Entering the Blog World Take 2

Well I've been contemplating starting this blog back up for a while. Mostly because I occasionally still receive comments on one of my first blogs on the difference between sarcastic and facetious. I'll let it be known that I'm not an expert on anything. Mostly I know a little bit about a lot. There is no plan to have a focus to this blog that will make it a hot spot for the world to see. It's just a place to post "random musings" and get back to writing. Hence the name change.

I will not be posting a full topic now as I seriously need to consider sleeping at some point. I will however list a few of the things I've found interesting lately that may show up in this blog.

Trivia (4th place TriviaMaryland.com 2 seasons in a row - Go Lucky Charms)
Movies
Books
Words
Relationships
Parking Meters ;)
Whatever floats my boat (though I don't actually have a boat)

See ya round. Whoever you are.

Word of the Day - Compunction

So I was in NYC on friday with two of my favorite people in the world, Kristy and Josh and I was discussing faith and how I had been throwing all my previous compunctions out the window. Josh was a little befuddled by the word and whipped out his IPhone to look it up. They both thought it was a pretty cool word so I thought I'd add it to my blog since I hadn't done a word of the day in a while.

compunction - kəmˈpʌŋkʃən/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[kuhm-puhngk-shuhn] –noun

1.	a feeling of uneasiness or anxiety of the conscience caused by regret for doing wrong or causing pain; contrition; remorse.

2.	any uneasiness or hesitation about the rightness of an action.

I think it's a great word. Yea Me!

Missing New York

My friend Millay had this picture up on her blog and it reminded me what I don't like to think about. That I really miss New York. When I first moved there was the excitement of the "New" and then i went through extreme home sickness. Now I try to not to think about it, but whenever someone asks me if I miss New York I have to admit that I do.

I miss living in NY. I've thought about my cozy coffee shop in Astoria, never having to worry about drinking and driving, $76 dollars a month unlimited subway, living a train ride away from the family, always things to do etc. I haven't focused on the high rents, having to live with a roommate, how expensive everything is, the snootiness in corporate America, the need to dress a certain way and carry a fancy purse.

Mostly though I've missed my friends, my church, only having one job. Many of my friends aren't there anymore. But many still are. I have to admit though that things would be different were I to move back. But mostly I think it would have to be better than here. I think I'm a city girl at heart. When i was in NY I lived in Astoria, Queens. I never thought I'd live in Queens but it was actually quite wonderful. It has a neighborhoody (i know, not a word) feel even though it's a hop, skip and a jump to midtown Manhattan. If I didn't want to go out but didn't feel like hanging in the apartment there was my local coffeeshop where everyone knew my name (Cue Cheers Theme Song) and the quirky, artsy New Yorkers came to chill. There was the Astoria Beer Garden with $14 pitchers of Hoegarten and the most delicious kilbase (Have no clue how to spell that), movies in Bryant Park in the Summer.

I remind myself how hard it was when i was out of work. How much I hated my rundown apartment even thought the location was fantastic. How much I hated living with a roommate. Somehow I'm still convinced i jumped too quickly. On the other hand I could still be out of work. If I hadn't moved here I never would have joined weight watchers and lost 40 lbs. So it's not that I wish I hadn't moved here but I'm starting to think I may need to consider going back.

I've grown up a lot since I've been here. I turned 30. Thought a lot about the future. But there's not much time to build a life when you work 70 hours a week. I've spent time in bars but that's not really the place to meet the kind of people I know will be the kind of friends I'm looking for. I'm sick of going out drinking and calling that a life. Don't get me wrong. I love a good beer with the rest of them but there's more to life.

When did I get so darned negative. I guess that's the danger of over thinking everything. It goes with the territory. Well no more. I'm going to take this weekend at home and make some decisions about the future. I'm going to let the dreamer in me run wild and let the realist take those dreams and make some plans. I'm only 30 and have the rest of my life ahead of me. here goes nothing.

I Liked Him First

Since I've been so serious lately I decided to add a little humor. I just want to state for the record that I liked David Cook way before the rest of America and all his new little girly groupies realized what a star he could be. I'm sad that I'll never have the chance to meet him in a bar as a "regular person" and have him realize how much we have in common. Yeah, I know. The chances of that happening with him in Omaha and me in DC were really slim but i can't begin to say how slim they are now. Not to mention that Simon has a bit of a point about his arrogance but I mean, who wouldn't be arrogant with that kind of talent. He's got the whole package but him and me are never to be. That's ok. I've never truly crushed on a person on tv before and I'll get over it. He'll have hot little dimwits hitting on him and I'm sure he'll succumb. My hope is that eventually his brain will win out and he'll meet someone smart and funny like me and they'll be happy.

