july 28

weight: 137
bodyfat: ?

kcal: :)
vasa: :)

gym: bleh

write: :)
read: LOTS of Salon.com

last type of cheese consumed: hmm, none. all i ate was indian food today. weird.

i 'mell like: lavendar. strawberries. dove fresh deo.

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i'm blue.

i miss the right coast so much, it's manifesting as extreme fatigue. i know i returned home to rest, to reconnect, to revive...but now? i regret *ever* coming home. in march of 2003, i should've tried harder to stay instead of taking the path of least effort...how different my life would have been. how happy i would've felt to be bang in the middle of the energy and speed i crave.

when you miss something this much, it hurts. when you miss someone as well...you are misery incarnate.

my exalted, adored VAIO is on life support. it almost died yesterday, but today...today the patient awoke from a coma and almost seemed alive-- provided that i not move. any shift in position and the delicate position of the cursed power cord was threatened, and my laptop would be gone. despite this, i managed to eat, drink, and take care of other necessary things...but i spent most of the day frozen to daddy's recliner, furiously checking email and blog templates,

updating fotolog and catching up on things that i let slide last week...i still owe a few of you emails and phone calls. i know, i know. i am a disappointment as a friend and akka.

being online all day means i read a lot, all day. (even as i was getting chills from al sharpton's roof-raiser of a convention speech. my father would've loved it; after all, he's the man who taped jesse jackson's speech back in the 80s and then made me watch it until i could mimic it. daddy lowed him some oratory.)

what did i find? too much good stuff, which is what i named some slightly important part of my new blog aggregator. i had been using kinja sporadically, (that link shows you my "favourites", btw) but i wasn't thrilled w/it. i'd have twelve posts from Om Malik and then several more from each of my "closer" friends...but i'd get exhausted slogging through it and only "see" three blogs.

the whole reason i TRIED kinja was b/c the # of blogs i read daily has exploded, and i wanted to be efficient...somehow, just clicking my low-tech "links" worked better for me...but i haven't given up on telesis. a few blogs kept mentioning bloglines, and when i read a TON about it on kottke, i decided to try it. so far, it's better than kinja, though it was hardly intuitive when i first attempted to set it up. once i figured things out, it's lovely. we'll see if i keep it though. do any of you use bloglines? if so, what do YOU think? how are the rest of you accessing the blogs you love (aka my online empire ;) achtung: my bloglines "favourites" are not by any means complete...i just added the bookmarklet thing, and will be adding blogs daily, so if yours isn't there yet, keep your knickers from bunching, antsy-pants, it means nothing as nasty as "anna doesn't love, respect, reciprocate me".

okay, on to what i read today, that affected me (who made me anil fucking dash?):

Teresa, full of grace

"The pressure she faced has been building over a year that has garnered her a reputation as unpredictable, dangerous, batty, and, as she put it on Tuesday, "opinionated." Heinz Kerry has already shown that she is a broad with a set of brass balls. She has steadfastly refused to shut up, cursed at inappropriate moments, talked about abortion and Botox, voiced her frustrations with a Republican party of which she was a long-time member, pulled little Jack Edwards' thumb out of his mouth in front of cameras, rhapsodized about her heartbreakingly obvious love for her dead husband John Heinz, and been unable to control her habit of looking like a distracted housecat during her husband's stump speeches."

isn't that the most fantastic paragraph alive? i LOVE it. the rest of the article ain't bad either. suddenly i'm feeling a funny feeling in my tummy for teresa (miss kerry, if you're nasty)...could it be...respect? i'm batty too, damnit. i'm sick of the myth of "balanced" achievers. no one who ever accomplished anything DIDN'T have a fucking screw loose. go on wit yer bad self, miss terry. i support your right to be REAL, to live your life as an imperfect, fragile human. i not only support it, i demand and celebrate it. brava.

i think we can blame Paris Hilton for the latest reason i think that current teenagers are brain-free retards (the most resilient reason is tHaT ThEY tYPe LiKe tHiS): tanning. i learned all about it via this article in Salon...during a week when Call Center Jerk-off calls me "dark" as a pejorative, i find it ironic that stupid white teens are killing themselves to look half as "good" as me:

"Selicione denies she's "tanorexic" -- the term for tanners who make daily visits to booths but feel as if they're never tan enough -- but admits she's hooked: "When I say I need to get more tan, my friends say, 'Are you kidding me? You're so dark.'"...Selicione says she prefers the caramel brown color she sports after lying under the lamps. She doesn't care if others think it looks too fake. "It's not orange," she says. "It's so brown -- I look like I'm from Costa Rica."

this gives me the same itchy, unbearable sense of vex that selective abortion does (though obv. on a much tinier scale than that horrifying issue); what are these people thinking??? in india, who's going to marry all those precious little boys who now outnumber little girls? and in amreeka, how much education must you be inundated with to understand that TANNING BEDS KILL YOU, you dumb twats? one girl in the article merely shrugged and said, "i'll get botox" when confronted w/her certain cancerous doom. right, b/c poison that immobilises sweat glands or stops your face from emoting is going to undo your CANCER. i am by NO MEANS fair or even olive skinned...and i got the worst sunburn of my life a few weeks ago. how is microwaving your obtuse ass in a giant melanoma-machine safe, when the sun harms blackened-cajun bitches like ME???? gah!

finally, how many of you know anything about my past? do you know what i did in 2002? for a few, brief, shining moments, i managed a congressional campaign at the tender age of 27. when we lost by a fine wispy hair in the primary, i left for DC, to run the most ungrateful, unreasonable non-profit alive. i don't talk about this experience often, b/c it's such a bitter, bitter memory now...but it was a huge part of my life. it was the most impressive thing i've ever done, and i think that haunts me now, as i look for a job and find myself pleading with someone to let me be an executive assistant when i once lunched with ambassadors and gave interviews to the press.

if i were still a bleeding heart, defender of the meek/non-profit associate, i would've been outraged at the way that Japanese-American activists were treated in Texas as they attempted to rename "Jap Road". originally settled by a japanese family (the Mayumis) who introduced rice farming to the region, the road's name has been protested for almost a decade, and it will now be changed to "Boondocks Road" (resist, resist my minnows...it's too easy.), in honour of a now-shuttered restaurant w/the same name.

