As long as my parachute opens...

Alright, so Israel is fighting with Hezbollah and I am really pissed off. Hezbollah?…Who even knew that was a country? I bet you’re wondering what I’m pissed off about. I’m not pissed that the Israelis are fighting the Hezzbolians….err, Hezbollites? Whatever. They could kill each other from here to Sunday for all I care. What I’m upset about is what it’s doing to the financial markets. Why

Rite of Passage.

Well, I’m going to add to my list of mad skillz. It turns out that I have so many of them that sometimes I don’t even know that I have them until I test myself and find out. In that way, mad skillz are like Chlamydia. They exhibit no symptoms until tested.Next week I’ll talk about my newly acquired skillz with concrete cinder blocks and stucco, but this week we’ll be talking about my toy crane

Progress

I went by Fairhope Pier a couple of days ago to see how the repairs were going. It looks great! Hurricane Katrina damaged this pier and it has been closed since then, but it looks like they will be ready to open it back up in a month or two. It was awful to see it destroyed, because I have a lot of memories at this pier and the beach around it. My dad loves to fish, so when I was a kid, we would go to this pier after he got off work. We would go somewhere and get something to eat, bring the bags down with us and have a little picnic on one of the benches. My sister and I would do our homework out there too, and when we were finished with our homework, we would go for a walk with my mom while my dad threw his cast net over the side of the pier. We would stay until the sun set, one of the most beautiful sites in the world. When darkness finally fell, we would go home, take baths and go to bed. Since then, I've always returned to this beach when I need peace. There are so many other memories attached to that place. I experienced my first kiss there, on a staircase going down from the bluff to the beach. The stairs stopped in the middle, making a sort of landing with benches, and then continued to the bottom. Because the stairs went down a bluff (and because we are in the South) the stairs were surrounded by kudzu and huge trees covered with Spanish Moss. It was actually very private on that little landing, and pretty romantic too. We always remember our first kiss fondly, don't we? My friends and I would always go to the pier or the beach to hang out, because there was nothing else to do in a small town. There were a couple of piers we would frequent, all in the same general area. There's something about lying on a wooden pier staring at the stars and listening to the waves crashing onto the shore. As I said before, I always go there when I need peace.

It's so good to see that they are making so much progress repairing it. When they finally open the pier back up, I plan to take a walk to the end, just like we used to do when I was a kid.

News Update: Comsast Still Sux.

Well, still no internet. While waiting for the guy on Monday I really seriously considered cancelling everything Comcast offers (including my cable) out of spite if they couldn’t fix it. I decided to watch a full day’s worth of cable programming to see if there is anything on there worth paying for. Here’s what I saw…Maury: This show is actually pretty interesting. I think it picked up the

Wanting an adventure

Okay, so it has come to my attention that I haven't had, nor have I planned, a vacation for this summer. I think I should hurry, or the summer will be over and I will not have had a vacation at all. And I'm the kind of person who really needs a vacation, at least once a year. So I guess I need to think about where I might be able to go. Looks like I'll be going it alone this year, since my friends have all either gone on their own vacations or won't be able to afford one.

But it's more than that. I really want an adventure on a larger scale. I was talking to my friend Addie the other day and she mentioned a few cities I might like. Just talking about moving to another place was exciting (and scary) and I really want to do it. (but then part of me doesn't want to do it) The restless feeling I've been experiencing since the first of the year has not gone away. I love my job and I love where I live - I'm only a few minutes away from one of the most beautiful beaches I've ever seen - but I think it's important to experience another place. There are so many places I want to experience. But the idea of moving to a city by myself, where I don't know a single person... well, it's pretty scary.

So I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I know one thing, my current job is a good one and I'm learning so much that it would take a really great opportunity to make me leave now. But several years down the road, when I have enough experience behind me, I will want to relocate. I wonder where I will end up?

Why???

