it really IS all about the simple pleasures

Yesterday, I got up and finally reacquainted myself with my "Workout Tunage" at the gym, spent the afternoon picking up my apartment, spent the evening reading and watching a bit of television, and hit the sheets early.

Today, I got up at a reasonable time (which is rare for me on a Sunday), took my ass to the gym again and am now enjoying that post-haven't-been-to-the-gym-in-a-long-time hurt.

I'm watching some show about Titanic on the History Channel, which always fascinates me, before brewing some coffee (with my favorite seasonal tasty coffee creamer, cooking up a little breakfast, and spending a bit of the afternoon with my favorite slayer.

Throw in there the fact that I saw the beginnings of snowflakes walking back from the gym today and I'd say it's been a pretty damn good weekend.

Question of the Day

Bram Stoker, author of Dracula, and Vlad the Impaler, the original Dracula, have the same birthday. Coincidence?

Nothing vampire-related is coincidence. Their evilness prevents it.

It's the anniversary of the Russian Revolution, marking the Marxist overthrow of the Russian government. Karl Marx once wrote that "religion is the opium of the people." What is the new opium of the people?

Obama! C'mon, marixsm, socialism, communism...it's all too easy!

One of the highlights of going to a literary festival is hearing authors read from their own works. What author, living or dead, would you most like to hear read?

Wow, there are a lot of possibilities there. I'd very much like to hear Virginia Woolf read, especially if it's To the Lighthouse, one of my all-time favorites. As for the living, I would love to hear Wally Lamb but what I would really give my left arm for is to hear him, along with the women whose stories came to be through the volunteering he's done at York Correctional Institution in Connecticut, reading from both of the books the women helped write. If anyone can make that happen, let me know, huh?

for we are always what our situations hand us

If I had ever heard this song in high school, it would have meant something to me. If I had heard it certain times during college, it would have meant something different. If I had heard it throughout the years as I've grown older...something different.

But I only just discovered it today. Two days after a monumental and emotional day in history that I was lucky enough to witness and be a part of. One about which I've been trying to put some words together in an attempt at describing how it's made me feel.

Ain't that somethin'.



They say that these are not the best of times
But they're the only times I've ever known
And I believe there is a time for meditation
In cathedrals of our own

Now I have seen that sad surrender in my lover's eyes
And I can only stand apart and sympathize
For we are always what our situations hand us
It's either sadness or euphoria

And so we'll argue and we'll compromise
And realize that nothing's ever changed
For all our mutual experience
Our separate conclusions are the same

Now we are forced to recognize our inhumanity
Our reason coexists with our insanity
And though we choose between reality and madness
It's either sadness or euphoria

How thoughtlessly we dissipate our energies
Perhaps we don't fulfill each other's fantasies
And as we stand upon the ledges of our lives
With our respective similarities
It's either sadness or euphoria

A crisis averted

This is what I'm doing this morning at work.

Palin as president

Yeah. Busy day.

Question fo the Day (catch-up)

Woah, it looks like Halloween was the last Question of the Day I answered. My bad.

NaNoWriMo starts today. Give us a one-sentence description of the novel you plan to write.

The novel I plan to write is a non-existent one full of no characters and even less storyline.

As the Northern hemisphere spins toward the shortest day of the year, it's getting dark earlier and earlier. What comforts do you fall back on when the days are short and the nights are long?

I've always been a cold weather girl. Fall, winter...they're my seasons. I feel most alive, I feel the happiest, and thanks to my ever present preference of the nighttime over the daytime, I quite like all the darkness that comes with this time of year and the same things that comfort me the rest of the year (family, friends, my city, my part in it, and so on and so forth) comfort me this time of year.

November is National Beard Month. Muttonchops, Van Dyke, goatee, soul patch, ZZ Zop-style - tell us about your own wild and wooly facial hair. Even better, post a picture.

What, only dudes use LiveJournal? I have no wild and wooly facial hair and like it that way. However, when it comes to facial hair on penis havers, I'm a big fan (especially of a little non-shaving stubble or a goatee...rawr!).

Now that the election is over, we can get to the important stuff. Why is there a light in the refrigerator but not in the freezer?

Isn't it because people are more likely to get up from sweet sleep and look for something (mainly a beverage, I would think) in the refrigerator than they are to look for something in the freezer? At least, that's what I've always thought the reasoning is there.

I'm such a big ol' ball of emotion today

Read this, please?

I Didn't Vote For Obama Today

Question of Election Day

It's hard to ignore the fact that today is Election Day in the U.S. If you went to the polls today, tell us what it was like. Long line? Free stickers? Hanging chads? We want the details.

I got up a little earlier than usual, got to my polling place around the corner at 5:50 (10 minutes before it oficially opened) and I was #24 in line. With 7 voting booths, things moved relatively quickly, I filled in my little arrows next to my candidates, hopped on the bus, and was early to work only by about 15 minutes or so. From what I hear around the office, we may be closing down early today anyway so that people can get the hell out of dodge before everyone and their sister comes to live it up (hopefully!) in Grant Park.

At that point, I'll head home, get comfy, and settle in for what I'm hoping will be the delightfully positive, feel good event of the year, involving take-out food, wine, blog reading, watching my two boyfriends cover the election, and copious amounts of texting my political junkie friends and family. Funsies!