dyanamaria.com

I am seriously so stoked for Mr. Ben Hays because a) he is awesome, b) he is hilarious and c) he is fracking talented. In any case, the most recent video from the brilliant minds of Ben & Ryan is this:

...and while I know it's the internetz and they're going to have to line up after the star wars boy, the crying screaming Brittney kid, and the 3 year old talking about monsters to get their internetz dollars, this is somehow already bigger than that.

See, these guys actually wrote something, thought it out and put it on the internet. The funniest youtube videos are not scripted - they're a 50 second glimpse of someone doing something stupid or outrageous and then it goes viral. 90% of all scripted youtube videos are not funny. 95% of them are not smart. They happened to do both and I'm so stoked for them because seriously with the skill those guys have it's just the beginning of everything they were going for. Fricking Joe Rogan sent them an e-mail telling them it was the funniest thing he's seen all year!

Brilliant. Congrats Ben - you rule... I'm so excited for you (even though you're a Mac fanboy and I haven't seen you in person since sometime in 2003... but seriously... Ben and Ryan...awesome show, great job.)

ARG!

I am stressed out right now and I need a little venting room. The seatbelt in my old faithful 1987 Benz got stuck in my driver's side door and now the door won't open or shut all the way. It's stuck in limbo.

I heard it first and turned around and saw that it wasn't shut - no biggie, I just have to pull it open, right? I pull. Nada. I lean back on the handle with all my weight... nothing. I get into a squat position and pull with all my force - not a budge.

I realize now that I'm going to be late for work even though I'm already in my office parking lot... but I can't just let it be. I run around to the passenger side, crawl in and try to open the door that way. Nothing. I pull the handle and lean all my bodyweight against the door, nothing. I lay down putting my feet on the door and basically bench pressing with all my strength, causing the paneling on the inside of my car to creak and sound like it was going to snap. Nothing.

I figure maybe brute force isn't the trick. I try to wedge the seatbelt out of the latch delicately. It doesn't move. I try to wedge the seatbelt out of the latch with all my strength... it wiggles... I think. Maybe it was just my imagination.

I start to get emotionally unstable. The thought of having to cut the seatbelt out quickly turns into the horror of having to use the jaws of life to remove the door on my beloved car. Then I realize more realistically that I can't drive my car in this state. I have no functioning seatbelt and my door is technically open. My car will buzz (my car buzzes, not dings, when the seatbelt is not latched and a door is open) while I drive. This is not going to work.

Anyway... I go into the office. Mike suggests asking a co-worker for help, but I'm too frazzled, embarrassed and emotional to talk to anyone... besides I'm not going to ask my boss to come downstairs and help me with something that will invariably make us both look stupid in the process or cause some inadvertent damage to my car (for which I will hold a secret grudge), other cars or their body... too much at risk.

So my brother - the hero - is coming down during his lunch break to help me. If we cause damage to the car, it will not make me as sad as if I had imagined some random person had carelessly damaged my car. We've already seen eachother looking stupid and he has an understanding of the 80's era Mercedes. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we'll be able to work it out.

The next step would be AAA I guess.

Almost any other day of the year, you know what would have been step one? Call my dad. He's in Iceland this month and won't be back for another week. He would have been at my office fixing my car as we speak. Ugh. I need to take mechanic classes.

MASH

Marcie did it - so I did it! Looks totally possible to me and we all know that MASH always has accurate fortune telling capabilities. (scroll down - I don't know why it's half way down the page.)



		I will marry Mikey.
		After a wild honeymoon, We will settle down in Tokyo in our fabulous Apartment.
		We will have 6 kid(s) together.
		Our family will zoom around in a Bodacious Blue Teleportation Machine.
		I will spend my days as a Superhero with telekenisis, and live happily ever after.

Ethical Omnivore

Morgan Spurlock has a show on FX called "30 Days." It's essentially a modified "Wife-Swap" which puts a person with a certain set of opinions into another person's shoes for 30 Days. It's an interesting show and unlike "Wife-Swap" the people on the show are usually intelligent and friendly on both ends of the spectrum. Episodes have included things like: living on minimum wage, living as an illegal immigrant, living in a wheelchair, working in a coal mine, etc. More often than not, people don't really pull a 180 and change their minds, but find that the middle-of-the-road approach has some real value. Last night, the episode placed a deer hunting carnivore from the Midwest into the home of a vegan family in LA for 30 days where he would participate in PETA protests, work at an animal sanctuary and lead a vegan life.

