My mother sent me a package today filled with foodstuffs. FIVE (5) Mason jars of homemade noodle sauce with fried tofu and beans, zong zi (which is sweet rice wrapped in big ass leaves), an assortment of Chinese cookies, crackers and sundry snacks. If I were still living at home, this would be nothing. But as it is, I am enjoying the munchies immensely as I sit here wasting time while my fridge hums dejectedly because it is empty, empty, empty. Except for the stuff mommy dear sent me, of course.

This reminds me of a ancient Chinese fable. One of the emperors used to be a beggar. One winter, he and his elderly father were walking the cold snowy streets with no shoes, getting their wooden bowls filled layer by layer with leftovers from each house they stopped at. When finally, they had completely topped off their bowls, they sat in an alcove shielded from the wind and gobbled up their food. Later, he became the emperor and became dissatisfied with everything he ate. He ordered his master chefs to recreate that bowl of layered porridge/stew/slops he once ate as a starving young man. They presented him with it, he tasted it, spat it out and ordered the deaths of his chefs. Then Confucius flew down fom heaven and said to the emperor, shaking a finger, "Stupid lout, it doesn't taste as good as before because you're a useless, fat, spoiled tyrant. And tyrants always get their food spat in."

After that, Confucius leapt away, leaving a trail of rainbows and delicious cakes that turned to spitting, headless mice when the emperor tried to eat them.

I love that yarn. We Chinese are very creative in our moralistic tales. And we like to spit.

Some treacherous thoughts I've been trying to stuff away have kept on resurfacing. I recently celebrated my twentieth birthday and have been thinking about what I want for my future. What I want is disturbingly unlike what I imagined I would want a year or two ago. I feel kind of like a sellout. For reference, I wanted to be an uprooted weed blowing around the world, never settling in one place or with one person. Bourgeois landowning-- never! Marriage-- never! Children-- never! A cozy, one bedroom apartment in the city with a cat and occasional lovers/companions-- that's what I wanted.

Rob has been housesitting for one of his professors, who is a war photographer/associate professor at UW, who is married with a six-month-old baby and a goofy golden retriever named Henry. He and his wife own the most charming house in the world. It sits on a hill in Fremont, an artsy, offbeat part of town, and from every single window, there is a view of the city and Mt. Rainier. Original paintings and B&W photographs of Africa (his and his wife's work) adorn the walls. The garden is small. The bathroom tiles are always miraculously warm and all the bathtubs have clawfeet. There are three floors and an attic loft filled with antique yet non-fussy furniture.

For the past three days, I've slept, eaten, lounged around in my pyjamas and partied there. It feels like my house and I've grown possessive of it. I want a house like that. I want to be with someone in a house like that.

In the mornings, Rob made black coffee and we ate lemon poppyseed muffins with sour cream. He read anthropology articles, I read the graphic novel Maus, both of us comfortably silent. The first night, we made dinner together and watched South Park on the plush couch, wrapped up in a nubbly blanket. We went to sleep in the attic loft, looking out the fan-shaped window through rain-speckled panes at the lights downtown and the tiny cars on the roads.

It made me feel domestic in the best way possible. Bourgeois landowning-- maybe! Marriage-- perhaps! Children-- well, that's still closer to never than maybe.

I hope I've been mistaken to believe that having emotional or concrete ties to people or places can prevent one from appreciating the joys of solitude and travel. Rob's professor is in Africa right now doing work with militias while his wife is in Memphis. They are still living and going places (together and separately) and in love and happy. Their lives seem rich and creative and imaginative.

I was talking to my friend Andrea about some people she had met during her year in Sri Lanka. They were cultured and intelligent people (in their late thirties and forties) who had committed their lives to traveling the world. Yet their bohemian lives left them very few familial ties and they had lost contact with most of their friends. They were content with this tradeoff, but I'm sure now that would not make me happy.

Must there be a tradeoff? Must there be either a family or freedom from stagnation? Obviously, I don't want to get married or buy a house or have a "career" right now. But in my thirties...

My relationship with Rob will probably end before the summer and I love him. The thought of being alone after having been in this relationship frightens me so much. I'm sure everyone is afraid of this, but I can't downplay it as cliche. It is fresh for me. I have only my own fear to confront.

On the bright side, I am going to Paris for study abroad in the fall.

Ok, so my cell phone is gone. It has disappeared into the depths of Copenhagen along with two hoodlums who need to die in ways involving rabid, uncontrollable beasts and blood and rubbing alcohol and medieval torture instruments.

