Some things

One - the rickrolling continues unabated in our office. People have been embedding video files everywhere they can. Today, a graphic came through our office. It's a pie chart about what Rick Astley would never do. The graphic was funny but pretty lame. I cleaned it up in Excel 2007, and I am going to share it with you.



Two - I came across this in my sociology reading. It seemed appropriate to all of the talk about meta-physical vs. positivistic. "The kind of instrumental reasoning or rationality that is associated with science is oriented only toward control and exploitation, whether the subject is the atom or human beings. Science is thus intrinsically oppressive, and a different kind of perspective is needed to create knowledge about people."

Three - I thought Jon Stewart's 2004 commencement address at William and Mary was good from start to finish. But there is one line that I thought was so true and so relevant. "Love what you do. Get good at it. Competence is a rare commodity in this day and age."

Further examination

From my high school graduation until about 4 years ago, I was waiting for a thunderbolt. For whatever reasons (20something entitlement, general arrogance) I thought my future would be handed to me on a plate. I had talent and smarts. I assumed that I just had to hang around, sing in my car with my windows down, and that I was pretty much guaranteed to be discovered and score, at the very least, a moderately lucrative gig singing advertisement jingles. My belief in fate had made me complacent. So, while I was hanging around waiting to become 1 in 10 million, I just worked, partied, and slept in late. I genuinely assumed my reward was eminent.

At that time, since I wasn’t going to school or doing anything redeeming with my life, I drank a lot of Vodka and watched a lot of TV, like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I had been suffering some occupational malaise, and I felt like I needed a new direction (or just a direction). I was beginning to realize that rockstar probably wasn’t going to happen. I had a dream one night, and Giles from BtVS was in it. Eureka! I knew the very next morning that I wanted to be a librarian. So, I was 25, had one semester of college (and was still technically on academic probation) and knew nothing about how to be a librarian. I didn’t know what type of schooling that was involved or the amount of work it would be. I thought you just sent in box tops or something. So, I went about everything the wrong way, again, and kept waiting for the miracle. Basically, I traded one nowhere job for another, except for less money and fewer benefits. There was, for my first 6 months at the library, no progress. I was still idle and at the mercy of my destiny.

It was somewhere in this mess that I started to realize that there would be work, a lot of it. There would be choices and challenges and uncomfortable situations to get where I needed to be. I wasn’t going to just become a librarian anymore than I was going to just become a unicorn. This is where I started to evolve from meta-physical to positivistic in my thinking. For the first time, I realized that I had to put something out there if I expected something back. It is a simple idea, but one that I failed to grasp for the first 25 years of my existence. I enrolled in school and actually had a plan.

And that was it. I got a new job, completed my associate’s degree and started my bachelor’s. I have plans for graduate school and a path for my life. Not to be cliché, but I am the mistress of my own destiny.

As a teenager, 13 or 14, I read the word fatalistic and associated it, incorrectly, with fatal/fatality. I thought fatalistic meant preoccupied with death. Later, I learned the correct meaning of the word, but looking back at how much of my life I gave to my rampant fatalism, I’m not sure my original definition was that far off. Now, I am regressing to the meta-physical but in a smarter way. I want to return a little bit of my free will, but not all of it. I want to be smart and savvy but also hopeful. I also want to feel like my movements in the universe do matter. That there is something to the idea of human connectedness. I really like the liberty mutual “good deed” commercials for exactly that reason. I like knowing that a small gesture can change the world.

Your destiny's two dollars

A few weeks ago, I was working on my sociology homework, creating a definition list for whatever chapter we were working on. I came to Comte’s law of three stages that looks at how humanity develops their philosophies over time. How people categorize their phenomena is always interesting to me, but what’s more, Comte’s three stages seemed to apply directly to me, individually, as well.

1. The theological stage – where humanity attributes everything to a God or object. This was a relatively short period for me, since I was raised in the absence of God. I did, throughout elementary school and middle school, offer up insincere prayers to some random deity. Not because I expected something to happen, but more because my true teacher in philosophy, pop culture, told me that I should.

2. The metaphysical stage – where humanity attributes everything to forces or energy in the universe. I spent most of my life in this stage. As a child, with no God, I always was a believer in karma, destiny, chance, fate, Astrology, numerology, etc. I felt that there were patterns in the universe and if I just looked enough, I could find them. I found myself attaching a lot of significance to superstitions and my perceived organization of the universe.