"The push to change the name picked up steam after a discrimination complaint last year asking that federal funds to Jefferson County be cut off. Commissioners voted this month that the name had to go.

The 170 Jap Road residents voted on a list of names that included "Mayumi Road," but "Boondocks" won as a write-in.

Wayne Wright, among those assigned to come up with the new name, said many residents could not pronounce "Mayumi" but could easily recall the name of the fried catfish shack, which closed about 10 years ago. "

what made me sputter and hiss was this: some residents wanted to keep the road "Jap" for...are you ready? historical reasons. wow. southeastern texas is *so* evolved, y'all. i remember when i was working with other asian-american orgs in DC, and certain brain-free brown people would be like, "are we really asian?" yes, assholes, we are. but more important than that, what happens to japanese americans can happen to US. it behooves us to stick up for each other, to be allies, to fight each other's worthy battles. i will forever shake my head at the short-sighted bullshit i saw the year i ran the most evil non-profit alive. just like i'll wince at this:

"John Tateishi, executive director of the Japanese American Citizens League, said Boondocks was not a happy choice.

"I'm very disappointed that they have chosen not to recommend a name that will reflect what they were saying all along about wanting to honor this family that lived there on that road. It's unfortunate," he said.

Wright was unapologetic.

"They (Japanese Americans) pounded on us for 11 years. I hope they learned something from it. There's no winners in this," he said. "

indeed.

once upon a time, i cared *too* much. that firebrand-anna still exists, she's the one who abhors Abercrombie and those who blindly, stupidly wear it w/o care for their mission of disrespect and filth...but it's been a while since she was outraged on behalf of others. i'm not saying that "jap road" made me want to *do* something...no. but a long extinguished flame that i've buried deep within flickered, for a rare, ephemeral moment. and i think that is worth recording, examining...

nurturing?

Comments

[karthik]

thank you so much for the bloglines hat tip. This makes my blog tracking so much simpler. and its so easy to add all my favorite websites.

[ranj]

Why do you hate Abercrombie?

[Sunu]

(It only takes one thing to make me comment on anything...This is why I need to get a life.) I've never been a big supporter of Al Sharpton, and I doubt I ever will be, but last night, I found myself standing and applauding in my livingroom during his speech. Of course people are gonna say he was too harsh or whatever, but I was so glad that he confronted Bush's pathetic attempt at garnering African-American support, despite vetoing the NAACP convention four freaking years in a row. When he declared that the black vote "can't be bought," I almost lost my mind. The whole point of me rambling here was just to say that I was very impressed with that speech too. =)

[MonsterMash]

Abercrombie's racist T-shirts:
http://www.geocities.com/tarorg/shirts.html

Good, free blog reader: http://www.sharpreader.net

[MonsterMash]

Awesome video clips from the Democratic Convention's speeches:

http://www.dems2004.org/site/apps/nl/newsletter3.asp?c=luI2LaPYG&b=125919

[Amelie-Freak]

Awwwwwww, AnnaBanana. You will be reunited with your one true love soon enough. Such sweet sorrow, indeed.

My respite from pulled-apart-by-the-seams-blues? Music. And to champion your resilient spirit, here is an *AMAZING* FunSongs track listing, partly inspired by your last few Diary entries:

1. I Touch Myself - Scala Choir (WAYYYY better than the original)
2. Baby - Bebel Gilberto (soft, supple, silly)
3. Whenever, Wherever - Shakira (for you shall travel to the ends of the earth for S.)
4. Not In Love (radio mix) - Enrique Iglesias featuring Kelis (born ready)
5. Milkshake - Kelis ("I can teach you, but I have to charge")
6. She Wants to Move - N.E.R.D. ("She's sexy!!!")
7. Fit But You Know It - The Streets (damn straight)
8. The New Workout Plan - Kanye West (eat your heart out, CCG, Anna's got a hot bod)
9. Work It - Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott (Ba-dunk-a-dunk-dunk)
10. Whip It - Devo (Slay them!)
11. Dancin' With Myself - Billy Idol (For now, anyhow)
12. Karma Chameleon - Culture Club (You are a (wo)man with convictions)
13. Blitzkrieg Bop - The Ramones (Let's go!!!)
14. Welcome to the Jungle - Guns 'N Roses ("I'm gonna watch you bleed!")
15. Love Rollercoaster - Red Hot Chili Peppers ("You give me that funny feeling in my tummy")
16. Bam Thwok! - The Pixies (Wocka, wocka, wocka)
17. Stacy's Mom - Fountains of Wayne (oh, MILF that you are)
18. C'mon C'mon - Von Bondies (yeah!)
19. Peek-A-Boo - Siouxsie and the Banshees (golly jeepers, where DID you get such peepers?)
20. Deceptacon - Le Tigre (time to boogie)
21. Fuck the Pain Away - Peaches (S.I.S., I.U.D.)
22. Get Your Freak On - Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott (self-explanatory)

Now, go. Your inner DJ is waiting.....=)

[andrea]

ooooooh great list amelie .... but change "Whenever wherever" to "Suerte" because songs are always best in their original language... and the words, tho similar, are so much better in Spanish :)