So I waited until today to file my taxes. Shame on me. I suppose I have an excuse...one of my doomed romances was an accountant who said he'd do my taxes for me. After the demise of the "relationship," I held out hope until the last possible moment, hoping he'd reappear--not because I was interested anymore (he's the "Shallow Asshole!" from one of my scarier posts), but because I was praying he'd take a gander at my return and find some more deductions. Alas, it was not to be. I forked over the $30 to TurboTax for my state return (bitch all you want about Texas, but at least we don't pay a state income tax!), which cancels out the $22 I was supposed to get back. I know, I'm a liberal, and we're supposed to LOVE taxes so we can do all of that crazy "help the poor, feed the hungry" stuff we're so into. The taxes aren't even what piss me off. It's the paperwork. I'm a slob! It's a lot to ask for me to get together reciepts and W-2s and 1098-Ts and student loan interest statements...and being the bleeding heart I am, I have charitable contributions so I can't do the easy form that takes 10 minutes over the phone. See? I need an accountant boyfriend.
Enough about taxes, there are other causes for excitement today. I found out that Iron & Wine is going to be in Cleveland Heights this weekend, and nevermind the fact that half of my friends are on duty, and the other half either doesn't like concerts or doesn't know who the hell Iron & Wine is. I'm going, even if it's alone! If anybody in the northeast Ohio area is reading this and willing to come with me, let me know--otherwise I'll be the nerdy girl in the back looking out of place amid the sea of shrieking, drunken 18-24 year-olds, many of whom will surely be my residents, thanks to the fact that a nice pretentious article about the show was in our obnoxious campus newspaper yesterday. Maybe I'll wear a disguise.
So, in good news...my ass is getting smaller! Yep, portion control, long walks, and water consumption (paired with paying $12 a week for the humiliation of being weighed in public) are all starting to pay off. Don't worry, the curvy peacegrrl you all know and love certainly isn't going anywhere--I will always adore chocolate and pasta and cake...mmm...and let's face it, I'm not wired to look like Gwenyth Paltrow, and really, who'd want to have all those sharp edges?--but I'm happy to say that there's a bit less of me these days. I am still and always will be a proud member of the Chubby Girl Brigade.
Here comes the weekend...good weather, big plans for sleeping in and doing as little as possible. Off to finish some work so I can actually enjoy it!
-pg
Friday, April 15, 2005
Friday, April 08, 2005
Moments in time
It smells like spring today...the sun is out, the sky is a mind-blowing blue without a cloud in sight. It's Friday and the weekend is stretched out in front of me without too much to clutter it up. It's a nice feeling, knowing there's nothing to do, after six days of running.
Nashville was a good trip. I spent a lot of time (some might say a bit too much time) with coworkers who have become friends...some of the people who have made Ohio my home over the past few weeks. I got all kinds of spiritual fuel from Mitch Albom and Beverly Tatum (and I have a signed copy of this book now...am I cool or what?) and sort of reconnected with what I love about my profession, even though I don't always find it in my job.
The rhythm of my life is a little screwy right now--the pace has been disrupted. I'm trying to settle into a new cadence...rethinking how I treat myself, how I treat the people around me...figuring out how to help my family through hard times when I can't be there every day to give hugs, wipe away tears, listen. It seems like the last three weeks have served as some kind of turning point, and I can't see around the bend. Not to sound uncharacteristically or cheesily optimistic, but I kind of have the feeling that things are going to be okay.
"from lost and not found, to run and not hide
my hand inside your hand
losing my grip, falling so far
my hand inside your hand
I hear your voice and follow
so hard to believe, and still I go"
-joc
Nashville was a good trip. I spent a lot of time (some might say a bit too much time) with coworkers who have become friends...some of the people who have made Ohio my home over the past few weeks. I got all kinds of spiritual fuel from Mitch Albom and Beverly Tatum (and I have a signed copy of this book now...am I cool or what?) and sort of reconnected with what I love about my profession, even though I don't always find it in my job.
The rhythm of my life is a little screwy right now--the pace has been disrupted. I'm trying to settle into a new cadence...rethinking how I treat myself, how I treat the people around me...figuring out how to help my family through hard times when I can't be there every day to give hugs, wipe away tears, listen. It seems like the last three weeks have served as some kind of turning point, and I can't see around the bend. Not to sound uncharacteristically or cheesily optimistic, but I kind of have the feeling that things are going to be okay.
"from lost and not found, to run and not hide
my hand inside your hand
losing my grip, falling so far
my hand inside your hand
I hear your voice and follow
so hard to believe, and still I go"
-joc
Monday, April 04, 2005
Yee Haw!
