my mom sent me this e-mail and i hate it:

"Breakfast
1 grapefruit

1 slice whole wheat toast

1 cup skim milk



Lunch

1 small portion lean, steamed chicken

1 cup spinach

1 cup herbal tea

1 Hershey's kiss



Afternoon Tea

1 The rest of the Hershey Kisses in the bag

1 tub of Hagen-Daaz ice cream with chocolate chips



Dinner

4 glasses of wine (red or white)

2 loaves garlic bread

1 family size supreme pizza

3 Snickers Bars


Late Night Snack

1 whole Sarah Lee cheesecake (eaten directly from the
freezer)

Remember: Stressed spelled backward is desserts."


scrolling through this e-mail, i can see who it has been sent to and who it was sent from. women wronged by their ex-husbands, now banding together in their collective hatred for all men.

my biggest fear in life is turning into one of these women. i don't want to hate all men. i don't want to blame them for all of my problems. i don't want to go to plays about menopause and read books about being fat. i don't want to read Oprah's book club suggestions. i don't want to listen to josh groban. i don't want to tape Cathy comics to my refrigerator so that i can read them every morning and think to myself, "so true!" i don't want to make jokes about how chocolate will solve everything. i don't want to tell my daughter that she should be independent but have a man take care of her. i don't want to be one of these women.



i have been making decisions that i know will probably hurt later. i should stop that.

"Did you go trick-or-treating last night?" My grandmother asked.

"Haha, no Grandma, I think I might be a little too old for that now."

"Oh." She looked disappointed, and I feel like I've let her down somehow, that maybe I should pretend I am whatever age she wants me to be. "Are you having a happy life?"

"Um...." Am I? What a big question to be asked so casually.

"One day at a time." She says to me assuredly. "And you will have a happy life."

She's 98, she should know.

In response to a link I sent her for a Hopelink video that I am briefly in:

Lauren,

Very impressive.....maybe you can meet that guy that says he has his own business now!!

Since you appear in the video as a client, if I have any U-tube friends maybe they'll send me some help for you....which I am keeping for myself!! You look very pretty though.

Well, Paul got off to NY this morning....hopefully. As I was driving off, I could see into the terminal and he looked a little confused and he went in one direction and then another....my first inclination was to jump out and help him....and then I thought...No...if he could drive himself to the doctor when he was deathly ill as he says I made him do....then he should be able to figure out Jet Blue at 30 years old!! Although maybe not...Monday I discovered he didn't finish taking out the garbage and stopped half way thru! Last night he's laying on the couch and he goes "oh no, I forgot to shave". So he has to run to the store at midnight to get some shaving stuff.

lately, i just want to dance.

i managed to get free passes to bumbershoot this year and have come to the realization that it's mainly a festival for people from out of town and teenagers.

there were still some good things.

i walked around alone a lot on the second day and for some reason i felt really good about. i tend to feel exceptionally lonely in crowded places where people are often in groups. every once in a while, we get one of those moments where everything feels exactly as it should be and i have never felt better about being along before in my life.

walking in the rain, smiling to myself about small things that made me happy. i feel excited about fall.

i think this will be my soundtrack. atlas sound: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=QU31U9QK

traveling kind of seems like the best and worst thing ever. i can't sit still now.

i didn't get into UW's graduate program.

i feel sort of silly for telling as many people that i did that i was applying because now i have to tell them that i didn't make it.

i did make it in to evergreen but have decided that i do not want to go there. same with seattle u and portland u. i've come to decide that this experience in my life needs to be something bigger and i think that requires going to school out of state. i think my decision to apply to schools only in and around the area was pressured and perhaps indicative of my real indecision about returning to school.

last night, i got into a monumental fight with my mom. one for the record books i think. she's "disappointed" that i didn't get into uw. she's disappointed that i want to go out of state now. she's disappointed that i won't be going to graduate school next year.

my conversation with my mother was full of contradictary expectations of me, and i feel that no matter what i do, i will be disappointing her one way or another. she warns me that "30 will come faster than you think." as if turning 30 is a death sentence. and not having everything figured out before you reach that age will result in complete and total failure.

"you have to marry a man who will make MORE than you."
ugh. i don't ever want to marry someone for any reason other than love. and if that never happens, i will be sad, but i will be ok with it.

