kdiddy.org

I'm listening to various early-mid 90s alt rock. It's so soothing.

I have a case of those really painful hiccups…you know the ones that make your whole chest hurt. What the fuck is up with those?

Yesterday I got an order form in the mail for my graduation announcements. It got me very excited because it made the fact that I'm going to be graduating from college all the more real for me. Despite my constant neuroses about my QPA and job hunting and whatnot, I'm beginning to feel a huge sense of accomplishment. It may be true that in today's society a college degree is nothing special, but I'm just glad that I've finished something. I think leaving ballet the way that I did has been such a huge stumbling block for me. I've felt like such a huge failure ever since so this degree is really helping to heal that wound. It also helps to know that I am earning this degree because of my accomplishments and the fact that I've worked hard and not because of my body type.
I'm still worried about my QPA, mostly because I do want to go to grad school in a year or two and all I've heard is that you have to have a 3.0 to get in. I don't know if that's true or not but I don't see why it wouldn't be. Where else would your QPA matter? I'm also still worried about the job search, mostly because I don't have day care set up. I'm working on that, honestly, but it's hard to commit to something when you don't know when you'll be employed. But I have all next week off and plenty of things to work on. I have to finish my Nonfiction profile and get started on my immersion, hopefully pitch something to the PG because I'd be dumb not to take that opportunity, all that fun, “I'm going to get my life together right now,” kind of stuff. I also have to figure what I'm going to do in terms of a graduation party. I can just tell that it's going to cause way more stress than it's worth.
I have to poop.

Yesterday and today have been somewhat exasperating and draining. Today one of the first things I heard was that Mr. Rogers had died. I really don't know when it became cool to say that he was a child molestor but I always took personal offense to it. I'm sure, being human, that Fred Rogers had some faults but for some reason he was the only person who has ever been on TV that I felt was worthy of my total admiration. His show and Sesame Street, in my opinion are/were the last truly invaluable educational programs for children. I was always saddened when I would watch the “educational” programs that my former roommate would allow her toddler to watch and how they were so vapid and degrading in comparison. Some of our older family members are surprised or offended when the boyfriend and I say that the baby doesn't watch any children's shows. Besides the fact that he's too little to gain anything from watching TV, I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving him in the care of Blue's Clue's or Dora the Explorer or any other retarded show. Plus the fact that all of those shows now spin off some ridiculous line of toys in order to make a profit, rather than finding wealth in the fact that generations of children grew to be more tolerant and respectful adults, as I feel Mr. Rogers did, makes me sick.
Anyway, other than that yesterday was a bad day for all things insurance-related. Let me explain a few things first. In Pennsylvania, if you have a child out of wedlock you have to do a lot of extra paperwork. I can't totally remember what the situation was in the hospital because I was all doped up on Percocet and fluctuating hormones, but we couldn't get the baby's birth certificate or Social Security number right away. We needed to fill out an acknowledgement of paternity form before we could get either of those things, at least with the boyfriend's name on them. But this form fell to the wayside as endless diaper changes, sleepless nights, breastfeeding, post partum depression, plus the whirlwind of holidays and school starting back up took over. Yesterday, feeling motivated by tax season, we decided to get the baby a social security number. He needed two forms of ID, one was his birth certificate and the other could be his insurance card. Scouring the house, I produced the birth certificate but couldn't find the insurance card anywhere. Deciding it was lost for good I called the member services line, got a nice dose of judgment from the lady on the other line for having a toddler without a SSN, then find out that the baby's insurance was terminated a month ago. No notice, nothing. So another round of phone calls and I found out that his insurance was terminated because (hahahaha) he never got a SSN. Luckily, we can use his medical records as another form of ID so we'll get that in motion and get him back on the “ailing” Medicaid program that our President can't wait to kick us off of…I'm sorry, I meant to say “encourage” us off of.
Later on that evening we went to the waterfront to run a bevy of errands. Among them was picking up my prescription of birth control pills. While there, I found out that my crappy student insurance does not cover said pills. The three packs that were prescribed for me would have costed $95 all together, so I opted just to get one pack at $31. something. I'll have to look, but I'm very curious whether my student plan would cover prenatal visits and whatnot if I were to become pregnant due to lack of birth control. I kind of doubt it but it would be interesting if that were the case. The pills also came in a really crap case but at least it has that tasty new plastic smell. The pills themselves are this really scary bright orange color and I kept looking through the pamphlet expecting to find, “WARNING: PILLS TO BE INGESTED ONLY BY HORSES.”

WW is going alright. I think I ate a lot out of boredom so keeping that at bay is a challenge. If I were working or taking more classes I probably wouldn't notice. Last night I bought a bunch of vegetables so that should help.
There's a fly in my kitchen somewhere and he's buzzing around taunting me because I can't find him. Bastard.
Book news: I finished Blindness and have moved on to Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America. So far, very interesting and well-written but I'm not sure how I feel about the project as a whole. She insists that she's not trying to proletarianize herself but I don't know if I believe her.
The baby stinks, I shall go and change him.