So I'm blogging from Nashville, standing at a cyber cafe with people crammed on both sides of me, but it's daylight so I don't think anyone is surfing porn. So far the conference I'm at has been pretty cool, although I have yet to actually go to any programs! I did get to hear Mitch Albom speak last night. To tell the truth, I didn't really think it would be anything special--I hadn't read Tuesdays With Morrie, and I imagined it was going to be one of those one-size-fits-all inspirational speeches that a lot of famous authors will spin out when they're in front of some organization that they don't understand. Well, I was pleasantly surprised. Mitch's speech was about the value of relationships, about not wasting time and energy on things we won't be able to take with us, and I guess that gets to the heart of what I do for a living. Why is it that I always have to go to some convention eight hours away to get energized about my job again?
Big news...I talked to The Boy last night. Of course I was a wreck, babbling and doing my best to appear nonchalant, while inside I was shaking. This version of The Boy wasn't the same one I talked to six months ago. This guy was mature, contrite, and very hesitant. I want to believe that he's grown up a little. Or maybe that I've grown up a little. I want to think that we'll meet up for a drink in a few months and be able to reflect on our shared history without regret or silences full of all that we never had the guts to say. The thing about love, though, is that it doesn't get any less intense just because you walk away from it. Or maybe I'm just not ready to be over him.
Whew, that's too much profoundness for eight-thirty am...time to get a caffiene fix and head to the next session. More later...
Big news...I talked to The Boy last night. Of course I was a wreck, babbling and doing my best to appear nonchalant, while inside I was shaking. This version of The Boy wasn't the same one I talked to six months ago. This guy was mature, contrite, and very hesitant. I want to believe that he's grown up a little. Or maybe that I've grown up a little. I want to think that we'll meet up for a drink in a few months and be able to reflect on our shared history without regret or silences full of all that we never had the guts to say. The thing about love, though, is that it doesn't get any less intense just because you walk away from it. Or maybe I'm just not ready to be over him.
Whew, that's too much profoundness for eight-thirty am...time to get a caffiene fix and head to the next session. More later...
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Damn this crazy blogger!
I wrote this great post a few days ago, all about friendship and family and my birthday, yadda yadda, and Blogger ate it. And I don't remember anything that I said. But really, it was good. Trust me. Today I don't have any particularly profound thoughts to pass along. I'm feeling seriously guilty because I had a gnarly stomach thing going on yesterday and couldn't come to work, and tommorow I'm flying to Nashville for a conference, so I only spent a total of maybe 15 hours in the office this week and got little to no work done. Such is life, I guess!
Several events have transpired over the past few weeks...I spent serious quality time with my family, bonded with my friends, got cool stuff in celebration of coming another year closer to age 30, and even joined Weight Watchers so I can start undoing the damage caused by my diet of chocolate mini-donuts, Chipotle burrito bols, and Ben & Jerry's One Sweet Whirled. Wish me luck!
Let's see, what else can I share? My love life continues to be non-existent...I don't even have any good crushes anymore, save for the hopeless one on the guy who barely knows I exist. I don't think I'm mature enough to be in a relationship, anyway. Yesterday I read in a friend's blog that The Boy had been down in Texas around the same time I was, and just the reminder that he's still out there and hanging out with mutual friends, yet doesn't even send me an e-mail once in a while (and why would I even want him to, anyway!) made me all depressed. Bleh. I need to get over it. I have good friends of both the male and female variety, so all that's really missing in my life is intimacy, and I've proven I'm not so hot at that! Besides, nuns survive without it. Spinsterhood can't be that bad.
(The above is, of course, total bullshit. I'm 26, dammit, and I only have maybe 8-10 years of fertility left! Surely there's SOMEBODY out there with whom I'm capable of maintaining an adult relationship! WHERE IS HE???!!!)
Phew. Enough of all that. I'm getting on a plane to Nashville in something like eighteen hours, and I haven't even started packing. In fact, I haven't even unpacked from last week. And I still need to refill a prescription, do two loads of laundry, and bag up some "healthy" snacks in preparation for six days of ass-expanding meals out. AND I'm supposed to go to class tonight. I better haul ass....
Several events have transpired over the past few weeks...I spent serious quality time with my family, bonded with my friends, got cool stuff in celebration of coming another year closer to age 30, and even joined Weight Watchers so I can start undoing the damage caused by my diet of chocolate mini-donuts, Chipotle burrito bols, and Ben & Jerry's One Sweet Whirled. Wish me luck!
Let's see, what else can I share? My love life continues to be non-existent...I don't even have any good crushes anymore, save for the hopeless one on the guy who barely knows I exist. I don't think I'm mature enough to be in a relationship, anyway. Yesterday I read in a friend's blog that The Boy had been down in Texas around the same time I was, and just the reminder that he's still out there and hanging out with mutual friends, yet doesn't even send me an e-mail once in a while (and why would I even want him to, anyway!) made me all depressed. Bleh. I need to get over it. I have good friends of both the male and female variety, so all that's really missing in my life is intimacy, and I've proven I'm not so hot at that! Besides, nuns survive without it. Spinsterhood can't be that bad.
