Mecca

www.nationalstationeryshow.com

If you can read this, you're driving too close

How did we go from it being illegal to have stickers in your car window b/c a potential distraction and visibility hinderence to it being okay to outfit cars with televisions and computer ports. When I learned to drive, my AAA driving teacher told us that it was against the law to have any stickers in a car's rear window. I remember cause I remember thinking about all those people driving breaking a law they probably didn't even know about and all those cops letting them off because the cops have real criminals to go after (like the NY Cantor who, with his brother and another guy, molested his nephew -- sickos like that...). Anyway, I'd take a driver distracted by a 2 second read of a bumber or college sticker, than one distracted by talking on the cell, text messaging, watching a movie, checking email, or doing some combination of all.

Have we lost our fucking minds? Cantor, drivers, and all....

I Love Alicia

Ambition is the last refuge of failure...Oscar Wilde, as quoted by Grisom.

I love the internet. I love the people on the internet. I love the stuff you can find out on the internet. I love that people around the world can spot a trend, talk the same talk, and be part of this endless (which is also why I hate the internet) community.

cockeyed.com/citizen/spam/alicia/alicia.html

The Answer is FUCK!

Driving home from Brian's last night, heard a Terry G interview with two folks about FCC crack down on "indecency" in the media. One guy was Louis Wiley, producer of frontline; the other Federal Communications Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, (who was actually quite good and thoughtful and probably was under a different-than-Bush administration -- I'll stream and see...actually he serves now and was an aide to Tom Daschle). Anyway, it was a sickeningly interesting and mind-boggling weird discussion of indecency on the airwaves. So it got me to thinking that maybe all the fuckwads (good think this is the internets and still yet-to-be censored, cause that word'd get me in a lot o' trouble on the airwaves...), who think the key to evil is in language like fuckwads are onto something. I think probably all the kids being shot in Philly and the little girls whose uncle had his head between her legs on the floor of the Liberty Place mensroom and all the people who walked in and out of the bathroom and did nothing while he did it and Jack Abramoff and that FCC guy who was fired for molesting his kid and all those other people who are bad bad bad JUST heard too many curses when they were growing up. Hitler and Stalin were not possessed by Satan, their parents just never washed their mouths out with soap -- or rather Hitler's and Stalin's grandparents never washed H&S's parents' mouth out with soap, so H&S grew up evil.

IT'S SO OBVIOUS!!! DUH!

Forget poverty, injustice, brain tumors, insanity, poor education, violence, Grand Theft Auto...GET RID OF FUCK!!!!

Lookin Forward to His Book

My nomination for Man of the Year and in the category of I wish I knew the whole story behind his tenure...

Letters released from Powell, Rice
Associated Press
LA Daily News
Here are texts, released Thursday, of letters written by former Secretary of State Colin Powell and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on detainee legislation.

Powell's letter:

Dear Senator McCain:

I just returned to town and learned about the debate taking place in Congress to redefine Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. I do not support such a step and believe it would be inconsistent with the McCain amendment on torture, which I supported last year.

I have read the powerful and eloquent letter sent to you by one (of) my distinguished predecessors as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Jack Vessey. I fully endorse in tone and tint his powerful argument. The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism. [Actually, the world has doubted for a while -- since the beginning even -- it's a few idiots and maybe a sprinkling of well-intention slow-pokes who are slow to catch up.] To redefine Common Article 3 would add to those doubts. Furthermore, it would put our own troops at risk.

I am as familiar with "The Armed Forces Officer" as is Jack Vessey. It was written after all the horrors of World War II, and General George C. Marshall, then secretary of defense, used it to tell the world and to remind our soldiers of our moral obligations with respect to those in our custody.

Sincerely,

Colin L. Powell

What Money Would Buy

On the list of the most important things, this is not so high, I suppose. But on the list of my hope for the future, it's high...Someday I'd like open my closet and drawers (which will be much more organized and magazine pretty -- but not MTV cribs-like) to stuff that I liiiike and the body opening the closet will be model-shaped to fit all these fantastical clothes. And Anthropologie won't be owned by neo-conservative so I can shop there too. This might be some of the stuff in there...



From Anthro:



So on that topic, I am reading this:

money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/whatittakes/

Wish I Had Some

I


Like


Oyster


Plates.

Wisdom from Guilty Pleasures

Starbucks is not the only place I get wisdom...



One of my guilty pleasures (Starbucks is too, I guess) is reading the Philadelphia Business Journal. I lurv it. Each week there are all of these great — great in their simplicity — Q&As with Philly CEOs and head honchos. They share their insight, with, I suppose, the purpose of being inspiring to other biz leaders and humanizing these leaders, through questions like: What award/honor are you most proud of? Favorite movie? Best and toughest decision you ever made? What is your yardstick of success? First job? Person most interested in meeting? And my favorite — which makes these surveys just so...just so...Philadelphia? What kind of car do you drive?

