at the moment, since SEPTA is on strike, and there is no subway to be riding. the city is freaking out. there are about twice as many cars on the road as normal. sheri attempted to give me a ride to work, but we gave up because traffic was too heavy to get anywhere, so i walked from her office. did manage to make it to work relatively on time.

perhaps this will give me the push i need to get some excercise and get out of bed at a more reasonable hour. the last SEPTA strike lasted 40 days. great.

protesting (or not) in philly

the other day, i got off the subway at city hall. for those who don't know, under city hall is a huge pedestrian concourse, that links both subways (we only have two), the trolley lines, suburban station and ... a bunch of other train related things. i always get lost under there when i try to be clever, so i just went up, knowing that once i was above ground, i could figure out where the heck i was.

i came up right at city hall, and the first thing i saw was a woman being interviewed by one of the local news stations. the iPod was pretty loud, and i didn't think much of it, then i turned around and realized i was in the middle of an anti-war demonstration.

i flicked off the iPod, but it was the quietest demonstration i'd ever heard. people just stood there with banner against the war, marking 2000 dead, that sort of thing. it was very un-Philly, really. no one tried to talk to me, or hand me a leaflet, or anything. and i'm against the war! i would have rallied with my peeps. or at least taken a flyer without getting agitated.

evidently, the anti-war people could tell that i was about to be a bad liberal. that night, i got three phone calls. the first was from NARAL, who asked if i support a woman's right to chose. if i didn't support a woman's right to chose, would i be on your freaking list? about an hour later, the democrats called. i'm about to vote for nader if the freaking democrats don't stop calling. i don't know who the last one was, because i said 'is this another political phone call? i don't give money over the phone, and i'm hanging up.'

the freaking phone calls aren't making me contribute! they're just pissing me off. is it a sign of age that i get things from NARAL now and i think 'oh, chill. if they strike down roe, there will be an injunction in about 30 seconds. just calm down and we'll get through this.' not that i don't think its an important issue, i'm just tired of all the drama.

like, miers withdrew her nomination yesterday, and i got some emails from liberal groups saying that bush shouldn't have bowed to the radical right. well, yeah, but we didn't want her either! its not like now is the time to say she was a great nominee. she was a crappy nominee, and the next one will be worse and our president just sucks. i don't have the energy to be angry about it all the time. i contribute to causes i believe in (just not over the phone), and i vote, and i count down the days until bush is out of office.

and that turned into an unintended rant.

she's unbelievable

anne rice continues to amaze me. like it wasn't bad enough that she decided she didn't need editing a couple of years ago- now we've found out why. i stole this from cat's blog.

Rice Plans to Follow First Her First-Person Narrative of a Young Jesus With Further Chronicles of Christ's Life; 'I Promised That From Now On I Would Write Only For the Lord' says Author

NEW YORK, Oct. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- Anne Rice's newest book may not necessarily appeal to her longtime fans, she tells Senior Writer David Gates in the October 31 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, October 24). "For the last six months," she says, "people have been sending e-mails saying, 'What are you doing next?' And I've told them, 'You may not want what I'm doing next." We'll know soon. In two weeks, Anne Rice, the chronicler of vampires, witches and -- under the pseudonym A.N. Roquelaure -- of softcore S&M encounters, will publish "Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt," a novel about the 7-year-old Jesus, narrated by Christ himself. "I promised," she says, "that from now on I would write only for the Lord."
Rice knows "Out of Egypt" and its projected sequels -- three, she thinks - - could alienate her following; as she writes in the afterword, "I was ready to do violence to my career." But she sees a continuity with her old books, whose compulsive, conscience-stricken evildoers reflect her long spiritual unease. "I mean, I was in despair." In that afterword, she calls Christ "the ultimate supernatural hero... the ultimate immortal of them all."

it's official

Click 5 rocks. How can you not love a band that sings:

"The price is right
And I'm Bob Barker..."

These are things I hear when the iPod is on shuffle. Although Cat is right, and it doesn't really shuffle. Today I got selections from B-F, with no D's. What is up with that? I think that the pink iPod might just hate Duran, but she sure likes album tracks from Backstreet.

gloves

alright, its chilly today. and raining. but i don't think it's glove weather yet. the woman next to me on the subway today was wearing boots and gloves. she should have been sitting next to flip-flop girl from yesterday.

i don't get flip-flops in general. i hate that thing between my toes. so, when it is weather for sandals, i have a bitch of a time finding anything, since all sandals must now be flip-flops. and there are lots of cute flip-flops out there, i just hate the style.

i can't seem to stop talking about flip-flops.

flip-flops

when is the time for flip-flops over? i sat next to a woman on the subway today who was wearing a coat, sweatpants, and flip-flops. its october in philadelphia, woman. it was about 50 degrees when i left this morning. put on some freaking shoes.

i then discovered when i got to work that i had neglected to bring socks, and was therefore stuck wearing sneakers all day with an otherwise nice outfit. karma is a bitch.

NaNo

Yesterday I got an invite to join NaNoWriMo again. Since writing a novel in a month was an exhilarating experience last year, and I have an idea this year, I signed right up. Then I spent a couple of hours on the forums, and discovered there's a sophomore slump. am i doomed? i was basically doing a re-write of a longer work last year, was that too much like cheating? Heck.

and the darn thing doesn't even start for another three weeks.

i love this town

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/traveler/features/philly0510/philly3.html

two days later

i'm off for two days- the whole freaking place was closed, because we like rosh hashana around here- and i come in this morning to 70 emails and that freaking red voicemail light on my phone. sigh.

its all bush's fault

it's all bush's fault that i was late to work today. if i hadn't gotten so sucked into his speech about his nominee for the supreme court, i would have left on time. its not because it was a good speech. it was just because i wanted to know who the heck this lady was. as i told sheri, he nominated the white house general council. ie- oliver platt. everything i know about the government, i learned from west wing. i am applying these lessons to commander in chief. yes, i love the shows about the white house, while loathing all crime and law shows. i guess i'm a political groupie on some bizarre level.

so, i was about ten minutes late, because i decided to walk down to the farther subway stop in an effort to get some excercise. i'm too stupid in the morning to realize that if i left late, walking to the next subway stop wasn't the smartest decision i could have made.

the extra time did allow me to realize that all the rock star: inxs stuff i put in my latest playlist is recorded at about half the volume of normal songs, so when 'wordplay' came on after 'trees,' i thought i was going to blow my eardrums out. i blame freaking msn and not allowing me to download the actual tracks because i'm on a mac. this is mac-ism, people. i only got the tracks for free because i had no choice. i would have happily paid for the darn songs.

why is that that every freaking morning i walk in to a message on my voicemail? i was only ten minutes late, people. who needs to call me at 8 am? shouldn't everyone in this office be home watching the today show and eating breakfast like i am at 8 am?