|
Friday, Aug. 15, 2003 / 8:45 p.m. ~They May All Be From Kosovo~ I've been addicted to "The Great Blackout of 2003" coverage. I bought the newspaper at the post office this morning (mailing something to somebody - unh huh), and I've been watching TV since I got home from work. Er, nothing new there, but it's been news, all news, CBS, CNN, ABC, NBC. Mmmmm... Blackouts look fun, to me. Depends, I know, I know. The only one I can remember here was in the Winter of '73, maybe March, hard to remember - we had an ice storm, major, major storm, beautiful, ice covering all the power lines, trees, everything really, and the weight of it pulled the lines down, all the power was out, all over town, suburbs, in town, everywhere, as I recall, and we had no heat, for at least two days. My mother and I huddled in quilts, and she heated canned food in our fondue pot. '73, we had a fondue pot. We had two, in fact. I still have them. The 7-11 'convenience store' stayed open, by candlelight. But it's the human interest stories I love, the people stuck in elevators, the woman who was in labor, and delivered a healthy 7 pound baby, the people being lifted from the subway cars, the people in the cafe drinking, raising their glasses, singing, drunk. I love the people taking care of each other stories, the guy who picked up 40 people in his van, to give them a ride, and the ambulance drivers, the firefighters, the 'average Joes' directing traffic. It makes me all gooey inside. Happy, like I remember times when I've absolutely loved human beings and what we're capable of. Ah, but I think I've had enough of that. I remembered, late in the day, a nightmare I had this morning, 5:00 this morning, and I related it to Jane. It came out, all of a sudden, "Oh, wow, I just remembered, I had this NIGHTMARE last night, or this morning, this guy committed suicide in my bathroom sink, he was all curled up in it, he slit his wrists, there was blood everywhere, and when I woke up from it I had to pee, so I had to carefully get off the bed so no one would grab my ankles from under the bed, and I had to turn on the light in the bathroom, so I wouldn't be scared, and then I couldn't go back to sleep so I lay there, remembering it, going over it point by point, detail by detail, and so it's still really clear... Wait, my phone's ringing, I'll be right back, I KNOW you want to hear about this!!" And so I told her. It's one I won't forget. So bizarre, so detailed, so long, so no way to make sense of it. No way. Nope, I won't write it here, I've already gone over it fully two to three times, suffice to say it was horrific, and puzzling and I still have no idea why my subconsious mind put the events together as played out. My father was in it. He's been dead for years. My Supervisor, end of day, upon receipt of invitation to one other Supervisor's baby shower, asked me, "When are YOU gonna have a baby?", and I, feeling so much animosity toward her lately, since her return to our department, and her obvious quest to regain her seat of power, which was barely hers to begin with, told her, "That's a personal question", and avoided her completely as she laughed it off, and actually apologized. It's something I have no problem talking about, and I have, and I will, and I think of it, and I have so many reasons, but why would I tell her? She means nothing to me. I played with my new PC at work, tweaked my custom colors some more, put up my picture of Gladys as wallpaper, all altered and colored in using MS Paint. It's sort of an Andy Warhol thing, repeated image, but same colors throughout, as 'tiling' does not allow for multiple images... unless... I take it and multiply it in Paint before saving it as a bitmap... I love the Paint program. I think people take it for granted, think it's too old to be good, but it's the lazy person's way to be really creative. I've made some great 'paintings' with it, if I do say so myself. But the Computer Dude came back, more tweaking of his own, god knows what, but more, and he saw the image, said, "You already broke the rules", meaning I'm not to have anything deemed 'personal' on there. I was ready to explode with anger, really, said, "No, I didn't, it was already there" - and later in the day, walking from one side of the Suite to the other, I saw SO many PCs with photos and jpgs, bmps, etc., on the desktops. One, the Supervisor who's having the baby shower, with a giant eagle with American flag waving as her screensaver. Unh huh. Tell ME to follow some 'rules', tell EVERYBODY, baby. I have rested my case. I am prepared with solid evidence if I'm confronted. My Gladys/Warhol background wallpaper stays. Fuck you. Take my Webshots, take my cursors, my icons, JesusFuckingChrist, leave me SOMETHING. As when I found the sound files I hadn't heard before, the applause, clapping, driveby, gunshot, whoosh, etc., and enjoying have a sound card at work, finally, played them all, to my coworkers' delight - Q and Jane, anyway. Kukla and Penelope are not too fond of me, and likewise, I'm sure. Veronica was out, too much stress, or something, who knows - Penelope went around telling Kukla, Q and Jane what was going on with V, but not I. Unh huh, again. Like, WHATEVER. And drag out the "...ER", Valley Girl style. I ate an entire bag of Wise White Cheddar popcorn for dinner, after a Publix Greek Salad. I just really don't feel like cooking lately. I'm up, I'm down, when it comes to stocking up and cooking. But, mystery solved, I finally asked one of the cashiers at the Publix where he is from, as they all seem Slavic, or Baltic, or Eastern European, really, about 99% of the cashiers there, and he said, "Kosovo", but people from Kosovo say it like "Kosova", and I said, "I'm sorry, where?", and he said it again, "Kosovo", and I said, "Wow!", and I was thinking, "Hey, I went to my first antiwar demonstration because of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, I wonder which side you were on, I wonder if you'd want to know the efforts of the antiwar activists here in this country during that crisis, and when did you emigrate?, and how do you like it here?, and why HERE?, and are you all from Kosovo?, because I heard the Cashier Manager speak to you in your native tongue a minute ago, and that was why I asked, and you guys are all so incredibly beautiful, your facial features, your eyes, your accents", but I said only "Wow" and came home. My mind reels lately. And I watch myself when I talk to Jane or Q, watch their reactions to what I say, to my wildly gesticulating hands, try to remember to lick my lips so they don't dry out, to swallow so foam doesn't form as I speak all rapid fire. What is wrong with me? Aha, you'd know what I'm going to say, Moon in my Sign, Aries. As they say, "High Cycle", and I'm supposed to appear really attractive to people right now, but I don't think that part's right. Think I'll check the Live Feed for the Big Brother house, see what's up there, maybe watch a movie. I was going to see an outdoor concert, but I wanted to go with Jane, and she declined to give me an answer - I knew she wouldn't go with me - and I didn't want to go alone, surprisingly enough, think maybe I didn't want to go at all, enough, so it's air conditioning and PC, and popcorn and hanging with the girls, for tonight. And one more thing, hopefully, it's true, since we bombed the hell out of Baghdad, and places nearby, in Iraq, they've been without power, water, gas, oil, etc. Instant Karma is not always instant, but I feel we deserve a bit of what we get. And notice we put all our intelligence and resources and money into... ENTERTAINMENT, not the important things, like energy and medical solutions to human health problems. We have phones that play games and can take and send pictures over the Interweb, but we have third world electric 'grids'. We are so fucked up. Cost of the War in Iraq
(JavaScript Error)
Recent Entries: It Was 40 Years Ago Today - 9:44 a.m. , Friday, Oct. 12, 2012 Dead Black Cat - 9:07 a.m. , Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012 As Seen From Outer Space - 1:07 a.m. , Saturday, Dec. 05, 2009 I Survived to Tell the Tale - 7:29 a.m. , Friday, Sept. 18, 2009 Reading My Life - 12:55 p.m. , Saturday, Sept. 12, 2009 
  |