3. The positivistic stage – where humanity turns to science and rationality and attributes everything to an underlying scientific theory, one that is testable and repeatable. Oddly enough, I always thought I was in this stage, being a believer in evolution and such, but only very recently did I really begin to break away and look for the science in everything. The more schooling I subjected myself to, the more I began to demand proof for everything.

My psychology class taught me it is human nature to assign patterns where none exist. To be honest, I rejected many of my metaphysical beliefs because I didn’t want to do what humanity did. I didn’t want to be subject to the same rules. I began to imagine that I could escape humanity. Since I was working on a boring degree, full of boring classes, I didn’t assume that I would encounter any damaging philosophies that pulled me back into “the human network.” Please, don’t sue, Cisco.

I figured my Film Trilogy class was safe. I thought of trilogies in an epic, macro, American way. I thought trilogies would cover epic, macro, American concepts like capitalism, militarism, national pride, etc. The first and third weekends were The Godfather and Terminator trilogies, respectfully. They promised to be exactly what I was looking for (and the Godfather was). The middle week was a complete departure, the three colors trilogy: blue, white and red (ou les trois colours: bleu, blanc, et rouge). The whole point of these films is personal, human connection and interconnection. It made fate and destiny seem not only inescapable, but appealing. I started thinking back to all the movies and books I had read that informed my belief system. I realized that I liked, to some degree, having that metaphysical stuff to fall back on. I liked trying to find the patterns of the universe, and I feel better, if maybe only for a placebo effect, when I think my life is powered by some whirring, mechanized, fate machine/cappuccino maker.

So, in homage to my embrace of my movie created, rose tinted world, here are some of my favorite destinies from the silver screen and books.

1. Only You (the Marisa Tomei/Robert Downey Jr. version, not the Kelly Preston/Andrew McCarthy version (an abomination (ooh Nested Parentheses!))). I just really liked the connection between Faith and Peter. Plus, it was the first movie I saw where people connected over Rilke (hello Kissing Jessica Stein). Specific to this discussion, I always like the scene where Peter asks the shriveled Italian man if he credits destiny. The man, who previously claimed ‘non parlano inglese,’ tells Peter that it is written on the stars.

2. Can’t Hardly Wait. I adore Ethan Embry and Seth Green and never more than in this movie. Two great quotes about destiny – one courtesy of Jenna Elfman’s stripper Angel and one courtesy of Lauren ‘Claire Fisher’ Ambrose. “Fate! It totally exists, but it only takes you so far. Then it's up to you to make it happen.” “Just judging from my little experience last night, I do think there's such a thing as fate. It just works in really fucked-up ways sometimes.”

3. Amelie. I heart this movie. I loved seeing truly damaged, frightened people finding their true love. Needless to say, it gave me hope. I always thought distributors did a disservice to the American moviegoer by simplifying its title. I think more people would have flocked to see The Fabulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain. Conversely, it probably would have driven more American moviegoers from the theaters trying to figure out why they had paid money to read. I love this movie. Quinze!

4. Microserfs, by Douglas Coupland. Again, my favorite line of all time about the patterns governing the universe. “Ethan said randomness is a useful shorthand for describing a pattern that's bigger than anything we can hold in our minds. Letting go of randomness is one of the hardest decisions a person can make.”

5. I’m going to have to add Red to this list. I love the idea of our destiny being right under our noses. Something we see every day and don’t recognize. I likened, in my head and now here, to a navigation system. When you take a wrong turn, the navigation system has to reconstruct your route for you. I like to think fate might be working the same way. We can try to escape our fate and we may think we have, but we are just temporarily detoured.

6. Happenstance. The original French title is Le Battement d'ailes du Papillon (the beating of wings of the butterfly). This movie probably came out about the same time as The Butterfly Effect here in the states. They are both based on the idea that a butterfly flapping its wings in one ocean will cause a hurricane in another, or something like that. Happenstance was much better than the Ashton Kutcher vehicle (which was seriously flawed). I liked Happenstance because it rewarded astute viewers and, through all the seemingly unconnected events, the two people hook up in the end.

I’m sure I have forgotten something, but I have been at this for a while, and it is already quite lengthy.

