Things About Holly...

Hello everybody!

Haven't been on LJ forever! I think that's a good thing. It keeps me quiet. haha.

Oh well. I use Twitter and Facebook now anyways! Especially Twitter. Got to love to hate it. Find out too much on there sometimes. But, it's good. It's all good. I keep saying that. Ha.

I am trying to figure out what to do with my life!
At least, what to do with my life after July.

I just realized, with a tinge of dismay, that I'm now too old to do City Year. Ever. I'm looking into AmeriCorps programs that I could do next year, if I decide to do a second AmeriCorps year, if I decide to not stay in Indy...and straight up, City Year is officially not on my options list. Their max age is 24. I'm 24 now. I won't be next year. I'm too old.

I just don't know what I want to do. I mean, I know at least a fair number of things that I could potentially do, but I am not feeling a strong pull toward any one in particular.

I'm not really upset about City Year, per se. I wasn't thinking THAT seriously about it that I'm super-disappointed that I'll never get to do it. It's just weird to realize that I'm too old to do something like that.

elainegrey shared this story from Rev. Alderman's blog: http://www.revama.blogspot.com/ . As the story has been passed on, various editors have degendered the characters and chosen to spell out the word "shit" rather then bleeping it out (that was me).

On Christmas Eve a parent puts in one child’s stocking a fine gold watch, and into the other's, a pile of horse manure. The next morning, the first child comes to the parent and says glumly, “I just don’t know what I’ll do with this watch. It’s so fragile. It could break.” The other runs around gleefully and says, “Look everybody! Santa left me a pony, if only I can find it!”

While I don't want to disparage a nice gift, I hope I can see the pony in a pile of shit. How do you think you do on this?


Here's how I think on this!

My first reaction was that I am totally the kid running around looking for a pony in a pile of shit. Even if I didn't really want a pony. Even if I'm in a tiny apartment in the inner city and there really better not be a pony hiding somewhere. Even if I'm making a huge shit mess of the place while looking for the friggin' pony and everybody's laughing at me. I'm not giving up till I find my damn pony! THEN I'll figure out what to do with it.

Then I realized that I'm kinda the first kid, too. Someone gives me something which to most people is of obvious value, and I freak. What the hell is this? What do I do with it? Is it going to break? Is it going to hurt? Do I really want it? Will I ever use it? Do I deserve it? Is the person giving it to me expecting something from me?

So okay, I'm a freak. :-P




Come on, thefuckingweather. 33 high? You can do better than that! I need to be outside to clean out my car!

This year, my big December holiday was Laundry Day!

I celebrated Laundry Day by doing an epic FOUR LOADS of laundry. 2 full loads of clothes, plus a few extras that I threw in with my bedsheets, and then a fourth load for my dishrags. Now I have clean EVERYTHING!!

Many people who celebrated Christmas yesterday wished me a Merry Christmas. So I wished them a Happy Laundry Day!

apollotiger, who is one of the wiser people I have ever known, wished me a Happy Laundry Day. So I wished him a Merry Christmas.

May all your laundry be soft, warm, clean, and cozy this season!




My Tarot reading gift exchange is still open! Let me know if you're interested!

It's really cold
I don't like cold
I feel like whining a lot but I have nobody to whine to.

Several lights have gone out on my car and I need to get them fixed. I really suck at owning a car. I was freaking out about this for [insert amount of time], and then I posted about it on Facebook, and lo and behold I had no idea but one of my local friends knows how to fix shit on cars used to work at AutoZone and she's going to help me out.

So I don't have to whine about that anymore, hopefully.

I talked to my mom today. I kinda feel like I need some sort of plan, but I don't feel drawn to any particular plan. But as I listened to myself talk to my mom, all I could think was that I want to sing and that I miss my family. I don't know if I actually miss my family, or if I miss the idea of believing that I have a family, but there's something I need that I'm not getting and there are holes in me where my family isn't, and I know there are holes in her where our family isn't, too. I don't know if we can fill those holes for each other, and I don't know that it's healthy for us to try, but I know what it's like for her to have them and she knows what it's like for me to have them, because they're the same holes, the same shape, the same missing pieces.

She's not pushing me to do anything now. We just...had a good conversation about things I like (singing, being nice to people, saving the world) and things I hate (school, being dependent on other people, violating my ethics to survive). She wants to be my mom. I want her to be my mom so freaking bad I can't stand it. I want a lot of things that aren't good for me.

I'm having mad mad gender issues right now and the last thing in the world I need is my mom all up in my head when I'm having crazy gender shit.

I'm mainly stressing out because I'm nearly halfway through my AmeriCorps year and I have NO IDEA what I'm doing next. You'd think I'd know by now that whatever is supposed to happen next WILL HAPPEN, regardless of whether I freak about it until it happens or not, but somehow I never seem to figure that one out.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, jesus!