Since channels 11 and 13 are the only channels that come in decently on my TV, I usually watch whatever is on there whenever I'm yearning for mindless viewing. That's usually when I'm having trouble falling asleep but am too tired to read. Last night I watched Jay Leno and overall it was an intriguing program. Dennis Miller was the first guest and while I'm usually a huge fan of his, he basically spent the whole time talking about how great war and Bush is and more or less denouncing his liberal heritage. I was hurt and confused. The next guest was some little girl from Star Search who, while her voice may be fabulous after puberty, just yelled through some R&B ballad and struck a few too many overly-mature poses. Then came the most interesting part of the evening: the musical guest. A Russian duo going by the name t.a.T.u or some capitalization like that. I've heard of these girls before and their main shtick is that they're lesbians…or are they? Perhaps they're just very affectionate and the lesbian stuff is a marketing ploy. But who really cares? In any case, I'm going to have to just come right out and say that their music is just not very good. But beyond that, their performance was a little too rehearsed. Let me explain. It's very obvious that they can't dance and their stage presence is lacking as well. So they had a choreographer come in and give them specific moves to do at specific times, all the while incorporating the lesbian aspect. It resulted in them singing this unremarkable song while absentmindedly caressing each other. But then came the bridge of the song. At this point both girls stopped singing and leaned into each other. It was fairly obvious to me that they were going to spend the break making out with each other. But before the home viewers were allowed any “action,” the camera quickly switched over to show some very boring shots of the band. I could hear some manly cheers from the audience and that about confirmed what I figured was going on. But I was perturbed that NBC chose to censor the kiss. I know that lesbian and gay kisses have aired on network TV before and I was confused as to why *this* one wouldn't be allowed. It was all very weird. When their performance was over Leno came over to thank them and end the show, making no indication of what had just happened. That is, until Arsenio Hall (who had showed up as moral support for the Star Search gal) came running over and tried to kiss Leno. Very strange indeed. Leno is one of my least favorite TV personalities, anyway.
I have a huge pimple on my chin that hurts.

MSNBC cancelled Donahue's news talkshow.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030225/ap_on_en_tv/tv_donahue_6

Unfortunately, I never got to watch it due to my lack of cable. It's too bad, though. I love that guy.
In other liberal talk show news, I got to see the first episode of Bill Maher's new HBO show. It was pretty good. They had a little too much stuff, though. Opening monologue, interview, panel, editorial, stand up comedian, “new rules”…perhaps they'll scale it back. I'd like it if they had a regular feature where Ann Coulter would say outrageously stupid things and then Chris Rock comes out and screams at her like he did the other night. She has an endless stream of idiotic things coming out of her mouth. It's pretty impressive.

Dear lord, is it cold today.
So I have something to confess: I started Weight Watchers. I'm not too sure how I feel about it just yet. I'm concerned that I've bought into the diet culture of our country…well, it's not really a concern, I know that I've bought into it. But I know that I'm not healthy, I know that I'm not happy with myself right now, so I think it goes without saying that something needed to be done. Also, I have a ton of decent clothes that just don't fit and i don't feel like spending a ton of money on new duds. So far it hasn't been too bad. I kind of had to botch yesterday because I started it after breakfast and it turns out that I had eaten something like 12 points for breakfast…my daily target is 25. So I got to say “fuck it” one last time…But I don't want this to turn into my diet journal so let's switch subjects.
I don't like my Nonfiction 2 class. I really like my teacher, but I can't stand the other students. They're just all very…dim. With the exception of maybe 2 or 3 people, having a class discussion is so excruciating. We had to break into little workshop groups yesterday and were working on our profile rough drafts. The girl whose story we read first gave us a disclaimer about how it really sucked and blah blah blah. I didn't think too much of it because just about everyone says that before getting workshopped. It's some sort of literary ritual. Anyway, we read her story…and it was really bad. Now, granted, it was just a rough draft and I'll be the first to admit that my rough draft is veeeerrry rough. But…wow. It was in first person, which in and of itself isn't a problem. But the way she wrote it the “I” was just pointless. I don't really know how to explain it. Also, the profile was about an abortion doctor. This girl in our group who always gets very hyped up about religion started suggesting all of these really offensive questions for her to ask the doctor at their next interview like, “Ask him if he thinks fetuses have a soul…Ask him if he thinks what he's doing is wrong…Ask him if he thinks the fetuses feel pain…” I wanted to punch her. All in all, not a very satisfying workshop experience.
My chair and my desk really suck. They're both falling apart. Thanks a lot, Office Depot. That reminds me, I need to get a new printer very soon. Yesterday it took me an hour to print out 40 pages. What a joke.