Anyway, the following wasn't from one of these CEO Profile surveys but was from another such thing. Here are Raj L. Gupta's (he's CEO of Rohm and Haas) "10 'core beliefs' for leadership:"

The value of the organization and the individual must be totally synchronized

Business is all about people, and people respond best to leaders who lead from both the heart and the mind

Don't take yourself too seriously

Learn from both good and bad experiences

Look for opportunities to get out of your comfort zone

Sometimes lead from the front, sometimes push from the back

Be totally transparent — say what you do and do what you say

Communicate, communicate, communicate — in both good times and bad, especially bad

Be realistically optimistic

Speak up when you have something to say

Details of Today

The details of today:

NO concentration at work. Not one little bit. I halfheartedly did X but it's a mess.

The Food I've eaten hasn't helped much:

-half a bagel
-grande latte
-chocolate chip cookie
-1/4 of a lemon poppy miniature muffin
-bag of Sour Cream & Onion Dirty Potato Chips
-Diet Coke
-1/2 brownie
-piece of roquefort tort that tasted good on first bite and like puke every bit after
-more chocolate chip cookies
-big bowl of fettucine with butter and cheese...mmmmm!
-few spoons of cottage cheese
-kiwi


The lists I've made:
-paint colors for the house
-things to do around the house
-stuff to feed my inner consumer
-trips to take

The station I made on Pandora:

-Jacques Brel (all similars are live): JB, Leonard Cohen, Laura Nyro & La Belle, Nina Simone, Tom Lehrer, Neil Young, Pete Seeger, The Royal Rounders, Marianne Faithful, Ben Folds Five (?????), Nico, Momus, Mahogany, and Owen. Then I shut it off.

The entry I wrote in my journal:

Sometimes I am amazed at my lack of ambition. Is it:
1. laziness
2. insecurity
3. not a value of mine to be ambitious about work

I might be the most boring person I know.

A woman outside my window is making arrangements to meet someone and she said "Well, right now I'm in little Italy." Right now, she's about 3 blocks from the Italian Market but she's not in Little Italy.

Anna Nicole Smith's son found dead. Sad.

Zoe Strauss rocks!

For Big Ones

When is Salvor going to come out with a line of tees for grown ups? I want them all.

Summer's over so time to love fall and fall in love

But I do miss those summer times and things that I love:

The park. There was just not enough time with Neph. No beach. The park once. No pool. No sleepover.

Iced latte. Never the same when it's not summer or spring.

The Ocean or a pool. I wore my bathing exactly twice. Once in Rehoboth, where I got at least an hour in the Ocean, followed by at least an hour of pain from the stings of Jellyfish lice. Yeah baby...Once at the pool at the gym for half an hour of time with Alison. JUST NOT ENOUGH.

Pine Street. Not there once when the air conditioner was on. I miss 4XXX PS.

Jake and Harry. I love when they sprawl out on the hardwood floors. Harry especially. When I wake up in the middle of the night, makes me O-So-Happy to see him spread out staying cool.

Made from Trees

I rarely put pen to paper -- in fact, Brian just saw my handwriting for the first time a year plus a few days after meeting me -- except at work or in birthday and holiday cards. My lust for paper is disproportionate to the amount I use it. Cards, stationery, wrapping, ephemera, boxes...the internets makes it possible to lust after and buy pulpy stuff from all over.

Like theses...

Egg Press
Mocchi Mocchi
Sesame Letterpress
Lovely prints and fabulous typography...swoon.
Wallpaper I never knew I needed but now DO.

And they all have such puurty names.


Oh yeah, also, and by the way, once upon a time I found an old typewriter with illustrations of animals on the keys instead of letters -- apparently some way to making kids learn keys. I want one. That's where I saw it. Online. The internets. http://typewriter.rydia.net/animalcorona.JPG

Making Lists/Managing Anxiety

Most of the time making lists does nothing for me but increase anxiety. But obsessive list making is still better than getting up off my ass and doing the action items on the list. And when there's not money for stuff on the list, at least I can feel closer to buying by putting the intention to on paper. So here's a list for the fall:

-organize and paint office (shelves, hang stuff on walls, fix hole in the wall, paint, etc.

-figure out screen/desktop situation with the mac. Need a larger screen for sure.

-get photoshop

-get new camera

-get speakers for IPod

-start knitting Neph's teddy bear

-get screen door

-fix roof

-pitch 2 stories

Big and Chunky

My mother's chocolate cookies rock! They're delicious just from the oven, more delicious after sitting for a few hours, and most outrageously delicious a day or two later. Also good frozen!

Big bumpy lumpy circles of oatmeal, chocolate chips, brown sugar, butter, flour, white sugar, etc., they are chewy but not too so. Sometimes they crisp around the edges and are crunchier, yet no less fan-friggin-tastic. Probably a diameter of four inches, maybe more?

I think my record is 5 in one sitting.

I just had half of a two day old one and canNOT say enough.

I love my mom for many many reasons and these are one.