Now, I have some serious issues with PETA. I think they employ and condone a number of extremist tactics which are violent, derogatory to women and offensive to victims and survivors of crimes against humanity. They also have a stance on pet-ownership which I (obviously) strongly disagree with and a stance on breed-specific legislation which I think is ridiculous (considering that they consider humans to be species-discriminatory, why is it ok to be breed-discriminatory?) and some wingnuts have a twisted idea of "humane" when it comes to the plight of shelters(http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/535593.html) In any case, my support is thrown behind other animal-rights groups and not PETA.

So, when they said they were throwing this meat-loving, dear-hunting, Jim-Bob into a family of PETA activists, I was none too thrilled. They started off by showing him the standard PETA fare - Meet your Meat - which documented in video the horrors and atrocities of animal farming. Chickens crammed into tiny boxes with their beaks ripped off, men slamming chickens down into boxes as if they were rag dolls. Then video of animals being skinned alive, cats with electric paneling surgically installed into their heads... terrible stuff ....and like the Jim-Bob said, a lot of it was so horrible it looked fake (although I doubt it was.)

They go through 30 days, and our protagonist participates in ridiculous protests where nothing of significance is really accomplished other than shock and awe. He is frustrated and annoyed (as I would be) with the pointlessness of the protests. He works at a farm animal rescue and continues to look at these animals as food - nothing has changed.

Well, the change happens when he is taken out to Ontario, CA and is given a tour of one of the many dairy and beef farms in our area and we all see just how real and awful the circumstances are right then and there. The set isn't staged, everything is filmed by the 30 Days camera crew looking through the metal fences. Dead calves rotting next to a pen of dairy cows, or dumped on the side of the road covered in flies, or half alive, anemic and left to starve to death in a field. We see the ranch hands pulling young calves out of their pens, violently yanking them by their tails and legs to toss into the back of a truck as the calves desperately fight to escape them. I couldn't help but cry.

I don't have a problem with eating meat. I had at one time or another tried to be vegetarian (unsuccessfully) or pescetarian (unsuccessfully) and I own a number of vegan and veggie cookbooks with yummy recipes, but I think it boiled down to the fact that my issue was not with eating animals. I believe we are part of the circle of life and while everyone is free to make their dietary decisions, I don't have an issue with actually eating another animal. I have an issue with the unnecessary suffering and treatment of these animals for cheap, mass produced, wasteful food in the name of corporate gain. I am not naive, I know what happens in a slaughterhouse (I went to one when I was young - actually one of the most traumatizing experiences of my life) but I also know that what farmers and indigenous people around the world do and have done for centuries is not at all the same as what these mass-production farms do.

So what am I supposed to do? I've come to believe that being vegetarian or vegan doesn't really impact the meat industry . Vegans and vegetarians are not consumers of meat products and the meat industry isn't interested in pleasing non-consumers. It's the meat-eaters that can actually force change.

There's a rising number of people who consider themselves "Ethical Omnivores." I'm adding my name to that list. This means that I will only eat animal products which are certified as having been raised humanely. I'm not ok with the suffering and I can't pretend that the meat I'm eating at Burger King was not just like one of those poor animals who had it's tail pulled from it's spine as they were trying to launch it up into a pick up truck. I just can't do it.

There are a number of organizations that have strict guidelines as to what humane farming entails and a listing of the products you can purchase that are approved:
http://www.animalwelfareapproved.org/
http://www.americanhumane.org/site/PageServer?pagename=pa_farm_animals_ff_producers
http://www.certifiedhumane.com/links.html#producers

And as a matter of fact, Whole Foods supermarkets have their own set of guidelines for all animal products they carry which enable the shopper to pick out any product with confidence that the animal was raised and slaughtered humanely. http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/products/meat-poultry/qs_programrequirements.html

It makes going out to eat more difficult - but not impossible - I'll be more of a veg in public unless a restaurant indicates that it's animal products are local, organic and humanely raised. This helps: http://www.eatwellguide.org/i.php?id=Home

The goal is to make ethical farming profitable to force the abusive farm to change their methods and stop abuse and suffering. No one wants an animal to suffer, so why do we support the suffering by pretending it doesn't happen as we scarf down our $0.99 cheeseburger made from 100% mutilated and abused cow. In-N-Out dropped it's contract with it's beef supplier when it discovered animal abuse (which by the way, farm animals are exempt from most animal-abuse legislation) and has set up a policy to only use humanely treated meat products. Chipotle also has humane-animal policy (although there is some controversy surrounding it's Chicken supplier)

Anyway, the point is that change can happen... it's not that hard. For more info or further reading on eating meat with a conscience:
http://humanecalifornia.org/ (info about legislation to change the laws in CA)
http://www.tigersandstrawberries.com/ (chef's blog about with some very interesting posts on getting back in touch with our food - humanely)

Hunting for Healthcare

Ive been on a quest for about the last 3 months to find a new doctor. Ive had HMO health insurance for the majority of my life and continued to see my HMO doctor even after switching to a PPO health plan. My job provides me with great insurance benefits so I am no longer limited to the practices of an HMO where I sat in the waiting room for an hour, spent 20 minutes in the office waiting, and then have the doctor come in for 15 minutes for a chat, diagnosis and prescription drug.