It was really touching to see him sing for his brother. My dad has cancer and I know how hard it can be to have someone you love going through that. The difference is that my dad will probably be ok and his brother probably won't. My thoughts and prayers go out to him and his family.

And by the way! He rocks! Way to come out of nowhere and dominate. Little David on the other hand has a beautiful voice but no personality or originality. I'd rather see Carly or Jason in the final two with David Cook. Here's hoping. And does anyone have any clue why the judges are so hard on Carly? I think she's wonderful and they keep trashing on her. Whatever. She'll be a star no matter what. She rocks!

The Realist Ate the Dreamer

This is the third time I'm beginning this post. Each time I get a few paragraphs in and then I don't know where to go anymore. I burrow so deep into my brain, about my job, my unhappiness with it, my dreams as a child to be something great and I just don't know where to go anymore. I've thought these thoughts a million times and each time I end up back where I start. So forgive me if I don't want to rehash them here.

I think too much and it all gets twisted together and confused and it all makes me so tired. I'm tired of working two jobs. I'm tired of not being challenged. I'm tired of running in circles to succeed at this job and running against a brick wall. I'm sick of staring at a computer all day. I feel like I'm a free spirit trapped in a realists shell and I don't know how to bring those to truths together. Deep down i want to be creative, to write, act, dance, sing, bring beauty to the world but instead I keep myself busy and go from one thankless job to another hating every moment and doing nothing about it.

I'm a dreamer and a realist and the realist in my clamps down on the dreamer and the dreams die. Or they fester and the creativity inside can't flourish and I give up the dreams. The problem is they're always there under the surface begging to get out. I tell them it's too hard, too much whatever and I do nothing. But then I'm at work and I'm not challenged, and I meet idiots that make fun of my use of the word exacerbate even though it may be one of the coolest words in the English language. Is it so much to ask to have a job that inspires me, a job I can be passionate about where I can contribute to the creation of something, to come to work excited about what the day holds and to go home feeling like i did something important with my day. I know that in my current job, even if I was the perfect employee and did everything they asked and got promotion after promotion I would never feel that way.

My mother reminds me that most people hate their job. She tells me that most people are just ordinary and that that's ok. I don't want to be ordinary. I've never been ordinary. I've never fit any mold that anyone has ever tried to fit me in. And i don't want to. I want to embrace my quirks, my overly introspective brain, my idiosyncrasies and flourish in a world of color. I don't want to live the rat race like at the beginning of Joe Vs. the Volcano. I don't want to be another cog in the wheel of the business world. I want to work somewhere people won't ask me what facetious means or call me a human thesaurus because they think I think I'm better than them. Believe me, if I could trade in just a little of my chaotic intelligence for just a little more administrative skill and gogetter energy I would. But unfortunately, just like the teenage dream of sharing breasts with a larger friend so we would both have more reasonably sized breast, that is never going to happen.

The World Inside My Head

You know, it can get very tiring living inside my head all the time. I can't comment on how it differs for others, maybe they all wish for a break from their thought lives sometimes. I can't say. I just know that my whole life I've been told I'm "Too Smart for My Own Good" for whatever that means. I know that I over explain things because my brain parses everything, important or not, into the tiniest fractions of relevance. In my faith journey I've struggled because my brain is constantly looking for the rational answer and faith doesn't always work that way. Actually it usually doesn't. A caring friend that wanted me to have a closer relationship with God often admonished me to, "turn off your brain." Others have interpreted this to mean that I don't believe that a thinking, intelligent person can have a deep relationship with God. That's not what I think. However I think based on my semi-Jewish, semi-secular upbringing and natural inclination to follow things to the most extreme conclusions and inability to just accept something on faith it has been personally difficult for me to, "Let go, and let God" as the common axiom goes.

I think we all have the tendency to over-think things at times. Especially when in a new dating relationship or a new job for example. Will he call, does he like me, what does it mean that he texted and didn't call etc. The frustrating thing is that I do this with everything down to pointless digressions into what I should have for dinner. I once had a therapist who asked me how I live in my brain? Some might interpret this out of context to mean she thought I was nuts. That's not what she meant at all. I think she was amazed at how self-aware I was, at how deeply and intricately I parsed every subject, at how observant I was. She observed that this could be a very tiring way to live and believe me it is. I'm as sane as anyone but if someone wonders why I talk so much it's because I tend to think out loud for some reason. That's why writing is good for me and I often wonder why I don't do it more. I think often it's easier not to process the thoughts at all. They're there whether I acknowledge them or not but if I don't vocalize them I don't have to deal with them. At least not right away. Those things that I ignore usually come back to bite me in the tuchus. Inevitable.