So, I need your numbers. If all of you would be so kind as to email it to me at merytaten@gmail.com, I shall send you a virtual smّrrebrod.

Michelle Cheng, I need your house number. And don't say a word of this to your parents or mine.

All of you must listen to this:

http://www.foxnews.com/alancolmesradio/vidPlayer/player.html?colmes/050605/colmes_neal_horsley_050505&Alan_Colmes_Audio&Alan%20Colmes%20Radio&acc&Radio&-1&wvx-300

It's an anti-abortion crazy named Neal Horsley defending his dabbles in bestiality. All I have to say is... it's verrrry amulesing. Yes, that was a bad pun. Bad Dorothy. I couldn't resist.

Here's another present from your friend Dorje:

http://ifuckedanncoulterintheasshard.blogspot.com

This entry is so vulgar. It's more vulgar than a bleached blonde with fake tits drinking boxed wine out of a red, high-heeled, patent leather shoe. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Fuck it. I just need to buckle down and do some work. I need to get my lazy, web-surfing, flat ass into gear and do some fucking work. I need to take off these headphones, out of which is wafting gorgeous Brit-rock that is distracting the bejesus out of me. I need to stop wasting my life on ebay and livejournal and music sites.

Someone needs to give me a solid ass-kicking. Or a solid ass-licking. Perhaps I just need to have a good long orgasm. I want my French TA. He's French and wears orange sweaters and well-fitting girl-pants that hug his bum just so. Or my English TA, who wears glasses and stubble and has a slightly receding hairline and lines around his soooooooulful eyes. In fact, I want to throw both of them on the floor and do beautiful things to them both at the same time. The reason I can't concentrate on my work for those two classes is because I'm too busy thinking up erotic, bizarre and kinky situations I want to find myself in with those two delicious men. I wish I was in Denmark right now. Oh escapism, how you do kill me. Masturbation only goes so far, even with an silver, rumbly vibrator with a clit-cup.

The College Republicans are going to have an affirmative action bake sale this Wednesday. Meaning they're going to charge people of color less than what they're charging white people. I told you this was an entry with extreme vulgarities. Disgusting. Apparently, last year they had their tent pulled down by angry people.

To upstage them, the Youth Against War and Racism group I'm in is going to set up a table across from them and give away cookies for free. We're advocating the better equality. And we're using Oreos to illustrate the U.S. budget. 40 Oreos for the military and 3 for education. It shall be a fun, riotous, mob-filled day.

Pearls. I love that word. Other words I love: grain, goggle, gaggle, mystify, philo dough, greed, Grecian, gimlet, giblet, guster, nimble, nefarious, gnarled, grimace, viscous, drapery, dreidel, Druid, Germanic, born.

Cunt. Canticle. Corsage. Drip. Chimney. Chew. Snow. Words that mean cold: frozen, gelid, brisk, icy, etc.

The English language is quite beautiful in individual words. They seem to roll out of all the areas inside the mouth. I wonder why most people have boring names when the sounds of English can be manipulated in such versatile ways. I'd love to be called Drapery. Or Grain. Or Nimble. The sounds of those words are so much richer than Anne or Sarah or Ashley or Jen.

I've figured out why I always have this sense of apprehension following me around before I visit "home" for breaks.

I am forced to go to their church gatherings and sit mutely, stewing in my frustration. I am expected to perform, like a trained monkey, the part of their perfect, intelligent, amiable, engaging daughter in front of their friends regardless of whether I know and/or like them.

I am lectured on my exercising habits (or lack thereof). I am lectured on my future (or lack thereof). Pullman is a cesspool of nothing. I don't have a car here. I don't have friends here. I don't have a room in the house here. I don't have a home here.

I'm here to rest and be with my family, not act like a trophy for them to show off. I know they love me and I love them, but it's such an exhausting, expectation-ridden love. It's better than in the past, I suppose.

Every time I give in and go to one of their church gatherings, I want to revert to toddlerhood and have a temper tantrum. And for some reason, it sets me on the edge of tears for days afterwards. I understand and am perfectly fine with their reasons for being Christians and their membership to the church. But I wish they would understand that I am NOT a Christian and that I have no desire to be one. I... am just so tired. I'm done searching for god.

I don't want to have to pretend anymore after having done so for the past eight years.

Oops. Has it really been weeks since my last update?

I need to go shopping and get crazy vintage clothes to cut up and surgerize.