Im lucky to never have had any very serious illnesses - but to be honest with the experience Ive had with doctors its not as if I would know. The last time I went to the doctor, I went because I wanted to make sure my heart was healthy. My dad is thin, never smoked, doesnt drink and had to have emergency sextuplet bypass heart surgery when he was in his early 50s.

The doctors had no idea that all six of his arteries were blocked and that he was on the verge of a fatal heart attack. He went in with chest pains and my mom had to be very persistent to finally get the doctor to check him into the hospital for heart trouble. When my dad was in surgery, a nurse met with my brother and I to discuss what this meant for the two of us. She looked at us - both at a good weight, non smoking - and basically told us, "youre screwed."

Genetics were the primary contributing factor to my dads heart disease and she told us that most likely we would both have the same sort of troubles.

Nice. In any case, I went to the doctor a few years after that and explained my familys medical history and that I just wanted to be sure that I was ok. Heres a rough transcription of how my appointment went after that point:

Doctor: Youre young, youre thin, you dont smoke and you dont drink regularly. Plus youre a woman so your estrogen keeps you at lower risk for heart disease. Have you had any symptoms that you feel concerned about?
Me: No not really, but I just want to be sure before its too late.
Doctor: Ok, well I wouldnt worry about it too much. (as she checks my vitals.) You could probably exercise more but everyone should.
Me: Well, can I get a blood test?
Doctor: Sure (she scribbles on a notepad)
Me: I dont know anything about what to ask for, but can you make sure it has all that comprehensive stuff, you know cholesterol and everything?
Doctor: Yes - just take this to the 4th floor and theyll take care of you. If anything abnormal shows up then we can go from there.
Me: Uh, ok. Thanks.
Doctor: Anything else?
Me: No. I guess not.

Total time with the doctor - 15 minutes. Total time in the building, waiting for the appointment and waiting to get my blood drawn? 2 hours. Results came back, mostly normal except I was 1 point away from having "high cholesterol" at 24 weighing 127 lbs. I recieved the results in the mail and interpreted them myself based on the notes scribbled on there from the testing clinic. I called the doctors office, waited to talk to a nurse who got on the phone with me and said, "everything is fine, watch your cholesterol" and hung up.

My experience with my old HMO doctor prior to this one was worse. My mom asked him to run some tests for something she thought I might be having issues with. He looked at me and said how are you feeling. I responded "fine." (I was feeling fine.) He looked at my mom and said "if its not broken, dont fix it." Sure, at the time I didnt want to be poked and prodded so I welcomed his response, but now that Im older, I can understand how frustrating this must have been for my mom.

Anyway, I had had enough and I begun trying to find information for a new doctor with my fancy non-HMO insurance. The most I used my PPO for was to go to the walk-in clinic near my home for treatment any time I had a minor issue and was basically experiencing the same treatment without having to drive to Orange to see my primary care physician. 20 minutes in the office waiting, 15 minute chat with the doc, diagnosis and prescription drug. Wham bam, thank you maam.

I basically have 4 criteria for my new doctor - listed in order of importance:
1) Female, MD
2) None of this 15-minute-per-patient rush
3) Supports preventative treatment and minimal use of pharmaceuticals
4) Takes my insurance.

I was convinced that a PPO would give me limitless choices in the world of medicine. I had already enjoyed the benefits of a PPO for dental work and I could never turn back (as I have a totally insane phobia of dentists and their sharp metal torture devices and now I can get laser work instead!) I assumed finding a new and awesome doctor would be as easy as 1-800-Doctor.

No. This is not the case with Doctors. I can get 80 user reviews on a Pizza Hut pizza, but I cant get any feedback on a single doctor from my "In-Network" list of care providers anywhere on the web.

All I have is a name, an address and a couple hundred online offers to send me a report of any malpractice lawsuits against my doctor for a "nominal" fee.

None of the doctors on my In-Network list in Orange County are board certified and worse than that, half the time I cant tell if Chao-Ming, Dana, Arfa, Jo and Kea are male or female first names.