"you can go out of state for school, but you're not going to make enough to repay those loans."
i feel like this is a trap to keep me in state.

she expressed her concern that i wasn't going into psychology like she had always wanted me to. she expressed her concern that i won't be wealthy. she dismisses my idea of choosing happiness over wealth with the notion that i am too young to know better.

i suppose that maybe this is true. and i might regret my career when i get older. but i might regret a lot of things. i feel like if i spend too much time worrying about how my fifty year old self will feel about my life decisions i will miss out on the actual experiences.

i've only lived on my own for a year. i love my apartment. i'm proud of my accomplishments in my job. i am in love. living this way for another year while i assure myself of certain things doesn't sound so bad to me.

something about the approaching summer makes me feel optimistic.

Does anyone know of someone who will need a roommate or wants to be my roommate? elena is going to be moving to DC in may for graduate school and that leaves yours truly all alone. My apartment in eastlake is pretty nice/cheap, $520/month for the big room. i'm definitely willing to move somewhere new too. Please let me know if you know of anyone or hear of anything, i'm kind of at a loss right now!


Thanks!

Eventhough our funding is getting cut next year,I wanted to report positive things that are happening at work, so my job doesn't seem so gloomy all the time.

I think I found a pretty safe loophole so that not as many families are being denied because of their previous work history.

The rental assistance program that my manager and I created is working! So far (since mid February) we've prevented 15 families from being evicted from their homes.

sometimes life is pretty good.

i've lost count of how many times this week i've been sworn at, called names, hung up on, threatened. several people intend to report me or my program to the city, to the governor, to our senators. i may be kicked out of washington.

i miss being the person who gives the good news. as the supervisor, i usually only deal with the angry people. the angry people are the only ones who you remember anyway.

i can't blame anyone for being upset, even for taking that out on me, but everything just seems so bleak in the world, it's hard not to get discouraged. the most frustrating thing that i see at work right now is all of the people who have lost their jobs, but because of previous, steady and well-paid employment, don't qualify for any type of financial assistance. you have to be really really poor to get assistance in the first place. the middle class is stuck. most programs require a picture of you income over a period of several months so their previous salary puts them over the top. another great irony is that unemployment usually puts them over-income as well. i know you don't have any income, i know you are behind on your bills, i know you are scared, but come back when have three consecutive months of no income. i would give them everything i could, i wish they knew that.

i've spent the past few weeks helping to create a program that will use federal energy assistance dollars to prevent people from being evicted from their homes, but now worry that it won't really help anyone.

my mom used to tell me that i wasn't tough enough to work in this field, that i couldn't handle denying people and maybe she is right. i've never had to turn this many people away before and usually when i do, i can offer them alternative places to get help. i can't do that now, i don't want to get their hopes up. i truly believe that these families are just down on their luck, need help to get back on their feet, and won't ever need financial assistance again. so for now, i will take the name-calling and the threats and the crying and the frustration because being the recipient of those things is all that i can offer.

stimulate the economy already.

Watch this:



i just saw 13 Most Beautiful: Songs for Andy Warhol's Screentests tonight and it was gorgeous. it was sad, it was poignant, it was beautiful. it's really simple, you watch 13 of warhol's screentests as dean and britta (fomerly of Luna) play songs to go along with each one. i can't seem to wrap my mind around how well each song went with each screentest. all were able to evoke their own distinct feeling.

i've never questioned the role that music plays in creating emotion, but i've also never seen such a blatant manifestation of it either. i know that i wouldn't have felt the same was about footage of nico or dennis hopper or edie sedgewick just staring into the camera had it not been for the music.

it comes out next month, i think i'm going to buy it and have a viewing party.

i can't really believe how many awesome things obama has already started in his short time in the presidency.

i've never really imagined what it would be like to have a president that i truly believed in and now that i've experienced that, i don't see how i could ever go back.

i just submitted my application to UW. one down, three more to go.

now that the Evans School has recently been ranked 14th in the nation, i feel like my chances of getting in have slimmed down a bit. however, the harder i worked on my application, the more i realized how badly i wanted it.