My birthday is on March 18th. *Hint hint*... I better get tons of eloquent well-wishes and virtual kisses...

It upsets me grievously when I discover a band and love them and listen to them and have dreams with them playing in the background (like my bizarre airport romance with Muse's Time is Running Out) and can't WAIT to see them live... and realize that they came to Seattle six months ago. Like the Dresden Dolls. Tegan and Sara are playing in two days but I waited too long to buy tickets and now they are GONE.

......

I'm curious; after you really like someone, after you love someone, after it completely ends and you can function normally again, do you still think about them all the time? Do you imagine them going through the rituals of their day and smile to yourself and hope they are okay? Do you find yourself reminded of them by the oddest things and other people?

Why don't I like to say (or write or type) his name? Everytime I do, I get a cold shivery feeling in my chest. I like to remember him in truncated bits of memory, without thinking about what the entire ordeal has meant for me in the past nine and a half months. Has it really been that long?

I've got my heart back, I think, and I want to rope it in place for awhile. I may be a romantic, but I'm terrified of falling for anyone else, even if they are perfect for me. Especially if they are perfect. Stay away, perfect boys!

I think that I've found someone who can make me forget about Sam. Now, I just have to figure out how to go about this very delicate operation of seduction...

I found a copy of How We Quit The Forest by Rasputina for $6.99 at a used CD place! It's 100+ dollars new online since it's out-of-print. The guys who worked there had no idea what a treasure they had on their hands. Ecstasy!

Tonight, I go to see a play about a taxi-driver strike in the 1930s with my Socialist people.

My birthday is coming up in March. Anybody want to get me this:

http://www.babeland.com/page/TIB/PROD/cheap-thrills/DS223211
I promise I'd be eternally grateful.

Date:	2005-02-11 18:06
Subject:
Security:	Public
Mood:	cynical
Music:	Kid A - Radiohead

I am not a fan of tofu burgers. Tofu, yes. Soft silken tofu mixed with a bit of salt and soy sauce. Fried tofu with a nice crispy shell cradling a tender, almost runny inside. Stinky, fermented tofu with hot sauce sold in the grimy little Chinese snack stands. Tofu noodles, tofu with pad thai, tofu in stirfry, yes. Tofu burgers-- no.

But whenever they have tofu burgers downstairs, I can't help but get one instead of the infinitely superior cheeseburger and chicken strips. Why do I do it?

I keep thinking that maybe it'll somehow be better than the previous time. And I tell myself that it's healthy. But is it? It's probably not much healthier than a nice beef patty.

I really love honey dijon mustard sauce. I remember telling Erin on the bus ride down to Mock Trial state that she was honey dijon mustard, if she were to be a condiment. What would you guys be? You can be either a condiment OR a food.

I really hate getting angry phone messages from my parents. It can ruin your entire mood in the morning.

I really love The Vagina Monologues and I wish I had seen it when it was fresh and new and not yet a cultural cliche. The individual stories were funny and empowering and honest, but the overall mood of the play... well, I feel like I've heard it before.

I really hate the Internet. It eats up all my time. I've been watching The Dresden Dolls and Franz Ferdinand videos instead of doing what I SHOULD be doing this past week. And also, I've been utterly fascinated/disgusted with those communities on LJ that rate/accept you on your appearance. It completely knocked me out of my euphoric, Seattle-induced bubble; it reminded me of why I hate most people. For example, an amalgamation of the horror that I saw:

"You're cute for an ugly person, but you don't look like a supermodel so no."

"You would be pretty if you'd just pluck your eyebrows, get a new wardrobe, go tanning (or not go tanning), get a nose job, stop smiling (or smile more), eat some cookies (or lose that fat roll)..."

I just read THE best e.e. cummings poem ever. I'll share; here:

Humanity i love you
because you would rather black the boots of
success than enquire whose soul dangles from his
watch-chain which would be embarrassing for both

parties and because you
unflinchingly applaud all
songs containing the words country home and
mother when sung at the old howard

Humanity i love you because
when you're hard up you pawn your
intelligence to buy a drink and when
you're flush pride keeps

you from the pawn shops and
because you are continually committing
nuisances but more
especially in your own house

Humanity i love you because you
are perpetually putting the secret of
life in your pants and forgetting
it's there and sitting down

on it
and because you are
forever making poems in the lap
of death Humanity

i hate you

I went to a protest for the inauguration of Dubya. If I had a barrel of bubbling love for Seattle before, I now have a cruise ship full of barrels bubbling with love. When you're surrounded by a crowd of people all aware and concerned about what is happening in the world, you just feel so... inspired. And hopeful. And unafraid. We marched on the streets downtown and blocked off alot of traffic. But we passed by all these people in their cars waiting, and they weren't angry about being kept waiting. They cheered and waved and understood that sometimes, some things are more important than the speed of their commute home. And other people, some sticking their heads out of their apartments, some workers at a construction site, some sitting in coffee shops, they were also cheering us on. I was so happy. If this happened in Indiana, you can bet that everyone would be honking and impatient and ill-mannered.

