What in the Sam Hell?

This really is the worst website I've ever seen in my entire life:
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/kidsrabies/

The /kidsrabies/ part at the end there should be a sign.

I would say that they should be reported to the Government, except that it's A GOVERNMENT WEBSITE. The scientist-types who made this website have clearly never met a child before–though I suppose that if handling rabies-infected brains is what you do all day, you wouldn't have many chances to babysit, would you?

If you don't feel inclined to check it out, here's an overview: It's a children's website for rabies education. Except that the "activities" section has a lovely picture of a disected brain in petrie dish and the "warning signs" section (which has a very kid-friendly icon) features this enlightening list:

Signs of rabies in animals include:

• changes in an animal’s behavior
• general sickness
• problems swallowing
• an increase in drool or saliva
• wild animals that appear abnormally tame or sick
• animals that may bite at everything if excited
• difficulty moving or paralysis
• death

I'm sorry, what did you say Billy? Oh, you say you think the dog has rabies? Does he have any of the signs? Say, oh, general sickness or death? Death? I'm sure glad you played those fun rabies games online!

Sorry this post isn't about anything real... I seriously need to stop poking about on the internet.

Intelligent Design Envy

So this is my newly official favorite way to kill time.

http://www.underconsideration.com/speakup/

On the outside, it's a nerdy website for people to argue about things like fonts and ppi (that's pixels per inch to you, missy).

On the inside it's this sexy combination of fantastic words and edgy art. To get right to the good stuff, click on this understated image by Ben Scott, and get your visual rhetoric on.

Fire Truck Terminology

So... my "Ranch Family" (i.e. My grandparents, my auntie Tanya and her four wee sprouts) sent me an eclectic cigar box full of fanciful pens to satiate my addiction. My absolute favorite is the one that looks like a match and says "Support the Crawford Volunteer Fire Department," half because it's clever and utilitarian and half because I know a lot of the people on the Volunteer Fire Department and they let me ride in the fire truck on my 18th birthday. I got to press the button for the siren: not the wailer, but the one that goes "bwooooop."

I think that's the technical name. "The One that goes Bwooooop."

The cigar box, is in fact, probably worth more than the pens inside it, but as a whole I'm pretty sure the whole deal is priceless.

So, I've been noticing an interesting thing lately. Over the past few semesters, in a lot of my classes, something has changed.

It used to be that when professors would ask non-traditional sorts of questions like "who plans to graduate and live in a nuclear family" and a million others that I won't go into, there were always at least a couple of people who raised their hands. Questions like "who thinks gay people shouldn't be able to adopt?" are greeted with silence, and I'm sure that not everyone at Centenary is that progressive.

It's wierd. I can't tell if it's because more and more liberal people are coming here, or that more people are just more liberal in general, or maybe that people with conservative ideologies are just not ready to play devil's advocate if they know they're going to be vehemently disagreed with.

I'm not sure I'd be up to it if I knew that people were going to shoot me down for saying that Intellegent Design makes sense, for example. It doesn't make sense to ME, but it makes me a little sad to think that instead of speaking up, there are people on campus who've basically been trained to just keep their mouths shut to avoid serious disagreements.

That's my thought for the day. Thanks for reading it.

Willy's All Time Bail Bonds

I have a problem. This is my confession. For years I've been trying to come up with a secret to send to Postsecret and I can never think of anything more serious than "I don't respect people who don't like trees." But that's not even really a secret. (oooooh, I blew my cover.)

But I've figured out my secret. My addiction. It's called bíromania.

I am absolutely addicted to pens.

I didn't realize it until the other day when Tim said "if you're going to have so many pens, can you at least make sure they work?" Since he went through ten and none of them were functional.

So this evening (because I clearly need to learn how to meditate or go jogging or something) I went through all of my pens and threw away the ones that didn't work. It took more than an hour. I threw away at least 75 pens. And after all that narrowing I still have at least a hundred more (and that's just the ones that aren't nestled in books, purses, drawers or drawing kits all over the house).

What's worse is that I remember where I got almost all of them. I have at least 7 that say "Icthus" on them, which I clearly stole from someone. I have one from "Willy's All Time Bail Bonds." There's a 20 year-old pen with an eraser from the Paonia Food Bank.

One says "Haliburton Employee Bank" on it. Now that's unfortunate.

I realize it's not hard to remember where a pen comes from if it's written on the pen. So what about the one I found at the Blockbuster on Line Avenue? Or the last one from a set of alien pens I bought for high school my senior year? Or the gel pen I bought at the Target in Grand Junction? Or the two pens I took from Tim in Finite Math (MATH 105) Sophomore year?