Just five more days until I can have a Pepsi and a Iced Venti De-Caf Caramel Macchiato, obviously not at the same time.

Everything's coming up Milhouse!

For a while in January, I really thought I might have to get a second job, take up selling drugs, or start a junk bond pyramid scheme or something. Money was super tight, like my jeans. I have a lot of stuff to pay for this year and pretty grand plans for the year after. I wasn't sure how the hell it was going to happen. But by keeping a clear head and doing some extreme financial planning that involved multiple excel sheets and getting lucky, I am probably going to be okay.

Case in point, I got a need based scholarship back from my school today. It's only $425, but it's going into the kitty. I won't have to sell blood. Plus, my retirement fund is looking pretty slim (an easter basket with a bandana tied around it).

World Champion Grave Digger!!!! Kids seats still only $5!

I don't know how I missed this at the store, but my new shampoo makes my hair smell like the only double Razberi Stoli on the rocks I ever drank. I got it at a club one night; I was trying to impress a boy, or a bartender, or a boy bartender. It was a bad decision and now my shampoo has come to mock me on it. Bummer.

I read this article about this book in the L.A. Times about the anti-intellectual stance of Americans. I felt that I was probably helping to contribute to this by watching Rock of Love on VH1 last season. In response, I bought this.



I enjoy buying things to counter anti-intellectualism. Luckily, Americans don't really have any problems with uncontrolled materialism, or I would be in real trouble.

Rest again peacefully

When I decided to buy a Toyota Prius, it was a combination of consumerism and a desire to make a change to better the world. I had a choice between buying and leasing. If I bought the car, I assumed I got a really nice tax cut. If I leased the car, I didn’t have to worry about the electrical problems that tend to plague hybrids (to the cost of about $2500) after 2-3 years. Either way you looked at it, it was about a $2,000 benefit, so I chose to buy the car, take the tax credit, and pray that I didn’t have to pay out of pocket for electrical problems.

I bought my car in May of 07 and was all pumped up about the tax credit. I was really happy that our government was rewarding consumers for making better choices. Ideally, we wouldn't need the encouragement, but I liked the idea that the government rewarded forward thinking choices. Then, Villi bought her Prius in September and when she researched the credit, she found out that it didn’t apply to her. I didn’t understand why, so I did some research. The tax credits only applied to the first 60,000 units of a vehicle sold. By 2006, Toyota had moved 60,000+ Prius’, so the government was slowly phasing out the credit for consumers. Instead of $2500, I would get 787 and none for Gretchen Wieners Villi gets nothing.

People, however, buying the new Chevy Tahoe Hybrid, which still only gets 21 MPG, get the full credit. DUH! This was never meant to be a consumer centered credit. It was entirely an incentive to get businesses to make hybrids. This was the government’s way of helping manufacturers get 60,000 customers through the door for any car they decide to make into a hybrid. People choosing the Prius for its gas mileage are penalized while people with SUVs get the credit. Annoyed!

I did my taxes today. I had been waiting for taxcut online to get form 8910 uploaded so I could claim my partial credit on my Prius. Every time I checked the site, up to and including today, taxcut told me that the form wasn’t ready and to check back after mid-JANUARY to see if the form was ready. Yesterday, I asked The Google when that form would be ready and found out that people using Turbo Tax had already successfully filed their hybrid tax credits. I decided to drop H&R Block and go with Turbo Tax. When Turbo Tax imported my federal information into my state form, I got a nice little surprise; colorado also has an alternative fuel tax credit.

Colorado’s credit is not limited by the number of cars sold. Instead, you get a credit to apply to your tax liability (tax owed) in the state of Colorado. What that meant for me is that I had a liability of 1995 and an available credit of 3000 for my Prius. It wiped out my tax liability, and I get all the money I paid into the state back as a refund. Additionally, any leftover credit can be applied to future tax liabilities over the next 5 years. That means that I should have a built in credit of about $1000 towards my state taxes next year. Yahoo!

I was feeling a little cheated by the federal government. In turn, I felt liberal guilt for feeling cheated, since the good deed should be its own reward. That combination I mentioned earlier (consumerism and a desire to make a change to better the world) reared its head again, this time as a conflict. But now, with my state taxes filed and my refund on the way, I am feeling much better about all of it.