I dont think the "Institute of Progressive Medicine" takes our insurance. Its a place that I found that meets all of my criteria except for number 4. Theres a female MD on staff. These doctors say they spend between 1 and 2 hours with the patient on their first appointment to test and assess. They specialize in prevention and avoid overuse of antibiotics and other loosely prescribed pharma (although they clearly state that there is a need for those medications when used and prescribed correctly.)This is exactly what I had been looking for! And in order to get it, Id have to pay out of pocket.

I found an article in the Register talking about how a lot of higher end doctors are pissed off about watching necessary treatments for their patients be denied by insurance, or not getting paid for services by insurance companies so theyve begun to drop private insurance companies and only accept cash payments. They provide billing information to the patient so that the patient can go through the hassle of collecting reimbursement funds from their insurance for applicable out of network costs, but they no longer have to go after the funds themselves and loose out on money theyre owed. Anyway, one of the owners of the Institute of Progressive Medicine was quoted as having dropped their last PPO in September of 2007 because of billing and collecting issues.

It sucks for us as patients and it sucks for the doctors. I guess thats the whole problem with these stupid insurance companies anyway. You cant live with them and you cant live without them (as of right now.)

Anyway - perhaps some of you know a fantastic doctor that happens to meet all my criteria and works out of the Orange County area. It would be a million times more awesome if she were in the Newport/Costa Mesa/Irvine areas. And a billion times more awesome if she served nachos in her lobby.

I'm sure you're all wondering why I've seemed so distant from the blogging world lately. It's true - I've been somewhat uninspired by the typical meaningless bloggy blog things and when I write blogs about the world or politics, most people either don't care or are bored. That's fine. I take my political rants home and vent them there (and there's a new book out called "Free Lunch" that I'm reading and makes my head spin with all the things I need to be pissed off about... but I digress...)

The reason I haven't been faithfully blogging recently is because I'm an addict. Yes. They tried to make me go to rehab and I said, um, no thanks. I watch Celebrity Rehab, and maybe I should be in there... only I'm not addicted to drugs or alcohol - I'm addicted to Yahoo Puzzle Games.

The games are simple, repetitive, silly - but right now nothing satisfies me more than clearing a set of gems or helping a set of missionaries and cannibals cross the stream. I can't help it. All I want to do is match sea shells and release new fish into the internet's ocean, attach vines and clear the way for the monkeys, finish a tangram made of sparkly jewels.

At first it was just my old standby game, Alchemy - I played whenever I had time to spare... I got good... I started saving my high scores onto a word document so I could beat my own high scores. It rarely happened, but when it did I felt like I had just won the Olympic Gold Medal of Awesomeness.

Turns out Alchemy was a gateway drug. After a few weeks, Alchemy just wasn't cutting it for me anymore. I stopped caring if I was able to match double lines using only one symbol. I needed more. I began experimenting with anything I could get my hands on. Soon I was playing Bejeweled 2, and Ball Lines. Yahoo offered me a long list of puzzle games and since they knew I'd probably be a broke addict, they continued to offer me a variety of games for free that would peek my interest, but leave me drooling for more (what they maybe didn't anticipate is that I'm also a cheap addict... so no matter how awesome the game is, I'll never pay $19.99 for the full version... if I beat the web version, it means I beat the game... next...) And then I met... Big Kahuna .

Big Kahuna started out like any other matching game - you matched at least three in a row, diagonal or vertical and the spots cleared. Big Kahuna was set in the ocean, with a tiki and every time you cleared you released a new fish. Whatever - I didn't care, another matching game I needed to plow through and beat. Levels one through 5 were child's play. I beat each level in under a minute.

Level 6.

Level 6 took all three of my renewable puzzle game lives. It was impossible. I spent 3 days working on Big Kahuna level 6 until I finally beat it once. Convinced that it must have been pure luck that I beat it I tried again. It took me another 2 days to beat level 6 again - and when I did, I just barely beat the clock. I've beat it twice now - level 7, 8 and 9 are easy as pie... but level 6 wants to just punch you in the spleen.

So like any good addict, I'm going to try and push my addiction onto you - my friends - so I don't have to be addicted alone. Obviously I reccomend Big Kahuna... but there are others.

These games seem really simple but will bug the shit out of you unless you figure it out on the first two tries. Once you solve them, you'll have no desire to play again - but the high you get when you want to punch your computer monitor for showing you such a frustrating puzzle is worth it: Missionaries and Cannibals and Arrows

Cubis 2 is a variation on your basic match and clear games, like Bejeweled2 and Ball Lines.. fun - and the crunch blocks are so fun to smoosh.

Puzzle Inlay is a giant tangram - something soothing about fitting pieces together... and you'll need something soothing if you try and play String Avoider 2 which might be one of the most addicting and frustrating games to date.