(The above is, of course, total bullshit. I'm 26, dammit, and I only have maybe 8-10 years of fertility left! Surely there's SOMEBODY out there with whom I'm capable of maintaining an adult relationship! WHERE IS HE???!!!)
Phew. Enough of all that. I'm getting on a plane to Nashville in something like eighteen hours, and I haven't even started packing. In fact, I haven't even unpacked from last week. And I still need to refill a prescription, do two loads of laundry, and bag up some "healthy" snacks in preparation for six days of ass-expanding meals out. AND I'm supposed to go to class tonight. I better haul ass....
Friday, March 18, 2005
Exodus
Something beautiful is happening on campus today. Amid the stale-beer smell leftover from last night's festivities, the kids are on the move. Dirty laundry is being carted out, doors are being slammed, cars are illegally parked in front of the buildings. Spring Break is finally here. And it's even a little spring-like outside today, too. I mean, it's not above 45 or anything, but the sun is out, the snow is melting, and you can almost smell April in the air. I've heard that the springs in Ohio totally make up for the winters, and I'm counting on it.
So I spent the morning at a multicultural recruitment/retention conference and picked up all kinds of fun facts....like, did you know that the gap between state support for public institutions and the cost of tuition per year is at an all time high? That the biggest beneficiaries of affirmative action are white women? That the average graduation rate for African-American college students, thanks to lousy campus climates, inferior K-12 preparation, and socioeconomic disparities, are 20% lower than the graduation rates for whites? I hear people yacking all the time about how far we've come, and how there isn't a "diversity problem," it's just an idea that liberals throw around so we have something else to whine about. Forget about the facts, the numbers, that show us that even though more minority students are enrolling in college than ever before, the gap between white and minority attendance just keeps growing. It's easier to just say there's no problem than it is to sit down and try to figure out what to do about it. And how the hell are we supposed to help these students pay for college when we've cut the number of students elegible for pell grants, the Perkins Loan program is about to go out the window, and the governor of my great state has yet again chopped state funding for higher ed. Bleh! It's such an overwhelming problem, and my ranting about it probably isn't going to help much. But we HAVE to make our legislators understand that we can't produce educated Americans when we make it so hard for them to succeed in college! The "American Dream" has a great big brick wall around it for way too much of our population.
Alrighty, I've spent way more time on this post than I was supposed to, but, bonus! I get to escape the office in 20 minutes. Now the plan is to blog at least once from Texas, but remember, the computer is in high demand at the Mama Peacegrrl house, so cut me some slack if I can't do it. A happy week to all, and remember, my birthday is the 28th, so be sure and send some love!
-pg
So I spent the morning at a multicultural recruitment/retention conference and picked up all kinds of fun facts....like, did you know that the gap between state support for public institutions and the cost of tuition per year is at an all time high? That the biggest beneficiaries of affirmative action are white women? That the average graduation rate for African-American college students, thanks to lousy campus climates, inferior K-12 preparation, and socioeconomic disparities, are 20% lower than the graduation rates for whites? I hear people yacking all the time about how far we've come, and how there isn't a "diversity problem," it's just an idea that liberals throw around so we have something else to whine about. Forget about the facts, the numbers, that show us that even though more minority students are enrolling in college than ever before, the gap between white and minority attendance just keeps growing. It's easier to just say there's no problem than it is to sit down and try to figure out what to do about it. And how the hell are we supposed to help these students pay for college when we've cut the number of students elegible for pell grants, the Perkins Loan program is about to go out the window, and the governor of my great state has yet again chopped state funding for higher ed. Bleh! It's such an overwhelming problem, and my ranting about it probably isn't going to help much. But we HAVE to make our legislators understand that we can't produce educated Americans when we make it so hard for them to succeed in college! The "American Dream" has a great big brick wall around it for way too much of our population.
Alrighty, I've spent way more time on this post than I was supposed to, but, bonus! I get to escape the office in 20 minutes. Now the plan is to blog at least once from Texas, but remember, the computer is in high demand at the Mama Peacegrrl house, so cut me some slack if I can't do it. A happy week to all, and remember, my birthday is the 28th, so be sure and send some love!
-pg
Thursday, March 17, 2005
It's all about the green
Something I've discovered about these yanks: they take St. Patrick's Day very seriously. Drinking at 7am, green beer, wierd-ass Irish folk music playing over the speaker in the caf...it's all part of the fun. I'd be a lot more excited about the whole thing if I could really participate, but seriously, how fun is it to embarass yourself at the bar when half of your discipline cases are looking on? Nope, I'll have to enjoy the festivities from afar. I did do some Irish dancing (rather badly, of course) on Tuesday night, so at least I feel like I paid homage in some small way. To be honest, I kind of wish I were Irish. My Irish friends all have great skin and one has the most incredible red hair I've ever seen. And then there's the cool accent, the dance tradition, and, of course, the holiday in observance of all things green. We Italians don't have "St. Luigi's Day" or anything like that where we get to party just because we're Italian. Oh well. At least we've got pasta, DeNiro, and Mafia movies.