(sorry. Had to be done).

I am in an Undisclosed Location today and for the next few days, celebrating with rockwood and his family. I hope that everyone is spending a wonderful day with people they love, regardless of whether or not you celebrate Christmas.

For my part, I am with the love of my life, and reminded of tidings of great joy.

Also about to go watch what promises to be a truly awful film, so win all around, there.

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I hate the RAMPANT COMMERCIALISM of Christmas, but I do love watching my family open their presents. I know they say money can't buy happiness, but the look on people's faces when you get them that perfect present is awesome. And I'm not religious at all, but I really enjoy all the music and smells and sights and movies of the season. Decorating the tree while listening to all those big bang crooners is one of my favourite traditions, and as much as they drive me nuts at times, I love being reminded at the holidays that I have a big, close-knit family that makes lasagna and brown rice and opens their gifts on Christmas Eve, as per Lutheran tradition (apparently!)

In addition, my father finally gave in and said we could buy a menorah for future holidays. Despite his JEWISH PRIDE, my father seems to feel that celebrating Chanukah or Passover would somehow invalidate his belief in Christ, although when he said this, he immediately realized that made no sense. I also said I'd probably never eat latkes because I don't really enjoy potato-based foods (such as French fries and lefse), which made my father declare that his potato pancakes are "better than any of that Norski potato bread your mother and aunts like".

I'm hoping we can get a mezzuzah, too; I might even try making a seder for Passover. I've always wanted to celebrate Jewish holidays, but all we ever really do is watch The Ten Commandments around Passover and light my great-papa's yahzreit candle and recite the Kaddish 27 December, which is the day he died. Like I said before, I'm not religious by any stretch of the imagination, but acknowledging your cultural history - or the culture you grew up with, or just happen to resonate with - is important to me; your past and your ancestors shouldn't define you, but they do play a part in most peoples' identities, and acknowledging what you feel makes you the person you are is important. That's why I take part in Christmas and Easter celebrations; they don't mean much to me on a religious level, but they're my history.

Finally, because everyone on my flist seems to be doing this, I'll share what I got this year:
-soft, purple mittens and a yellow scarf, which - when worn together - makes me feel like EVERYONE KNOWS I SHIP GOKU/SANZO
-two cat calendars, one of which is cats in hats so freaking cute
-some nice tee-shirts, including a Star Wars/Fup the cat-themed Powell's one
-jury duty (to the FEDERAL COURT); the letter came on Christmas Eve, no lie
-$100 check from my Nana; as she usually sends a $20 gift card, this is VERY ODD. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love getting money, but also...huh?
-best of all: this

I heartily recommend that last one for anyone who doesn't know what to ask for, especially if you don't normally like receiving gifts.

Avatar is the most beautiful movie you will see this year or the next. It covers the same sort of ground as Fern Gully, Pocahontas, etc., but in the most seamless and visually compelling way yet. James Cameron had the basic script 15 years ago in 1994, but was determined to wait until film technology could catch up to his vision-- and it was well worth it. The quiet phosphorescence and sheer scale of Pandora take the breath out of your body; the enormity of what you're seeing is overwhelming. I found myself aching to crawl into the movie and explore, to run and climb and fly with them. I'd love an RPG of this, something with just a taste of escapism into this world. (It could happen; the language and anthropology* are already in place. If there's a game, let's hope they don't half-ass it.)

The acting is, in a word, excellent. Nothing is stiff or feigned. Zoë Saldaña is well-cast and natural beyond all reason, the epitome of her people: their faces, gestures, and voices all convey the most primal of emotions. When they grieve, their wails come from their core. When they scream, the rawness of their own voices tears at their throats. When they fight, they are feral, snarling, hissing, lethal. They are alive.

I'd like to show this movie to the people I love most, but I can't be there to do that. I hope you go see it, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did...


* hinthintholidaygifthinthint

We just got this message, about my friend whom I posted about the other day:

"[He] is ending his time in his body. Multiple organs are
beginning to fail, and his body is telling us what his voice can not.
It is time to let him go. We will be removing the paralytic drug that
has been allowing the ventilator to be working at such a high pressure,
then removing the ventilator a bit later. Given the condition of his
lungs, he will probably not last long. The medical staff will be
administering whatever drugs are necessary for his comfort.

Please hold [him] in the Light during this time of transition.

Thank you for your love and support. I hope the holiday finds you with
laughter and joy regardless.

peace and blessings,
[his son]"


I can't really think of words. I'm sad. It feels like every month someone else I love dies, which I guess is just how things are when one loves so many people.