Anyway, that is all for now. I must continue my exploration for new and exciting puzzle games. I may or may not return. Remember me always - not as the girl who was addicted to puzzle games, but as the girl who loved nachos and other things too.

Happy Christmas

Happy Christmas!

John Lennon sang it and I suppose it has been my Christmas wish since I was in the 4th grade.

I remember our teacher, Ms. Newland, telling us that the US was at war in the Persian Gulf. She showed us the day's newspaper and my stomach fell to the floor - "current events" was a new subject in class and this was a pretty big current event. I was confused and scared. Our teacher told us not to worry because the war wouldn't come to our shores. I had read about WWII and Vietnam in our 4th grade US history book, and our teacher assured us, those wars were a very long time ago and we won anyway (understandably, there was no need to discuss the complications of the reality of war with 4th graders... or to bring up the more recent conflicts in Grenada, Beirut or the invasion of Panama.) I asked permission to go to the restroom.

In my young 9 year old misunderstanding of our history book, I thought the Statue of Liberty meant that we never had to fight a war again. I looked at myself in the mirror of the restroom. I was wearing a light blue uniform shirt and shorts - my hair was in a ponytail.

I stood there and stared blankly at myself for about 5 minutes.

"I never thought there would be war in my time."

I don't know why I said it aloud or why I phrased it that way in particular. Probably because it's what the kids on TV would do and probably how they would have said it if they were ever forced to deal with such subject matter on Full House.

I remember my world crumbling a little that day. I was 9 years old happily sheltered in Orange County believing that war was something old people remembered. From that day forward the world was not quite the same. Every time I blew my candles out on my birthday or saw a star fall, or saw 11:11 on the clock, I asked for the typical kid things, and always tacked on "but most importantly I wish for world peace."

Silly I guess, but I still wish for it whenever I get a chance.

Happy Christmas
John Lennon

Happy Christmas Yoko.
Happy Christmas John.

So this is Christmas,
And what have you done?
Another year over,
And a new one just begun.

And so this is Christmas,
I hope you have fun,
The near and the dear one,
The old and the young.

A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year!
Let's hope it's a good one,
Without any fear.

And so this is Christmas,
War is over
For weak and for strong,
If you want it
For rich and the poor ones,
War is over
The world is so wrong.
Now...

And so happy Christmas,
War is over
For black and for white,
If you want it
For yellow and red ones,
War is over,
Let's stop all the fight.
Now...

A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year!
Let's hope it's a good one,
Without any fear.

And so this is Christmas
War is over
And what have we done?
If you want it
Another year over,
War is over,
And a new one just begun.
Now...

And so happy Christmas
War is over
I hope you have fun
If you want it
The near and the dear one
War is over,
The old and the young.
Now...

A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear

War is over,
If you want it,
War is over,
Now...

WWMD (What Would Mulder Do?)

"Radio has no future. Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. X-rays will prove to be a hoax." -William Thomson, Lord Kelvin English scientist, 1899.

The X-Files movie is slated for release sometime in 2008 (hopefully.)

I love the X-Files. I have no idea how many times I've watched all the episodes, but I have all 9 seasons on DVD and the Mythology set... and I've watched them all in consecutive order, then in the order of my favorite episodes (numero uno being the episode that Chris Carter based on his visit to the city of Irvine - "Arcadia" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GixZdibeyJ4 where a disgusting garbage monster kills people for not obeying the HOA covenants, codes and regulations) then in order of my favorite monsters, etc. etc. etc. I love the X-Files.

I was reading about all the hype around Dennis Kucinich saying he saw a UFO. I didn't think it was too strange myself - after all, both Jimmy Carter and Ronald Regan claimed to have seen a UFO while they were governors of their states. I suppose those were different times though.

I remembered listening to Kevin and Bean and hearing an interview with Buzz Aldrin. He described his venture into outer space for Apollo 11 with Armstrong and Collins and their near-UFO experience. Here's a You Tube video with him describing the same thing:

There's a whole buttload of other NASA Astronauts who say they've had interaction with UFOs or have seen them while on missions into outer space (a superficial Google search revealed at least these: Cady Coleman NASA transmission shuttle mission STS-73; Astronaut Dr. Brian O'Leary; Charles J. Camarda Ph.D. NASA Astronaut; NASA's Scott Carpenter.) So the people who work in outer space are saying that there are unidentified flying objects in outer space which our intelligence agencies can not explain as spy vehicles from any earthly country - how can one laugh at anyone who says "I think I've seen a UFO?"