What's worse, is that now I realize that the first (THE FIRST) thing I do when I go to a hotel is look for the free pen with the hotel name and put it in my purse. That way if I'm staying with someone else they can't have it. And unlike soap, they don't put another pen in your room so you have to make sure to get the only one. I have at least 20 pens that I've taken from the pen cups at various places of employment. I'M THE REASON THE BOOKSTORE NEVER HAS A PEN.
I've always been able to spot a pen that belongs to me from across the room, and I will forceably take pens back if you borrow them from me. I am more than a little suspicious that I see pens that clearly don't belong to me and think they're mine. (How many black bic pens are there on this planet?) But one thing's for sure, I never look at someone else's pen and get all drooly and covetous unless I think the pen was at one point mine. By the way, if I used it once, ever, that means it's mine.

Don't ever, ever lend me a pen.

At least if I died today, no one could ever say I didn't have something to write with. If I've ever stolen a pen from you, I'm sorry. I probably still have it–though you're not getting it back. And if you ever stole a pen from me, I hope you realize the pain and anguish you've caused me.

I probably won't change any time soon. The last time we went to this restaurant in Boulder called "The Sink," the waiter brought the check and a red pen with their angel logo on it. I paused when I picked it up and Tim said, "just take it; I wondered how long it would take you to put it in your purse." That was two years ago and I still have it. Even though it doesn't write.

At least I don't kill people.

This Ship Has More Pirates than Sails

I'm beginning to think that the meaning of life for Human Beings is answering the question "what next?" Or "what now?" Or "What's for lunch?" Or any number of other questions, the general gist of which are "what's the next move I will make in my day/year/life?"

This semester has been so overwhelmingly busy already. This only happens when a) I actually really enjoy the reading assignments from my classes [good] and b) people who are supposed to do simple but meaningful things for the newspaper don't do them [bad]. None of that would be a problem if apathy was one of my stronger skills. Alas it is not, which, greekly speaking means that "pathy" is my curse. Complain, complain.

Actually, I said all that so I could get to a point and I suppose I ought to get there before I forget. I'm excited about 3 (probably more, but definately at least 3) things.

1.) In the past couple of weeks I decided that I'm not going to apply for grad school this semester. The reasoning behind this is solid: I have no idea what I would go for, and unlike undergrad, you can't just check the box after you get there. I don't know where I want to go. I am convinced that the GRE is the absolute antithesis of everything I learned in college about thinking critically. And I'm not excited about it. I'm just not. Well, I wasn't until about three days ago when I figured out what I (think) I want to go for. I would DIE to be able to study Gender for the rest of my life.

Dad, remember when you told everyone you wished I was a lesbian when I was a teenager. Well, I'm still not, sorry. Not even a little bit. Well, maybe a little on Wednesdays. But I do like to study Lesbians and minorities and men and history and society.

And here's the key: GENDER IS THE CONTEXT IN WHICH I THINK ABOUT EVERYTHING ELSE. ALL THE TIME. It's liberating really. Now if only I could find a school that offers Ph.Ds in Gender and not just Women's Studies, and YES, they are very different when you get your hands in the dirt.

2. I'm excited that Tim is Tim. Why? Because never in my life have I NOT been selfish. That is to say, I go where I want to go, when I want to go there, because I can. I love my parents more than sleep (which is major), but I never stayed one place or another just to make them happy. I couldn't. But I've decided that (within reason, sorry, I can't live in Texas or Arkansas) I will go with Tim wherever he decides to go next year. Hopefully we can find a place where I can study Lesbigays (tee hee), er, what I want to study, and he can become the President of Everything. Because even if we're not together forever, I can't imagine not being around him. He's most certainly the best thing since oxygen. And if you saw the sexy nerd books he bought today at the book bazaar, you would understand.

3. I'm excited that Warren Jeffs finally got arrested. I don't think jail will help him, but I hope to God that the fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (not to be confused with normal Mormons) gets a leader who isn't a pathological rapist.

As promised, I'm also excited about something else... Kacie and I have been going to lunch on Fridays (i.e. we did yesterday) and it's awesome to see her again. Screw summer and working all the time. I never thought I'd say that about summer. And I got my bride's maid dress for Kristin's wedding. Huzzah.

School will kill you in your face

School is killing me in my face. Well, not school actually, because I quite like my classes (is Bio 101 enough to justify going to grad-school for biology?), but all the other things that make me busy and tired. The newspaper hasn't even started and it's a CATASTROPHY. Though, I suppose it's still better than it has been.

Anyway, MEXICO PARTY 2006, was even more fantastic than MEXICO PARTY 2004 (not to be confused with the party that occured on the same night at the apartment complex formerly known as the Chi-O mansion, AKA Treasure Cove). We should open a business for people who want to have amazing parties.

If you were there, thanks for coming and being awesome. Thanks for leaving beer and money all over the house, and not breaking anything and not having any drama or getting in any fights.

If you weren't there, I wish you had been. Though, I suppose if you weren't here you didn't break anything in my house and you deserve thanks as well.

Anyway, here's to new TKE pledges, to Mikey for letting us kidnap him, to my roommates who rock me like a hurricane, and to school, for killing me in my face.