This video is so awesome that I transcribed it! So if your physical or technological capabilities prevent you from hearing the video, click the LJ cut to read what this guy has to say about telling people to have a "happy holiday".



( transcribed! )

Apparently the iBook only works on alternate days!

aredridel is burning me the start-up disks for both machines. Ah, the adventures of underground computer (re)use (or is that (ab)use?).

It's freaking COLD in my apartment, and I am again finding myself tempted to go on a massive throw-out-all-my-worldly-possessions spree. There's a LOT of crap in here that I don't need and I reckon nobody else does, either.

There's something in my head I need to run away from, but I can't run from my head.

Vegetarian
I vent a rage.
A great vein
Eat vinegar.
Rage via 'net
Eat in grave.
A vegan rite
Irate vegan

Vegetarians =
Vegan satire
I avenge rats
Vegans are it!
Eat vegan sir.

December 25th is a day which has no religious or cultural significance to me. I did not grow up celebrating Christmas, any more than I grew up celebrating zillions of other holidays which exist throughout the world and simply do not reflect anything which is pertinent to my religious beliefs. Last year, I was actively practicing Christianity and I even tried to celebrate Christmas, but ultimately it wasn't a particularly meaningful experience. My religious beliefs are not centered around Jesus Christ. Celebrating his birth is not religiously meaningful to me.

I didn't realize this, but apparently many Jewish families also celebrate Christmas when they're done celebrating Hanukkah. I've now realized this, because when I tell people that I don't celebrate Christmas and that my family did not celebrate it or even really acknowledge it in any way when I was growing up, I get Really Weird Looks. At first I thought everyone was just completely nuts...why would my JEWISH FAMILY celebrate CHRISTMAS? Well, apparently other Jews do that. They celebrate Hanukkah because they're Jews, and they celebrate Christmas because "everyone" celebrates Christmas.

Well, that's really weird to me! In my family, Jews do not celebrate Christmas. We don't celebrate Canada Day, either, because we're not Canadians! Do others from the US celebrate Canada Day? We don't! And we don't celebrate Christmas, because we're Jews!

I also don't really LIKE Christmas. It's basically all the things I didn't like about Hanukkah (coercive gift exchange, drama, , and none of the things I did like, plus a bunch of annoying songs and crowded parking lots. And on top of that, "everyone" celebrates it. So everyone is home with their families doing family things, and I'm not, because (a) my family isn't really my family that way right now, and (b) even if they were, WE DON'T CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS!

Like, seriously, I'm not trying to protest Christmas or anything. I respect that other people celebrate it, though I don't think it should be mandatory to take the day off from work. It just feels like a big party that everyone else is invited to and I'm not on the guest list, but I don't exactly have anything better to do that day either.

Any ideas on how to find meaningful work that isn't for bland, boring corporations? Bonus points for being in the Seattle area.

I don't usually do New Year's Resolutions, so I hope you'll all excuse me if I'm doing these wrong. But there are some things I ought to be working on, and this seems like as good an excuse as any to announce them to the world. Hopefully, status updates will ensue throughout the year.

1. I will leave my face alone. I have compulsive tendencies, and one of them is that I scratch my face until it bleeds in a counter-productive quest to prevent blemishes. I'm going to try to stop. As a reward, I'm going to buy some really lovely kind of face wash, because the only reason I need the harsh disinfecting kind I have now is that I keep putting holes in my face.

2. I will contribute code to Dreamwidth. I came to Dw during the closed beta because I saw a great community telling me that open-source programming is not For Boys and that I could learn it too, and I was really excited and started learning it. And it was exciting! They were right! It wasn't that hard!

...Then I ran into a bunch of people being Wrong On The Internet, and suddenly I got it in my head that I had to be the Best Codemonkey Ever to show those stupid, sexist jerks their FAIL. Stop me if you've heard this story before.

So damnit, before the year is out, I'm going to get over it and learn enough Perl to contribute.

3. I will stop being a coward about my book. I've submitted my book to a grand total of two agents and one editor, out of which I got one request for a partial and another for a full. Then I never sent it anywhere else, because I'm a great big chickeny scaredy-cat. I will stop that. Right now I'm rewriting it (yes, again, but it's going to be ten times more awesome as a result), but after that I'm stopping.

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The iBook is magically working just fine now. I have no idea what happened.

I'm praying tonight for a dear Quaker friend who is seriously ill. He has leukemia and is now hospitalized with H1N1 and pneumonia. According to the email, he was found in his home, "alone, delirious, without nourishment for some days, dehydrated and desperately ill" by members of his Meeting, who grew concerned when he had not been answering phone calls. He has been in ICU for several weeks and the most recent email from his Meeting says that his condition is deteriorating. Please, please pray for this beautiful, gentle, loving, kind man in North Carolina and his family.