So, I finally joined fucking facebook.
And I started poking around.
And I found a bunch of people I went to HS with.
Now as I am considering clicking add as a friend... I feel just as anxious as weird as I did back then.
But now I don't have the idiocy of youth to push me past that anxiety.
Are these people perfectly happy that I disappeared out west?
Should I stay disappeared?

What must it be like for people who stay involved with a continuous peer group throughout their lives? Different phases of my life feel so separate from each other.

Rachel Maddow has been hosting Countdown while Keith is on vacation, and I almost hope he doesn't come back. She's been just great... easily my favorite political talking head on TV right now.

Happy Birthday to the two best little kittens. Agatha and Harriet enjoyed their fortune cookies but weren't in the mood for sockeye.

We made it successfully through the first leg of the road trip today. Spending the night in Newport, OR. I'm starting to get the free brain feeling that comes with being on vacation. I'm realizing that the very thing that makes me good at my job is the thing that is driving me crazy. I've gone back to the car no less than 3 times today to check to see if I really did lock it or not. That's the same thing that (metaphorically) I do at work everyday to make sure everything is running smoothly. From the Pensees: "The parrot wipes its beak although it is clean." This has been running through my head lately. Brother Robert said it was about penance, but I think it is a zen koan for the anxious. Maybe some more driving meditations will show me the bridge between the two.

Tomorrow beach time for me.

Here it is, the reason I won't be a member of my local public radio station any time soon. They waste their effort on form letters:
"Dear Liz,

Thank you for contacting NPR's Morning Edition.

We regret that our programming has not met your expectations. We strive to offer the highest quality of news and information available. Listener feedback helps us to accomplish this goal.

We welcome praise, as well as criticism, and your thoughts will be taken into consideration.

Thank you for listening to Morning Edition, and for your continued support of public broadcasting. For the latest news and information, visit NPR.org.

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NPR invites you to join its audience advisory panel, NPR Listens.
Learn more at http://www.npr.org/listens/"

So, NPR is doing this series of interviews with conservatives this week and this morning they had ass-hat Glenn Beck. Barely a week ago on Beck's radio show he said: "If you are an ugly woman, you are probably a progressive as well." He then went on to say that if ugly women behave themselves, they can redeem their ugliness in heaven (paraphrased, but not by much.) This earned a little media attention, he was called out on some feminist websites, and he made Keith Olbermann's list of Worst Persons in the World last Monday. But it was nothing like the scandal over Imus's comment about the Rutgers basketball players. I was shocked to hear the NPR interview this morning go by without any mention of this, he was in fact treated like a respected statesman. Steve Inskeep made no effort to challenge him.

My question is: Would a similarly offensive statement about a racial, ethnic or religious group have gone by with NO comment from an NPR interviewer? I emailed NPR to ask them.

I listed to an episode of This American Life today that included a story about the editorial process at The Onion (episode #348 Tough Room). They included long segments of the writers reading each other potential headlines, and rejecting most of them. I laughed at way too many of them. The writers were much more critical and apparently my Onion would contain too much chaff.

Ones I liked that they rejected:
"Biologist realizes he's been studying Cadbury Egg."
"Area Man not technically pathetic in that he fails to illicit pathos"
"Ghosts just dropped by to say 'boo'" (Eventually made it in with much protest.)

The domestic associate and I went to the caucus today. It was amazingly crowded. Depending on which estimate of how many people are in our precinct you believed, we had between 30% and 50% of the precinct population present. At a caucus. In Washington State. Wow. Seriously Wow. Usually the nominee is decided by the time the WA caucus comes around so there are only a few die hards that show up. Also caucuses are a pain in the ass, a quaint pain in the ass, but still. As far as I can tell the only reason to have caucuses instead of primaries is to disenfranchise people in the service industry. Which makes me even more confused about WA's system. For my out of town friends, here's how we roll. Both parties have both a primary and a caucus. The republicans assign 51% of their delegates from the primary and 49% from the caucus. This doesn't make much sense because the split has nothing to do with the NUMBER OF PEOPLE VOTING. Go figure. The Democrats, however, have both a primary and a caucus, but assign all of the delegates from the caucus. Which makes even less sense. I am voting in the primary also, if only to contribute to the statistics that someone somewhere should be looking at. Presumably primary participation would be higher because it only takes 5 minutes and a stamp and you can do it from home. And a caucus requires ~ 3 hours and showing up at your friendly neighborhood cattle call on a Saturday.