Friends often laugh at me because I joke about wishing I was stupid. "Ignorance is Bliss" and all that. We were actually talking about that as a philosophical conundrum in relation to a book one our publishers is putting out. The proposition is if there is a man who is very happy and thinks his life is perfect because he is ignorant to the truth, is that better than being aware and going through the pain of realizing everything is a mess. I guess there are pros and cons to both. As I am now I would say it's better to be aware. Then again one of the things my therapist was expressing by asking me that question had to do with my tendency to see things as worse than they are. Take faith for example. The difficulties I have are probably not too different from that of others who have been Christian for a while and yet anything less than a deep intimate walk with God is unsatisfactory to me and so it seems perhaps worse than it really is or how another in the same situation would view it. Even when i don't think I'm being that way people admonish me not to be so hard on myself. Others would say its just the Virgo in me popping out since I'm such a perfectionist. If I can't do things perfectly I'll often consider not attempting them at all. I don't know much else about being a virgo but that one fits me pretty well.

I guess the real issue is whether I appreciate the intelligence I was presumably gifted by God. I guess I do. I don't know if I mentioned this in the blog at all but I think my dissatisfaction has partly come from the realization that it is others dislike of certain of my qualities that has caused me to be unhappy with them, rather than my own dislike. My desire to be "stupid" is more the desire to "fit in" to be accepted by others. But when I throw down my people pleasing tendencies and really look at myself I like those quirks and idiosyncrasies. I don't really deep down want to be "normal" for whatever that means, or boring, or just like everyone else. I guess I wish more people could appreciate them but really they are what make me who i am. I march to the beat of my own drum as they say. My brain often works on a different playing field than others. I see the world in a unique way and I kind of like it. I confuse people sometimes and maybe that scares them. I don't know. I love that I am observant and see things others don't. It's like I have special goggles with which I see the world. What I need to do is channel that into writing, which is what I'd really like to do. What stops me is my desire to be as good as my favorite writers. I don't like to do things in a mediocre way. I guess mediocre is better than nothing.

Note on Hillary Post

Just a note on the "Hillary" post. A few comments pointed out that perhaps the moniker was of her own choosing. I don't think that negates the point that in general we often do refer to women differently than men. It makes me wonder if she thought of the possible indications such a reference would make. I can see the reason she might want to differentiate herself from her husband to whom the Clinton name is synonymous and yet as I said in my own comment it is an ironic point when you consider how much of her touted "experience" is tied to his career and accomplishments to which she owns her own. I think it's clear that some of the problems she has run into is the conflicting problem of trying to run on his career while trying to create herself as an individual with the ability to be president.

Hilary or Sen. Clinton? What's in a name?

As I've been watching the news recently keeping up with the presidential race something has been niggling at me. Why is it that John McCain is referred to as McCain, Barack Obama is referred to as Obama and Hilary Clinton is referred to as Hilary? Do they feel more familiar with her? Do they worry people will think they are talking about Bill Clinton? We can solve that, let's call her Senator Clinton. "Bill" was never a senator. He's often referred to as President Clinton.

No. I think the problem goes deeper. The big issue right now is race. Should Obama be viewed as a "black" candidate? Is it fair to make race an issue? Racial prejudice is universally agreed upon to be a bad thing. At least by those who aren't racially prejudice. It's out in the open. It is a major problem in this country but at least people are talking about it. What we aren't talking about is gender prejudice or gender bias. If "Hilary" were a man would anyone refer to her by her first name? I don't think so.

You don't hear, "John, the republican nominee visited Iraq yesterday," or "Barack spoke about the anti-American comments of his pastor on Larry King Live." It may seem like a small issue but it's not. Ever since Obama's name started to make the rounds of presidential discussion a couple years ago I voiced the opinion to my sister who was reading Obama's first book at the time that I thought the American people were more likely to elect a black man to office than a white woman. Gender prejudice isn't discussed often. There's an assumption that it no longer exists. I don't know them offhand but there are studies that women make less money than their male counterparts in the work world. When you see women CEO's or excutives they've usually passed their children off to nannies, ended up divorced or stayed single. Again I don't have a study to back me up but I do work in the business world and have seen many examples of this. I know women who would like to work part-time until their children are old enough to go to school lose their jobs. You also don't see many men choosing to stay home with the children.