Spring Break kicks off this friday, which means I'll be heading back to Texas for quality time with the family. Of course, I'm flying out of Cleveland and I have absolutely no idea how I'm going to get to the airport Monday morning, but I figure that'll take care of itself. What am I most looking forward to about going home (besides the nice normal March weather)? Probably hanging out with my mom. The older I get, the more I realize how much I took the concept of "parents" for granted. Time away from work will be pretty cool, too...a lot of stress around here lately. What is it with this generation of college students that makes them so damn depressed? I've dealt with more suicide attempts, cutters, and ODs this year than ever in my seven years in this crazy field. With all this hype about the Millenial generation and how their parents have nurtured them and spoiled them since birth and how they're supposed to be the hope of the nation, it seems like they're awfully down in the dumps by the time they get to college...
I haven't blogged since last week and there are a lot of things I feel like rambling about...the Gay Marriage debate last Wednesday, for example, when I got to listen to this man twist theology around until it became an instrument of hate. Or the Cleveland Film Festival, where I saw an amazing Bosnian film called Midwinter Night's Dream that I still haven't been able to wrap my mind completely around. And then there's the Blind Date guy, who invited me over on Friday, and we finally broke the eye-contact barrier! I could go off on a rant about how we're entering Year 3 of Iraq-nam, with no end in sight, or talk about Bush's joke of a press conference yesterday, when he managed to get through 45 minutes without answering a single question (what a feat! He should write a book!) But instead I need to read a chapter on Perry's cognitive development theory for class this afternoon, so I'd better conserve every bit of intellectual energy I have for that ordeal.
-pg
Spring Break kicks off this friday, which means I'll be heading back to Texas for quality time with the family. Of course, I'm flying out of Cleveland and I have absolutely no idea how I'm going to get to the airport Monday morning, but I figure that'll take care of itself. What am I most looking forward to about going home (besides the nice normal March weather)? Probably hanging out with my mom. The older I get, the more I realize how much I took the concept of "parents" for granted. Time away from work will be pretty cool, too...a lot of stress around here lately. What is it with this generation of college students that makes them so damn depressed? I've dealt with more suicide attempts, cutters, and ODs this year than ever in my seven years in this crazy field. With all this hype about the Millenial generation and how their parents have nurtured them and spoiled them since birth and how they're supposed to be the hope of the nation, it seems like they're awfully down in the dumps by the time they get to college...
I haven't blogged since last week and there are a lot of things I feel like rambling about...the Gay Marriage debate last Wednesday, for example, when I got to listen to this man twist theology around until it became an instrument of hate. Or the Cleveland Film Festival, where I saw an amazing Bosnian film called Midwinter Night's Dream that I still haven't been able to wrap my mind completely around. And then there's the Blind Date guy, who invited me over on Friday, and we finally broke the eye-contact barrier! I could go off on a rant about how we're entering Year 3 of Iraq-nam, with no end in sight, or talk about Bush's joke of a press conference yesterday, when he managed to get through 45 minutes without answering a single question (what a feat! He should write a book!) But instead I need to read a chapter on Perry's cognitive development theory for class this afternoon, so I'd better conserve every bit of intellectual energy I have for that ordeal.
-pg
Friday, March 11, 2005
A Thought For The Day
So there's a lot to blog about...besides wanting to get to the bottom of this whole Modest Mouse controversy, there's been a lot going on in my world this week. But since I have to run off to a meeting in a few minutes, I think I'll just share some lovely Iron and Wine lyrics. There might not be a great love in my life right now, but I can live vicariously through the tapestry of Sam Beam's genius...
love is a dress that you made
long to hide your knees
love to say this to your face
"i'll love you only"
for your days and excitement
what will you keep for to wear?
someday drawing you different
may i be weaved in your hair?
love and some verses you hear
say what you can't say
love to say this in your ear
"i'll love you that way"
from your changing contentments
what will you keep for to share?
someday drawing you different
may i be weaved in your hair?
-love and some verses
love is a dress that you made
long to hide your knees
love to say this to your face
"i'll love you only"
for your days and excitement
what will you keep for to wear?
someday drawing you different
may i be weaved in your hair?
love and some verses you hear
say what you can't say
love to say this in your ear
"i'll love you that way"
from your changing contentments
what will you keep for to share?
someday drawing you different
may i be weaved in your hair?
-love and some verses
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