Today's other little weirdness was that I unintentionally ended up causing Kucinich to steal a delegate from Clinton even though I caucused for Obama. After we did the first round of candidate selections, our precinct tally captain (my domestic associate) counted up all the "votes" and told us where we were delegate wise.

First round delegates:
2 Clinton
3 Obama

First round votes:
2 Kucinich
2 undecided
14 Clinton
30 Obama

Notice how Obama had twice the votes, but only 1 more delegate? Since they are assigned by percentage and the sample size was only 48 people, I asked what the vote thresholds were to push some delegates around. The Tally Captain calculated, gave us the over/under, and then everybody schemed a bit and revoted.

Second round delegates:
1 Kucinich
1 Clinton
3 Obama

Second round votes:
5 Kucinich
14 Clinton
29 Obama

Now these delegates go to a few more layers of caucuses before they get to the convention, then there are all of the superdelegates who are going to do god knows what, then once we get to the general election there's the damn electoral college. I wonder how the math would work on your basic election if we spread skipped all of the layers of trimming around the edges that happens due to taking percentage calculations of small samples of people and we actually had a one person one vote system.

My big lesson for today is that because the delegates are assigned based on percentages of statistically insignificant populations in a caucus system, it doubly misrepresents the desires of the voters. First, by making it more difficult to vote. Second, by exaggerating the results for some and diminishing them for others by this weird percentage allocation.

Anybody out there have an argument FOR the caucus system? I'm stumped.

So, I was just replying to an old friend who popped up in LJ. I hadn't seen him in over 15 years, so the response to "what have you been up to?" was rather broad. I think it might be a good exercise to pretend I am in this situation every year or so. I am always surprised by what I say when forced to sum up. Anyway, in trying to describe my career, I said that I have one of those administrative gigs for the generally, but not specifically, competent. I loved my time at Saint John’s but it did make me a generalist, and I think vocational satisfaction for me will require more specificity. SJC gave me the skills to be a pest, to ask the next question that needs to be asked, and generally to figure stuff out. But, I've never successfully turned those skills on myself to figure out what it is that will satisfy me professionally. Whenever I've tried I end up with some major compromise that ruins it in the end, or sometimes some bit of self deception that let's me follow a path that is ultimately doomed (Chefdom). There's this nagging fear that if I follow the wrong path again, I'll never find satisfaction. Every day that goes by is a step on this path and it's not one I chose. I wish I had started this quest earlier, I should be a "mid-career professional"TM by now, but in my early 20s I was such a mess I didn't have any idea where to start. I wanted everything and nothing at the same time, when really I wish I had just done anything. I wish I could have stayed in school then, but I know it wasn't what I wanted at the time. I was too humbled by the program, it's strange to say that now because I was so cocky back then, but there is some truth there. I think. If I could only go two sentences without contradicting myself.... Is this what therapy is like? Maybe I need therapy.

Do you remember the name of that word game that we played when Lexey and I visited you at Vassar in 1993-94 ish? My foggy memory says it was called: "Word up!" But that seems unlikely and ridiculous, and I can't find a game by that name. The rules were something like an inverse version of Taboo, and of course much funnier than Taboo. Josh was there, and a girl with big curls. Any idea what I am talking about?

I am giving away my coffee table. It's sturdy, solid wood and painted by yours truly. Respond with your email and I'll send a picture.