England has a department that is dedicated to the investigation of UFO sightings. When investigations began 80% of those sightings were easily explained away as a mis-sighting (weather balloon, traffic lights, aircraft, etc.) 15% lacked enough information to investigate appropriately and 5% of the information had complete and reliable information (multiple unrelated witnesses, radar, RAF pilot testimonies, etc.), yet still was totally unexplainable. Unidentifiable. Object. Flying.

I understand that for all governments that these issues are matters of national security - they have to do their investigation in secrecy assuming that it could always possibly be a result of some foreign nation with incredible skills that we had no idea existed... but if that's not the case, I wonder if the governments would come out and say, yes, officially there is some sort of unidentified flying technology and we're trying to figure it out.

In the X-Files they don't tell anyone because at first they claim it would cause mass panic - in the end, it's really because a sect of these mean aliens are trying to colonize our planet and have made a deal with an organization of elite men to save their asses by not being infected with the virus that will turn them into psycho ass aliens... but their asses would only be saved if they didn't tell anyone. Mulder finds out, kicks ass, ends up in a motel room with Scully awaiting the end. Also, there was some stuff with the Mayans and you know the origin of our species being alien and crap. All awesome.

Anyway, there's an episode where Cigarette Smoking Man and another head FBI official (who technically doesn't "exist") have been told that they have captured a live alien and have to make the decision to kill it or let Agent Mulder know. They kill the alien. I hope we're not killing aliens now too.

Harry and David...or... How I Wish it was Raining Cheese

I never knew what Harry and David was until I started working in an office. It's the office gift basket of choice so a few years ago when gift catalogues started pouring in at the holidays and my office bigwigs mulled over the Harry and David options, I thought this was another sure sign of the apocalypse. It was $29.95 for 4 apples and 4 pears! That's $3.75 per fruit not including shipping! How could anyone pay that much for a fruit? I could just swing by the whole foods market and bring a bushel back for the same price, we'll throw it in a basket and be on with it.

That is until I tried it myself.

Our company gets a big H&D basket every year from one of our clients. My bigwigs - being great bosses - set it out in the kitchen to be shared. The first year was a basket of "Royal Riviera" pears and nuts. I don't eat nuts, and I don't like pears, but I have a hard time turning down free snack food so I grabbed a pear and headed back to my desk.

Holy balls, these must have been the pears that the good Lord Himself planted in the Garden of Eden. The skin was thin, delicate and just a tad tart. The fruit was smooth and dripping with this amazing syrupy juice - it was so soft you could scoop it out with a spoon. I had never smelled a pear that once split had an aroma that I would like to rub all over my body. THIS must be what a pear was intended to be!!! Organic! Alive! It was heaven.

I ran back to the kitchen (being the glutton I am) to grab maybe one or two more (you know, for the road...) but they were gone by the time I got there.

I eagerly awaited the next year. Oh, for one bite of that pear - I had spent the year surfing their website looking at their gorgeous pears and telling myself over and over again that I could not justify spending that much for a simple pear. I'd go to the store, buy a pear only to eat half of it. Despite this, I did well. I didn't buy a thing from Harry and David's website.

Christmas time came again and the big Harry and David's basket found itself sitting in the kitchen. I must have a friends in high places because I was the first one to discover it sitting there all alone in it's virgin state and I was there to pillage! This time it had a variety of treats - pears, apples, chocolates, nuts... and CHEESE.

My heart pounded.

How am I going to carry this all to my desk without looking suspicious? I heard footsteps and talking coming towards the office kitchen.

I can't take one of each back to my desk to hoard like a chubby chipmunk for the winter! Oh god... not enough time...

Too late.

They turned the corner and gabbed away as they perused the selection. I was already holding an apple... I couldn't grab a pear now... but I can't just leave with only a regular old apple! I want an apple and a pear... and chocolate... and CHEESE. The cheese. I could take the cheese.

I grabbed the first block of Cheddar Cheese I could reach and opened it up and began slicing it (you know... to be "helpful" and stuff...) One of my co-workers eyed the cheese I was slicing - mentioned something about how she couldn't wait to try it - I don't know what she said... my head was spinning. I sliced up the whole block.

I took 3 slices and put them on my mini-plate next to my apple. My co-workers turned their attention to the coffee machines... I quickly grabbed at least 4 more slices of cheese and threw them on my plate and dashed out before they could think thoughts about my weight gain since starting my desk job.

I looked at this "Crisp Mountain" apple with disdain. An apple is an apple - what I really wanted was a pear. I sliced the apple at my desk (I have a plastic knife and cutting board set at my desk... weird, but useful) and I was taken aback by the soft apple scent that fluttered up through my olfactory glands. I satiated my watering mouth with a crisp wedge of this cool crunchy apple.