Bandana Republic

Yesterday, my hands blackened, I could hardly even write the words. I was devastated. Today, knowing that everything was okay, I feel like I can talk about it. When I went to swap out my purse, my beautiful Burberry, I was transferring my wallet and keys and pens and gasp! An uncapped, black pen! It had leaked black ink all through the satin lining of my precious bag. When I turned the bag over to see if the ink had bled through, I found a light blue paint mark. I actually contemplated calling in sick and weeping. I decided to buck up and try to wash the ink out of the lining. When I left for work yesterday, my purse was upside down and drying. I looked like I had just been fingerprinted. I couldn’t write about it yesterday because I didn’t know how it would turn out. Last night, I came home and the ink stain was completely gone. Then, I clean off the paint with a pencil eraser and everything was fine. I was mightily relieved.

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out why I did that. The pen cap was secured to the top of the pen, so it wasn’t like the cap fell off. I would have had to put the cap on the top of the pen and then thrown it into my purse. That just doesn’t sound like something I would do with my purse. I haven’t ruled out sabotage from neighboring states.

On New Years, I made a resolution not to drink any calories until my birthday. I am very pleased with myself, so far. I had a glass of grape juice when I was sick. I was so strung out on Nyquil and cough syrup and migraine medicines to even realize that grape juice was something I wasn’t supposed to drink. In that mental state, I would have drank battery acid if I had a craving for it. I don’t blame myself. My other small transgression came Sunday night, when we had our lovely friends over for dinner. John and Andrea brought over a 12-pack of Pepsi, and I had a small sip of my sister’s soda. It was fantastic, ambrosia on my tongue. I contemplated tackling Villi around the waist and drinking the rest of it greedily. Then my sanity kicked back in and I realized that I am only 2 ½ weeks away from my goal and it would be a shame to stop now.

School is going pretty well, right now. I am tired and there is a lot of work to do, but I am doing it. In my history of sociological theory class we were talking about late 20th century additions to theory, including post-human. I loved the idea of post human. As a gadget hound and an unabashed blogger, I realize how much interaction and face time I give to my electronic devices. Then I was reading Yella’s blog and saw that she had asked for my birthday wishlist via her blog. I thought, how very post-human. I like it when I can find real world applications for my classes. It makes me feel like I’m not wasting my money on school.

To continue with the idea of talking to the machines, I will present my birthday wishlist to the internet, to be interpreted by humans, if the humans choose.

Always can use bookstore giftcards – I prefer Barnes and Noble or Tattered Cover
Nancy Drew Case Files #17 – Stay Tuned for Danger (it’s the last one to get my collection to case file 50!)
Playing Mona Lisa – On DVD
Toyota Prius All-weather floor mats
I also need this if someone is feeling generous.

End transmission

I should not have left you without a dope beat to step to. My apologies.

Work stuff is hard right now and I feel stifled when I talk about it, which is probably the hardest part, losing my ability to come here and just release. Annoyed. I was out sick last week with a cold I can’t seem to kick. I blame it on this odious man at the gym who hocked up phlegm and ick into tissues WHILE on the elliptical next to me. I know he is the reason I am sick with this superbug, even though we only worked out next to each other for like 15 minutes. I hate that man.

I have my film class this weekend: trilogies. I’ve said it before, there are worse ways to earn college credit than to watch the Godfather trilogy over the weekend. It means that all laundry and homework have to get done tonight and tomorrow, but I need tasks. Without them, I would just play WoW and watch VH1 reality shows all night.

My mother has offered to send Villi and I to France next year for our graduation, which is badass. But it means my French will need to get markedly better before the trip. I need to fall asleep to French with Michel Thomas. Before, I could never listen to things while I went to sleep because of a major failing in the alarm clock industry. It always seemed obvious to me that you would not fall asleep to music at the same volume as you would wake up to it the next morning. I was always supremely annoyed that they never made an alarm clock that accounted for the need for more than one volume. When my old CD alarm clock gave up the ghost two weeks ago, I decided to spend my best buy gift card (plus another I earned in the sale of my redundant desktop) on an iPod alarm clock. It has a volume setting for your alarm and your sleep, so you can fall asleep at a low volume and wake up at a high volume. Lovely. I think I will try to get French ingrained in me while I sleep. I will keep you posted.