Monday, April 28, 2008

A couple things!

Whoa, I didn't realize there was this much action here as of late. I must check back more often!

Firstly, a news story (on CNN) this morning made me think of a nice Gedankenexperiment to help demonstrate why one person's faith-vs-science is another person's outrage/commonsense/etc.

But I will get back to that later, because that's a much longer post, and I just discovered something I'm much more interested in writing about right now -- my George W. Bush Federal Deficit Enhancement Dividend check (excuse me, "economic stimulus check") is being electronically transferred today, four days early!! Though I don't know why I should be surprised that this cabinet would hemorrhage money out of its coffers before any scheduled decree. (Proof here: http://money.cnn.com/2008/04/24/pf/taxes/Stimulus_checks/index.htm?postversion=2008042512)

That is all. I'm going to go pay some bills now. Whew.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

PO-et-TRy

face. hop. shushi shoe. matthew perry is not hot. akon did not get shot. LIAR! bird returns from winter break, i had a spicy steak. mouse. pad. frame doughnut bagel bialy. creamcheese, for which I freeze. curl. rock. i rewear socks. coffee morning.

bleach

I think they added "multiple washes" because after a garment has been washed many times, the fibers are weaker and the dyes are less vibrant, so the same caustic chemicals could potentially do more harm to an older item than a brandy ass arrogant unstoppable new shirt.

A healthy dose of bleach on an old bedsheet could do it in!


Someone doesn't do a lot of laundry...hmmmm

goals

So tonight, in the long and meandering conversation that is Jason and Amanda's relationship, I learned that I have no goals. And not only do I have no goals, but I have no wants. Wants besides "being really great" and "accomplished" and "beauteous." I'm not even sure if I want to have goals. Part of me romanticizes the unknown world of opportunity, the road ahead, the unmet people and the unrealized talents that float amorphously in my vision of the future. And part of me is sure that if I don't get my ass moving on something "significant" than I'll just have wasted my life, feel impoverished of soul and mind and be miserable and die as one of the hapless trillions whose only legacy to mankind are the original atoms they borrowed for their short existence.

Tonight I got myself all purdied up -- yes in a pretty silk dress with black high heels and diamond jewelry. And a side-swept curly, 1940's inspired hairdo. It was the screening party of Helen Hunt's directorial debut, a small budge indie Then She Found Me, starring Bette Midler, Matthew Broderick, Colin Firth and many more. I didn't see the movie, I only get to go to the parties. They were all there, except Colin, the only one I'd actually wanted to see. Sarah Jessica Parker was there as well. And swarms of other famous faces. I didn't talk to to many people. My sister and I ogled and judged as we ate our world famous sushi at the world famous Nobu 57. It wasn't an occasion for interviews, only for views.

I managed break the ice with this one guy, a former screenwriter for Mad About You and Win a Date with Tad Hamilton, who was very nice and smart and I ended up lying to him about where I work. Not because I was outright trying to impress him, but a spy like me must be choosy about revealing herself. But the trouble with lying about what you do, even if the intentions are only to conceal one's shady intentions, is that it always calls attention to what you are not. Calls attention to the disparity between who you are and who you want to be.

I am generally pretty proud of working at In Touch. It's a huge publication: my writing gets read by a minimum of 1.5 million people a week. It's incredibly fun and glamorous and it's trained me well for more than just a career in journalism--opening my eyes to a lot of social dynamics i was retarded about for most of my life. So it's not so much that I'm ashamed, but after the initial satisfaction of impressing someone, I find myself having to defend gossip journalism and my own integrity, and inevitably say "well, obviously I don't want to do this for the rest of my life!"

But for godssssakkesss, what the FUCK do I want to do???!!!

Here are some options: painting, acting, screen writing, more journalism: serious news journalism, investigative reporting? women's magazines? MEN's magazines? Go back to grad school for errr English? Journalism? Art? Film? Public policy? Travel the world? Go to medial school? Be a fashion designer. be a teacher? A college professor? Rock star? Poet? Pornographer?

"I'm every woman. It's all in meeeeeee!"

But if I'm "everything" than I'm not really "anything." Just a dilettante

My new business card should say:

Amanda Mikes

Dilettante

Makes insightful remarks about things she really dosen't know about.
Paints, writes and cooks really well.

Okay this entry is getting postmodern.

{{end}}

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

How my brain works

As I was sitting on the can the other day, the closest reading material was the back of a bottle of bleach on the counter. I noticed a piece of text under the "Why Use Clorox Splash-less bleach?" section:
Fiber Safe
As safe on fibers as detergent alone after multiple washes.
Now, what is the point of adding "after multiple washes"???

So alls I can do while sitting there for the rest of my... appointment... is try and think of ONE good reason they would include that. Note I said GOOD reason.

This is how my brain works. Or what it spends its time doing, to be specific. To me, adding that extra bit is something of a mea-culpa. All they are doing is adding a condition to a strong statement, implying that they could not (legally?) simply say it's as safe as detergent alone.

My brain's premier explanations include:
-- this bleach is NOT just as safe as detergent on fibers (possibly because a "first dose" of bleach may do much more damage than subsequent doses, and only by referencing the subsequent doses' effects could they say it's no more damaging than detergent)
-- some common-sense-free committee decided that "after multiple washes" made the statement seem stronger because multiple washes is MORE than just one.
-- something else, but I already forgot. Sigh. Such is my brain.