I finally understood why Eve couldn't resist a piece of fruit. This must have been the apple hanging on the tree of wisdom. My primal urges lunged toward my plate intent on scarfing the rest of the apple - seeds would be nothing more than collateral damage. The office setting and my years of training as a well behaved member of society stopped me. I paused, took a deep breath and picked up a piece of the cheese.

Oh god. The cheese.

Let's have a moment of silence to honor the cheese.
.
.
.
.
Thank you.

I took a bite of apple and immediately felt refreshed, alive, excited... and quickly followed it with a bite of cheese - savored it, breathed it, absorbed it. I was in an altered state - that could be the only explanation for what I did next. A little something I like to call "Apple in a Cheese Blanket." Yes, I rolled a slice of cheese around an apple and stuffed it in my mouth. That was the moment I understood that the universe actually existed in the Supreme Being's mouth and was a result of the reaction of combining Harry and David's cheese and apple into one bite. I went back into the kitchen to check on the status of the gift basket a few hours later. The fruit was all gone. I had expected as much. I was about to leave when I saw a little twinkle of yellow-orange sunshine peek out from the darkness. To my surprise the dish of sliced cheese had been pushed back behind the large box and was tucked away between the wall and the box edge. There were at least 15 slices left!

I couldn't eat all 15, could I? That would amount to over 100% of my daily saturated fat daily allowance. Could I really do that to my body? Could I be that overcome by a block of what amounts to be rotted dairy?

I don't know who Harry and David are, but they must have sold their souls to the devil and farm their fruits in the actual Garden of Eden hidden from the likes of us regular mortals. Even though business is slow this year, I'm hoping our client still has it in them to send us a box of Harry and David goodies. They have a new set of Pearsnapples (the box combining 4 pears and 4 apples) with fresh "Rogue Valley" blue cheese. That sounds like it would be a good option.. although I'm sure I'd be equally happy with the Delux Pearsnapples set with 2 cheddars, a jack, and a Danish havarti.

Oh, and to answer my own question, I can... I did...and I'd do it again.

Oh, the Liberal Media...

Ok, so the media isn't particularly liberal or conservative - it's entirely corporate... just like the politicians they're parading as the top contenders for the next presidential election. The "media" admits it - setting up a self-fulfilling prophesy...you know, to help you "focus":

I can't vote in the primaries because I'm not registered with a political party - but if you are I urge you to turn off your tv and radio and do the reading starting now.... for my sake. Since you are my friends, I assume you are smart enough to read up on the issues and have well formed opinions of your own even if we disagree. If not, and you need help getting started, message me and I'll give you some pointers.

Still not totally sure who you're rooting for? Take a couple of fun quizzes to get you looking in the right direction:

Quiz 1
Quiz 2
Quiz 3

Honestly if someone is going to tell me, come 2008, that I am going to have to choose between the "lesser of two evils," I'd prefer that the two evils weren't bought and paid for by big business. Kay? I'm tired of all the Guilianni-Clinton-Romney-Obama-McCain-Edwards fluffy playland of almost having a real answer but not really (did anyone watch the debates? You can catch them on YouTube... I was so annoyed... just answer the damn questions with a damn answer. )

Anyway - here's the Primary Election calendar: http://www.fvap.gov/pubs/primarycal.html

And here's the list of Closed Primary states: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_primary so if you don't live in one of those states, maybe you can find out if you are eligible to vote in the primaries!

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I guess I'm a snob.

Mike & my brother frequently accuse me of not liking things simply because the majority of people do like them. Mike's prime examples are always "Rent" and "Harry Potter" - two franchises I refuse to have any involvement with whatsoever. Eventually the argument will open up to the number of things that I have mentioned in the past that I dislike with fervor for no obvious reason.

Despite the massive popularity of "Rent", "Harry Potter", "Sex & The City", "American Idol", "iTunes", "Madonna", "Brittney Spears" etc etc etc. what might normally be a general disinterest based on my personal preferences turns into a revolt against everything within that world. What causes me to do this? I must analyze.

Rent. The first time I can recall doing this was when Rent was in everyone's cars early my senior year in high school (along with the god awful Backstreet Boys, N-Sync and the Spice Girls.) I was in 2 musicals my senior year - Godspell & Follies - some of the best times in my entire high school career. I enjoyed musical theater. Someone loaned me a copied tape of Rent. I wasn't particularly struck by the music, it wasn't horrible, but it didn't move me the way Les Miserables had moved me the summer before. I knew the story - I had been in La Boehme only a year or two before with Opera Pacific, it wasn't my favorite production, but I liked it. I knew I wouldn't be a Rent fan, but it would go into the bucket of other musical theater productions that I was not a fan of (that bucket is mostly filled with Andrew Lloyd Webber productions) and I would forget about it.