There are many more informed people than myself on the issue of gender equality but I feel challenged to look into it more. I'm basing my comments solely on observation. Now if you ask me if I think that being a woman is Hillary's only negative I would have to say a hearty "NO". In some ways it's a positive. Woman, especially baby boomers, have been waiting for a long time to a elect a woman as president and their votes will go to (see I did it - I called her Hillary) Sen. Clinton. I would like to see a woman as president but I personally disagree with much of what Clinton purports.

A huge negative for her is that she is a polarizing figure. Many people don't like her and many probably don't know why. My mother has not respect for her because she stayed with Bill Clinton for political gain despite his flagrant philandering. I wonder if there aren't a lot of other women that feel that way. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." How many times has Clinton stepped out on Sen. Clinton? I've lost track. As far as I know my mother has voted democrat in every election since before I was born. This same women went and voted for McCain in the primaries.

She's also trying to run on her husband's record. She has 8 or less years in the senate. That's not that long a time. Don't start me on the 2 Obama has. Does being first lady prepare you to be president?

I'm not denying she's a smart women. In fact she is probably pretty capable of doing the job whether I would like the job she did being a different story altogether. But it is wrong to call her "Hillary" and act like that's not making a huge statement. Just my 2 cents.

McCain at the Wailing Wall

I wanted to post this because I think it's a great picture. Sure he wanted the photo op, but regardless of what people think his motives are it was a chance to show respect to the people of Israel. As a Christian he prays to the same God as the Jewish people though each religion has divergent opinions about the person of Jesus.

Besides showing him praying at the Western Wall however, it shows beside him Senator Joe Lieberman, a respected Senator, former democrat and current independent. It reflects what I like about McCain--his willingness to cross party lines, his friendship with people with differing opinions and beliefs and his ability to bring people togethe

Word of the Day - Unquiet

I got some surprising news yesterday and am waiting for more details. It's making me somewhat restless today so I chose a fitting word. We're more familiar with anxious or impatient. I think this is a good one and very descriptive.

unquiet

1.	agitated; restless; disordered; turbulent: unquiet times.

2.	mentally or emotionally disturbed; vexed or perturbed; uneasy: He felt unquiet and alone.

3.	a state of agitation, turbulence, disturbance, etc.: Unquiet spread throughout the land.

Try using it in a sentence.

Word of the Day - Querulous

Well I'm not sure where this word came from today. I decided to do a word of the day (can I call it that since I don't do it every day?) and this is what popped into my head. Yes, big or rarely used words reside in my head and occasionally I can pull them out. I have no control over which ones will strike my fancy or come to mind at given moment. Once in college a friend called out that someone should ask me for a synonym because I was a "Human Thesaurus". I tried to help them understand that I can't predict how useful I would be because sometimes I draw a blank. I actually found it quite annoying because it implies that I'm odd for having a large vocabulary.

Isn't that a sad comment on American Society that a person who speaks well is considered an oddity. Am I the only one that finds something magical about finding a word that has a very specific, nuanced meaning as opposed to using a string of words that only touch on what you're trying to say? I doubt I'm the ONLY one but I think we are few and far between. I get excited at the way a particular word rolls off my tongue. I like the feeling and taste of the word, the memories it elicits of good books I've read or of a funny encounter. Words for me are similar to someone flipping through old photographs. It's fun for me.

Anyway, here's the word of the day. Sorry for my moment of navel-gazing. I got this off dictionary.com in case I need to legally give credit where credit is due. I LURVE Dictionary.com.

quer·u·lous /ˈkwɛrələs, ˈkwɛryə-/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[kwer-uh-luhs, kwer-yuh-] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation –adjective

1.	full of complaints; complaining.

2.	characterized by or uttered in complaint; peevish: a querulous tone; constant querulous reminders of things to be done.

I was irritated by her querulous manner because it often put me in a foul mood.

I was trying to be patient but her querulous response to everything I said led me to have a negative first impression of my brother's girlfriend.

Sue me if those sentences aren't good. Didn't have time to look them but I think they should work. I think my choice of this word is timely in that I've been in a bit of a mood for a few days. Things haven't been going particularly my way it's starting to irritate me. It's calling me to react in a QUERULOUS manner ;)

PS. I only use one emoticon for those that find them distasteful. I tend to be very facetious and it is not always apparent in writing and so for that reason I use the wink.