I joined Socialist Alternative and their book group. We're reading "Global Warning: Socialism and the Environment". I'm also hoping to help plan the March 19th protest with them. That'll be the day after my birthday! Althoughit's not exactly a very happy day since it'll be the second anniversary of the start of the occupation in Iraq. *sigh*

I might have the best job in. the. world, come Sunday afternoon. It's with a charity called World Children Organization and they produce portable learning materials for impoverished kids around the world, in countries like Nepal, India and China. I interviewed with the couple who runs it and on Sunday, I'm going to their office to try out some voice-recording stuff. I might also be writing and illustrating some simple books. My trial one is about a goat. Named Bill. I'm so longing for this job. It's a good cause and I truly believe in it and it's not pointless and soulsucking, like waitressing.

I like Marianne Moore's idea that poetry is "an imaginary garden with real toads in them".

Satisfaction, for me, is filling and solid. When I am satisfied, it's so hard for me to remember the times when I was not. And when I'm unsatisfied, I cannot remember what it feels like to be happy. I hear that women cannot remember the pain of childbirth after it's passed; I wonder if that is the case with emotions.

I've decided that my one true calling is to be inspirational writer. Yes, that's right, no more chasing after elusive dreams about being a starving artist or a designer of sculptural, non-functional clothing or a museum or art conservation nerd or a sexy Egyptologist/archaeologist digging up tombs in the Valley of the Kings or Saqqara. I shall title my first book "All You Need To Be Happy Is Contained Within Yourself" and it will sell like slanderous pornographic pamphlets in 17th century France or "The DaVinci Code". Which, by the way, I haven't read and don't plan on reading.

I'll talk about the hopeless pursuit of the fulfillment of hunger: for food, sex, love, religion. You don't need any of that! Because once you can restrain yourself from the first one, you'll soon have no trouble restraining yourself from the rest! Because you'll be dead, obviously. It's brilliant.

Josephus of the Winding Brooks came to Seattle to visit me and we had a jolly good time. We saw animals in random places. It made Seattle seem warm and homey. I'd always known that this city was amazing but I don't think I started to feel truly at home here until these past couple of weeks. I was a little bit in awe of it; like a country bumpkin on vacation. But over break, even though I loved spending time with my parents, I found myself missing my shitty little dorm room, the Ave., the lights and shops downtown, the food, the quirky people I see on the street, the clouds that perpetually blanket the sky, everything. And that I had to spirit Joe around Seattle like I knew where I was going when in fact, the majority of the time, I was obliviously lost myself made me feel closer to the city. Like it was my ally in the world. Like I would always miraculously end up in the right place as long as I didn't wander outside the borders of Seattle. Like it would protect me. I've officially become an urbanite. I can no longer live in a place with less than one million residents and no public transportation system.

But yeah, back to the animals: we saw a squirrel on a leash, sitting at the outdoor counter of a bar like a person, a parrot on some guy's shoulder in Pike Place Market, dogs everywhere and cats in all of the used bookstores we went into.

Inspired by Anais Nin, Anne Frank and the great Josephus, I'm going to revive my middle school habit of writing in a real paper journal in addition to this poor neglected thing that I inundate every month or so with self-important musings. So I'm on the hunt for an elegant, leather or brocade bound journal with creamy thick paper.

I've been on a reading binge this week:
"If Not, Winter", Anne Carson's translations of the fragments of Sappho
"The Edible Woman", the first novel of Margaret Atwood
"No Touch Monkey!" by Ayun Halliday, a hilarious travel memoir
"The Sixteen Pleasures" by Robert Hellenga, a lovely book about a book conservationist who goes to Florence after the Arno River floods everything in 1966 and finds in a Carmelite convent a volume of Renaissance porn

Sappho is amazing. Translated Greek verse that I've actually read (The Odyssey) seemed all repetitive and pompous-man to me. But Sappho infuses repetition of metaphor with emotion and augh, it's beautiful. I can't believe that out of the nine books of verse only ONE poem survived. Seeing the poems on the page where only one or two words were preserved made me feel... well, I don't know. But it was definitely a jumble of emotions.