Uneventful. My mom went out so I was sans babysitter and missed out on some fun stuff. Oh well. She does too much for me and hardly ever goes out so I didn't feel too upset about letting her have one night for herself. When she came home she told me that she did a Jello shot which I found kind of…shocking. Especially since the party she was going to was all people her age. I didn't know people older than, say, 22 did Jello shots.
I'm debating on whether to read my book or play video games. I'm reading “Blindness” by Jose Saramago. It's very good but it's taking me a long time to read it. It's rather depressing and the style of writing is just so distracting. I bought another book of his to read but I think I'll have to read something else first. He uses the same style in that one and I don't think I can take it much more. (FYI the style I keep talking about is a lot of run-on sentences and no quotations when someone speaks…just a *really* long run-on sentence separated by commas.)
I've been playing Silent Hill 2 for months now and the reason that's taking me so long is because it creeps me out when I play it alone. Yes, I know how silly that is but the monsters in this game really are quite gross. I think I might dabble in something lighthearted like Tony Hawk.
My mom rented “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” which we watched, much to my chagrin. I had resolved never to see it due to the ridiculous hype surrounding it. You know what? It just wasn't that good. I mean, it wasn't horrible. But it was rather cheesy and it just wasn't as funny as everyone made it out to be. It tried too hard. But whatever, it's harmless.
In other movie news we went to see “About Schmidt” last night which was really good in that I've been thinking about it ever since. It was kind of slow and boring but I think that was kind of the point. Kathy Bates had a nude scene which I was not prepared for. Then we also got to see Jack Nicholson's ass which I really had no desire to see. Also, Jack Nicholson's boobs are almost as big as Kathy Bates'. But anyway, I think my dad should go see it. I think he would relate to it. He also needs to see “Road to Perdition.” I just know he would absolutely love that movie. I might just buy it for him.
Hmm, undecided to still. Saturday Night Live is holding no appeal so fuck that. We shall see…

So my interview with the gal from PAAI went pretty well. She looked a lot like Jennifer Aniston but with white-girl dreadlocks. She had a lot to say which was good for me since I didn't have to think of too many questions. Things got a little awkward on my end, however, when I asked her if some of the Garfield residents viewed their work as gentrification. She wholeheartedly insisted that it isn't, and I believe her but she kept referring to the Garfield residents as drug dealers and prostitutes. Now, I know what you're thinking, “Kelly, many drug dealers and prostitutes live in Garfield.” True. But not every single person that lives there is. I think what set off my alarm the most was when I recounted an experience of walking to the Quiet Storm and being teased by a few kids. She suggested that I should tell them to quit trying to sell me drugs. ??? I insisted that they were just being teenagers and she responded with a doubtful, “Maybe.” Whatever.
Craziest dream that I've ever had in my life: the other night I dreamt that I found a small alligator in my house, decided that I needed to kill him, so I put him in the oven and cooked him. It took longer than it should have and I began crying because I was so cruel and too stupid to remember to just call animal services or whatever. When I woke up, I was thoroughly disgusted. Must be some sort of post traumatic guilt for Dog the Lizard not surviving.
Anyway, what else? I think my weekend is going to suck. I've been presented with several options but I don't know how viable any of them are.
I gathered up some Christmas money the other day so I think I'm in the market for some Six Feet Under DVDs. amazon.com, I'm looking at you with your fine ass and your discount.
http://www.filmwise.com/invisibles/index.shtml
those are so fun.

The subject is an old favorite that I used to use whenever I would post to the pb-cle list about my weekends.
Anyhoo…
I realized today that I missed two things on Saturday. One was the deadline to apply for the CLO internship. I admit that I kind of let that lapse because the whole episode with the guy and the answering machine just really pissed me off. I'll just have to find something else.
The other was the Mofones show at the Quiet Storm. Mofones, if you're out there, I'm very sorry. I was there in spirit.
Speaking of the Quiet Storm, I'm going there this evening to interview a gal from the Penn Avenue Arts Initiative for my Nonfiction 2 class. This irks me for a few reasons. One is that, nothing at all against the gal from PAAI, I DO NOT feel like doing any school work at the moment. I think it's mostly the fact that I have to venture out in this weather. I know that once I get my interview rolling I'll feel differently since I'm quite interested in the PAAI.
Another reason is that this will be my fourth trip to the Quiet Storm. Every time that I've been there I've had this intense feeling of “I don't belong here.” There's a far too high population of hipsters there, and I just can't deal. Also, and this might be a little pernickety of me, I can't process the name of the place correctly. I don't know what they were going for when they named it, but every time I say or hear it I think of the SNL sketch with Tim Meadows as a smooth R&B DJ who hosts a show called the Quiet Storm. Every time he says it, he pushes a button that plays the sound of this gentle thunder…like it was sampled from sounds of nature or Pure Moods CD.
I went to a women's clinic on Sunday. Nothing serious, don't worry. But I just had to laugh because…well…the waiting room was painted pink and they had this display case with some fish tanks in it and a couple of strands of silk flowers and ivy. On the stereo they were playing, and I'm not making this up, Natalie Merchant. It was so stereotypical and screamed “WOMEN'S CLINIC” that I simply had to giggle. The girls that worked there looked like kinder, gentler versions of the womynists from the movie PCU. They were very nice, though so I really shouldn't rip on them.
I'm eating this dried fruit that I got at Foodland yesterday called Fruitlings. Very good stuff. But on the back of the package it says, “Fruitlings are spirited bits of nature that make everything more fun.” What the fuck is that supposed to mean? I wonder if they really do make everything more fun, though. I think I'll take some to, oh, I don't know, a KKK rally and see if I start cheering when the cross goes up in flames. If I don't I'm going to sue Fruitlings for false claims.