Today is the first day of my vacation. On my way out of the office last week, I had fun telling people who asked what I'd be doing with my time off that I had some house projects to do. "A little upholstery and light carpentry." They thought that was hilarious, but seriously... that's the plan. Also, I think I'll catch up with the friends I've been missing.

I was just down in the Hospital cafeteria and saw a sign announcing Fall Prevention Awareness Week. It was clearly necessary to hold a week of awareness raising events on this topic, because I had no idea that it was possible to prevent fall. This is very exciting. And to think, it was just getting chilly enough this week that I had given up on the idea of wearing my sandals for the next few months. Tomorrow I plan to attend the seminar on techniques for re-affixing leaves to trees.

I just put up a couple of new posts on seattle_eats. Check it out, and help me diagnose the breading epidemic.

Unintended iPod effect:
Listening to way more ABBA than I mean to.

My associate and I both took Friday off work and went downtown to do non working things in the middle of all the working people. First, we went to Salumi for sandwiches. We stood in line for about 45 minutes, and it was totally worth it. These people do very special things to meat. I had the porchetta, which was better than I thought it could have been. As we were standing in line, one of the dishwashers that used to work for me came up and gave me a hug. It was good to see her again, glad she is doing well and working in a good place.
After that we went to Two Bells for drinks, then off to see Superbad at the Cinerama. It is indeed "the Citizen Cane of dick jokes," as The Onion described it. Michael Cera is adorable. That kid is the future of American glancing. Just a really fine glancer, a young John Kranzinski, that one.

For those of you who are spend time on the Ave, a warning. Do not try the new fish and chips place.
This kind of place makes me sad. It is clearly run by an immigrant family who just wanted to start a business and get a bit of the American Dream (tm). But, they obviously don't care about food, it's just a widget in a business model to them. (Of course, there are many, many, many fine restaurants/
businesses run by many, many, many fine immigrant families. I am just talking about the particular brand of suck that this one is.) They clearly spent a good chunk of change remodeling the place, hard earned savings they'll probably lose when the place tanks. If had my dream job of restaurant critic, I would probably write a review speculating about what the next restaurant in the space could be. If anyone is looking to start a new business, keep an eye on this storefront, it should be available soon. New drywall, hood system, etc.

We went to our favorite neighborhood bistro last night and were seated on the deck next to a table of crones. They were the type that had that odd habit of hitting a screechy note in the middle of words that they wanted to emphasize. Does that come with menopause? I hope it's optional. Anyway, I was very tempted to go over and whisper to them that if they didn't stop talking about food poisoning, I was going to start talking about anal sex. Not that I would actually do that.
I used to have weaker filters, and I've strengthened them because my big mouth tended to get in the way and alienated people. I wonder what circumstances would have been necessary for it to have done me more good. There are people who make a career of being an offensive big mouth, I wonder if I could have done well at that if I'd let myself.

I was determined to finish HP7 yesterday, so that I could go see the movie today, without fear of being in public and overhearing someone talking about the ending. For all the talk of spoilers not being that important, they mattered to me. I am glad that I experienced the story with the suspense in tact. I've really enjoyed feeling part of mainstream culture for once. People at work see my "Republicans for Voldemort" tote bag, and they get it. Usually when I am that snarky I have to explain my self. "Well, you see Procrustes was....", It just gets tiring. But, the other day, I was able to make reference to being a fairly accomplished occlumens and everyone just chuckled and understood me.

It seems mostly to be those who are not reading HP that are most sour grapey about the mass spoiler aversion last week. I guess I understand the tendency, since for most things that occupy this many peoples' cultural energy at once, I am standing to the side holding a giant bucket of "I don't care." (i.e. Child bearing, sports & religion, the three things that have nothing to do with my life and everything to do with so many other peoples'.) Which brings me to why the epilogue left me feeling so....

( SPOILERS, )

If Bill Orally said it it must be true