Margaret Atwood is clever and ironic and sneakily funny and meaningful, as usual. I know that when I need to read a good book, I can always count on my Margaret to deliver. Everything I read by her I can turn over and over in my head and still want to think some more about.

"No Touch Monkey!" makes me want to just pack a backpack and make for the airport right now. I want to survive malaria in Africa and get dirty and wash my hair in train bathroom sinks and sing for money on streets and be frugal by necessity. Am I a total freak? Probably.

Next, I plan on devouring "Franny and Zooey" by J.D. Salinger and Evelyn Waugh's "Helena". How the fuck do you pronounce Evelyn Waugh's name? Oh well, it doesn't matter much, since his writing is that facetious, flippant Englishman style I so love.

In other news, I'm completely incompetent in drawing class. The prof actually asked me if I have ever drawn before when he saw my piece of shit still-life I was struggling over in class.

I GOT INTO THE DRAWING CLASS!!!!!!?!!

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!! HURRAH! NO MORE LOGIC FOR MOI!

Already I feel overwhelmed and it's barely the beginning of the new quarter. So I'm going to bitch:

My room is a fucking mess. I'm sitting on a pair of pants, some socks, a plastic bag and a sweater right now because I was too lazy to move them away.

My new stiletto heels are hot, but they progressed from being mildly pinchy to excruciatingly cripplingly painful. Expected but disappointing, as when I bought them, I held a slight hope in my heart that they would magically be super-comfortable. Why do I always do that? Why?

I have a feeling I'm going to hate this quarter. Last quarter held novelty, next quarter will be the last one before summer break (and Europe!), but this one? Ugh. This quarter, I vowed to myself that I would lose the freshman thirty that I've gained that makes me look like a Bavarian creampuff with hair, which means self-inflicted torture AKA exercise. Which reminds me. I want a cream puff. Which they have downstairs. But I cannot. Because I look like one.

It looks like I also will not be getting into Intro to Drawing, since there were only four more spaces and about twenty people waiting to get in. Which means that I am stuck with Intro to Logic. FUCKING HELL. I didn't even understand what the prof was saying in the first class.

I'm never going to amount to anything. EVER. I am stupid. I might seem like I know stuff. But I don't. It's all a lie. I am good at pretending. I know nothing. I am an utter poser. I am unmotivated, selfish, lazy, unorganized, dishonest, bitchy (and not in a good way), apathetic, petty, false, neurotic, hypocritical, paranoid, overly analytical about unimportant things. I am everything I hate about other people. Things that go wrong in my life are thoroughly my fault. Friendships that skitter to a halt. My fault. Not being able to find a job. My fault. Always shying away from my well-intended plans. My fault.

I am going to sound so horrible, but I'm jealous of people who have legitimate problems. I worry about the most insignificant things (most of which are caused by ME). It's shameful. I can fix my own problems much more easily than I can fix the messes in South Asia or the Middle East or Northern Ireland or Korea or Kashmir. But what have I done to fix either? Nothing. Instead, I verbally flagellate myself, which accomplishes nothing.

I'm not a victim of life or circumstances. I wish I was. Then, at least I have the comfort of knowing that it's not my fault. But I am a victim of my own stupidity and so I only have myself to blame.

Bought sexy underwear. Functionalism, begone forever! There's just something about wearing ickle bits of lace and ribbon that allows one to feel empowered. I think of it as a prettily contrived affectation that's marginally functional, like the velvet mouches of seventeenth century French noblewomen.

I've been discovering some wonderful music lately. Rasputina, of course, is the bygone, corseted days of yore manifested in mad cello goodness and raspy female vocals. Raymond och Maria equals upbeat-sounding, Swedish acoustic pop with a bare tinge of Belle and Sebastian tragedy. Soundtrack of Our Lives is like the masculine, retro version of Raymond och Maria. Blonde Redhead and the Blood Group... ethereal, creepy, rhythmic, earnest.

I'm going to a Le Tigre show tonight and am quite excited. I expect I will be dancing like a fool. I read this review of an APC concert in Japan once and the writer was struck by how quiet the audience was. They clapped politely in between songs but otherwise were completely silent. I could NEVER be quiet during an APC show, or any concert (that's not classical music) for that matter.