i really resent the personal essay that i had to write. i interpreted the question as "tell us how hard your life has been and how that influences what you want to do". i resent it for several reasons. one: it's none of their business. two: my life has been hard, but nothing that everybody doesn't eventually experience. i just seemed to get it all at a really young age. suddenly i felt that the magnitude of some of my life experiences was diminished. and that upset me. third:i hate the way that this essay attempts to make us look at our pain as a commodity. with every word i typed i wondered how it would be compared to the girl who immigrated from war torn Somolia or the rich, white middle class kid.

i can't help but wonder if i am making the dumbest move possible by leaving my stable job to take out loans and get a piece of paper.

oh, well, i already turned it in.

i wonder if i would be more productive without the internet. this post is a great example. i should be studying for the GRE, which i am terrified of and taking tomorrow. but here i am, another three minutes of procrastination accomplished.

My roomie is selling her iMac for $750 if you or anyone you know is interested. It's only about a year old and in pretty good condition....

today one of my staff called out sick and then called back to tell me he wouldn't be returning. i'm fucked. i was at work for 12 hours today and probably will be for at least the next couple of days.

on top of it all, i've decided to go back to school and my application is due in a month. i can pull it all together, right? i worry that i am going to be in over my head, but i need to feel like i am working towards where i want to be instead of just thinking about where i want to be all the time.

in the simplest, most utopian terms, i want to make a positive impact on the world. in smaller yet still hyperbolic terms, i want to restructure most social services to encourage self-sufficiency. i'm paying my dues now with the position i'm in, but it's difficult to do well at your job when all you can do is think about how you're not helping people in the best way possible and that they will be in the same position in a month.

i just hope i'm happy with what i've done with my life when i'm 80 years old.

The Bush administration is set to announce an expansion of the "right of conscience" rule that would allow all health care workers to refuse to participate in "objectionable procedures," such as abortion or birth control, the Los Angeles Times reports. Current law allows health care workers to decline to perform abortions, but the expanded rule would allow health care workers also to refuse to provide information or counseling about abortion or participate in other "objectionable procedures." A draft of the rule says it would cover even "an employee whose task it is to clean the instruments."


http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=55840

http://www.cnn.com/video/?JSONLINK=/video/world/2008/11/23/lah.jap.monkey.biz.cnn

perhaps the best use of construction paper that i've ever seen.

this work week has felt extremely intense to me.

i think there is a certain amount of intensity that comes with my work, a certain element of personal responsibility and emotional investment. all people that are coming to me are coming because they need help and are having a hard time making it on their own, and i have to figure out how to get them back on track in one particular area of their life.

but this year is different. people are more desperate, their situations more severe, their debts impossibly large. people who have never needed help before are coming in. the real estate agents, contractors, it consultants, massage therapists, anyone who's job does not produce something considered to be a necessity is probably suffering. i can't begin to think about how many people are out there who need help but won't get it, i will slowly start to feel like my job is pointless.

it's indescribable hearing the death of so many dreams and ambitions. the contractor who visits the empty house that he built because all buyers keep backing out for failure to get a loan. the man who pulled himself out of poverty to work at home depot but who's hours have gotten cut back to just 15 a week. the woman who dropped out of college so that she can work 80 hours a week to support her children. there are plenty of freeloaders out there, but these people are trying really hard and they are just getting screwed.

a man came into my office yesterday at about 4:45. no appointment, no paperwork. his utility company had come to his door to shut him off. he begged and pleaded to stay connected because his wife is on a breathing machine. necessary for life, powered by electricity. they gave him 24 hours. he has nothing, and the utility is requiring at least $1300 to stay connected. i called everywhere i could to get the information i needed, i documented papers in the future so that he would appear applicable for programs that have not yet started. i spent hours on this one man's case because i couldn't think of his electricity being turned off, his wife without her life support and me feeling somehow responsible. in the end, i got him more than $1500 and paid off most of his total amount due. when i called him to tell him he said, "ok." and hung up. i kind of wanted to scream at him for seeming so ungrateful. i wanted to yell at him for keeping me awake at night.

when i look at how a lot of people are living, life seems to go from one emergency to the next and while they may have one bill covered for now that just leaves them room to worry about another.

i'm sure not all of this can be attributed to one cause, but it's overwhelming to think how some of this could've been prevented or at least lessened had it not been for the ruthless efforts of a few greedy men.