Quick rant: I was flipping through a book at a store today. It was a book on how to find a man worth keeping or some such nonsense. I don't read books like this because I think they are silly, but this one was from a Christian perspective and I thought it might have something interesting in it. This book went so far as to say that a little plastic surgery wouldn't be a bad idea to be prettier so that men will notice you. WHAT?? I mean, I'm all for "getting pretty" to go out so that I'll look nicer in case I see someone I know or in case I meet someone interesting. But to me, "getting pretty" means putting on some makeup, maybe putting some kind of product in my hair, and wearing cute clothes. It does not involve invasive surgery just to impress men. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard! And the book is from a Christian perspective. Whatever happened to inner beauty? It just strikes me as odd that a book from a Christian perspective would be telling women it's a good idea to get plastic surgery to improve their apperance, when we are supposed to be focusing on our inner beauty and the condition of our souls. Every Mother's Day, my pastor preaches about Proverbs 31. They don't say much about the outward attributes of this woman, but they praise her for who she is and what she does. They say she is worth more than rubies. She is trustworthy, productive, intelligent, energetic, strong, compassionate, talented, responsible, positive, respected and wise. They call her The Virtuous Woman, not The Beautiful Woman. In fact, one of my favorite verses is from this passage: "Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears God is truly charming and lovely." I guess my point is that it seems very extreme for a book from a Christian perspective to tell women to have plastic surgery to improve their looks when we are actually supposed to spend more time on what's inside rather than what's outside. It just sends the wrong message. Needless to say, I did not purchase the book. Personally, if the choice comes down to getting plastic surgery and finding a man or not getting plastic surgery and being single for the rest of my life, I'll take being single. I'm happy with myself the way I am, and if people don't like it, they can keep walking. Sure, there are things I need to work on... I need to lose weight and I want to grow my hair out, but I wouldn't have surgery to fix anything on me. Don't get me wrong, sometimes surgery is needed or wanted, and I would never judge a woman who chose to get surgery for herself, so that she can feel better about herself. But I don't need surgery to feel better about myself and I sort of resent that book saying I should consider it just to "snag a man." Actually, I don't believe in changing anything about myself just for a man. I did that once and will never do it again.

Okay, rant over. Sorry about that.

So today... worked on one of the three grants I'm trying to finish. This one is due Friday, which means it's actually due Thursday because I'm going to our Florida office (to work on the other two grants) on Friday and won't be around to submit it that day. It's been great working on this grant. I'm actually creating a program for it, a program we've been wanting to create for awhile now, and if we get the funds we will be able to do it. It's a nutrition and fitness program, to help combat the problem of obesity among poverty-stricken families. The program will be geared toward the kids, with handouts they can take home for their parents. I've been doing a lot of research on the issue and it seems that a lack of education among low-income families contributes in part to the obesity problem in those families. If we can just show them that they can eat healthy without spending more money, we've at least done something. We're also considering doing a gardening program to show the kids how to grow their own veggies, and a junior chef program to teach the older kids how to prepare simple, healthy meals for themselves. So you can see where this particular grant would be a lot of fun to write. I'm looking forward to seeing if we get the funds so we can start the program. It's going to be great!

An odd thing happened today. My boss, who is a really incredible person and a great mentor to me, got an email with job listings today and we were looking at them in her office. She found one that I actually qualified for and mentioned I would be good at the job. I laughed about it and asked her if she was ready to get rid of me. She said no way, which was funny. But thinking about it later, I find it odd that she would mention I would be good at a job that isn't the job I have now. She's very cool about those kinds of things, though. When I was hired, they told me they were aware that this job would be a stepping stone for me and that I would probably move on in a few years. Obviously with the salary they are able to give me, I will have to seek other opportunities in the future, but usually bosses don't like to talk about those kinds of things. So anyway, it was a strange moment. I hope I'm not getting fired or anything, lol!

The editing is still going well. I'm finished with chapters 1 and 2, but I think I'm going to go back to chapter 1 and adding something that might make things more interesting. Still determined to finish the first five chapters by the end of the week so I can send the package out on Monday. As for the writing, I'm gearing up to start on it again. After the Storm has been difficult lately and I'm sure it's what I said before. It's hurricane season, and not even a year since Katrina. The subject matter is still too close to me. The first passage I wrote was about the smell on the Mississippi coast, about how it was the smell of death, even a week after the storm. The smell was so strong and overpowering that it seeped into your clothes and even in your skin if you were there for any amount of time. When I read back over that passage, the memory of that smell and the feelings I was having at the time just came flooding back to me. It was almost too much to bear. I have to get over this thing, or I will never be able to write the story. And I really want to write this story.

Okay, so I've gone on and on forever tonight, so I'll leave it for now.

Buy This: Ninja Approved!

So my friend Maggie is selling her apartmetnt in Dupont Circle. (for those of you not from DC, Dupont Circle is DC's equivalent of Greenwhich Village...if DC were anywhere near as cool as NYC). Anyway, she is selling a kick-ass condo that she owns there, which is fully furnished and rented out at $1525 per month. She said the tenant is tall, blonde and good-looking, so any of you single gals