I wish the Smashing Pumpkins were still together. It would've been ecstatically wonderful to see them live.

A few days ago, I applied for an editing job for a local writer. He called back and asked for some samples of my writing, which I sent to him. I sat on my hands and paced and felt incredibly self-conscious and unsure of myself for awhile after I sent the email. But he wrote back and offered me an interview! So wish me luck, everyone... I want this job badly.

It is imperative for the survival of my sanity that I stop seeing the guys I meet as potential boyfriends, but as potential friends.

The problem right now, however, is that my standards for friendships are much higher than my standards for flings/relationships/hook-ups. I don't even have the time or emotional capacity for a boyfriend right now; I just want someone (who is liberal and can string together a coherent sentence) to keep me company or go away depending on how I feel. I don't even want to get emotionally involved with any guy.

First of all, because I'm still pining away like a mentally-retarded ewe for a certain beautiful boy currently being turned into an army drone. I miss him. I miss him. I miss him. I miss him. I foresee a protected entry in the very near future...

Second, after hearing some of the rather off-putting complaints from some friends who are/were recently in relationships, I am, frankly, frightened.

Third, all the guys I find attractive are gay anyway. Don't laugh, damn you, because this actually is a recurring pattern for me.

I feel like I can wait forever for all my kindred spirits to come out of the woodworks one by one, but I need some sort of masculine companionship NOW.

I need to get over him. I just realized that he's the fucking problem. I need a physical substitute for him. If only I can get over the bastard, I can move on with my pathetic life without perpetually looking for meaningless relationships with mediocre guys.

I am a useless wad of used tissue. I can't believe how lacking in the backbone department I am. All heart, no head. I am just a pitiful blob of nostalgic, yearning gelatinous goo.

I mourn. I am disillusioned. And frustrated. And angry. And sad.

Perhaps it's stupid to cry about politics but I don't give a shit. Whatever I wrote in my entry yesterday, I take back. I am ashamed of this country. He had the popular vote. More than half of the voting age Americans actually voted him into office this time. My chest, my head hurts thinking about it. I don't understand. I guess I've just been too naive to think that things can get better slowly.

And Kernan didn't get reelected. Neither did Daschle. And the governor of Washington might be a Republican. 11 states banned gay marriage. That's one-fifth of the United States. I can't take it. Next they'll probably reverse Roe vs. Wade. It seems so pointless to fight against the machine of intolerance and inequality.

DAMN BUSH. DAMN AMERICA. Oh, wait, America already is damned...

I called my dad and he was at the voting place! It made my heart skip about in joy for some reason and I got a bit of that tear-congested feeling in my chest. For once I feel patriotic and and optimistic and that my family and I are truly American; not the propaganda-based, Dubya-promoted, vehicle-for-hatred-and-closedmindedness ideas of being an American and patriotism. I'm a citizen, I'm an American, I believe in the potential of this country instead of despairing over it, I have a choice in this country; a choice to participate in my small way in the government. This election, I officially add my ballot, my view, my voice to the chorus of the dissenting. I only hope that, together, we will be enough to bring about some change. This country cannot take anymore of Bush's destructive antics.

To be honest, I became an American citizen so my college applications wouldn't be a hassle. It was actually something I did begrudgingly, because one I did, I'd have to get a visa everytime I visited China, my motherland. In May, when I sat in the white room filled with silent, solemn people from all different places and waited for my certificate in the same silent, solemn way with only the bare, ticking clock on the wall to keep my thoughts company, it felt like a complete betrayal. And when I was handed my certificate by this large woman whose eyes and protruding jowls made her look like a heavily sedated dairy cow and who congratulated me in a tone a bored teenager might've used to ask if you want fries with that burger: utter disappointment mixed in with that guilt. I traded my loyalties for this?

But now, I don't regret it. I don't know WHAT it is; voting gets my adrenaline pumping. Seeing all the people lined up in my dorm waiting to vote was exhilarating. Hearing about people voting makes me want to dance. Waiting for someone while they vote makes me squee inside with giddiness. Well, knowing that that someone was voting Democrat helped.

Bush can't win again. He can't. Must he taint the world for another four endless years? Yet he might.

A friend of mine, Eric Mail, recently wrote the following in response to some ignorant, pro-Bush, Christianity-grounded comments on xanga. He says everything I want to say, but am not articulate enough to express, about the upcoming election.

( AMAZING essay on why you should vote Democrat... )