Only, I wasn't allowed to forget about it. Holy dillywhackers - everybody and their mother was re-enacting Rent right and left. You be the boy, I'll be the girl, I'll be the tranny and GO. No matter where I would hide, I couldn't escape it. Rehearsals, class, after school - everyone was talking about how Rent was the BEST thing to happen to musical theater.

My casual disinterest slowly grew and bubbled into a total vomit fest. I became the anti-Rent. Now I would no longer be disinterested, I would actively be hating Rent. Even a few years later, when Rent (the movie) was out in theaters, I held onto my fiery hate of Rent and refused to even watch the film.

Harry Potter. I think I may be the only person left who has not read a single page of the Harry Potter books and who could care less to crack open a page. Mike has read all the books. Actually, most people I knew read all the books - that's fine.

What would bug the living crap out of me was when people would carry around their massive hard cover Harry Potter books and read them in public - at work, in school, in class, on the sidewalk - everywhere. They were worse than those damned Louis Vuitton bags that everyone had and these books were used as just as much of a status symbol - as if to let others know "yes, I'm reading a very large book, and yes, it's Harry Potter and the Curse of my Hairy Balls and it's so good that I'm reading it for the 3rd time too." I couldn't walk around work or school without eventually having one Harry Potter Ballsac talk to another about how great the book they were reading was and if they already got to such and such part and then look at me as if I were some sort of retard for not already having read the entire book 3 times. As if I had been missing out on some information of global importance. My disinterest warped once again. I became the anti-Harry-Potter.

When Mike & I were dating, I went to watch one of the movies with him. Mike put a lot of effort into coercing me into the theater. We caught an early matinee a couple weeks after opening (so I could avoid the throngs of Harry Potter fans and their books.) I was into the movie. I liked that blonde girl's hair-do. Things were going surprisingly well for someone who hated the world of Harry Potter.

Then it happened. A good kid dies and his dad cries. His dad - a grown man with thinning hair - cries really loud. And a lot. It was really sad. There are 4 things that will prevent me from enjoying movies. 1) hurting cute animals 2) tragic parent-child relationships 3) Eva Mendez 4) realistic violence (unrealistic blood splatter or violence is totally fine.) This moment ruined the delicate thread I was walking on with Harry Potter. It was a well made movie and of a topic I might find myself interested in, but that death threw me back into my dark place of hating Harry Potter.

Now, you might think that Mike & my brother are right - obviously it's the sheer number of inescapable fans that cause me to feel this way - but that's not exactly it either.

I love geeky things (if Harry Potter is as geeky as you get - you're not a geek) I'm a rabid X-files fan. I watch anime for crissakes. Star Trek fans, Star Wars fans, LOTR fans, Morrissey fans - none of them drive me to repulsion in the same way that my short list does.

I'm not into Star Trek. There are trek fans everywhere but I don't find myself ready to punch someone in the face for saying they would totally hook up with Seven of Nine. I knew of Star Wars fans before I knew of the movies. I has seen wussy and gangsta Morrissey fans, but still became a fan myself, and although I don't consider myself to be anything like the majority of Morrissey fans, it didn't stop me from joining in. It's not just the fans. There's something else.

Maybe it's a case of 1 apple spoiling the whole bunch before I get a chance to understand the flavors of the fruit myself. Maybe somewhere along the line I interacted with an obnoxious Rent fan, or irritating Harry Potter fan who forever ruined my experience allowing me to forgive my friends for their fandom, but never allowing me to actively participate? This bad apple may have taken something I would have casually ignored and became the catalyst for pop-hatred.

Whatever it may be, the point is - Mike and Johnal - that I don't dislike things just because everybody else likes them. I have many reasons and they may not be very deep, but you guys only harp on it because everybody else does like them and you can't understand why I'm not one of them. Well boys, it's complicated. Deal with it.

My Arch Nemesis - Ruby Tuesday

I hate Ruby Tuesday. I so desperately want to love her, but her distance from my taste buds makes me hate her. I hate how she teases me. I hate how she taunts me and never lets me touch her. What a bitch.

About 4 months ago, I began to notice ads for this restaurant that touted fresh vegetables, soups, pastas, all you can eat pizza, macaroni and cheese, and other fresh and delicious looking items - sort of like a Souplantation with more options. The item I was most disgustingly excited about was their macaroni and cheese pizza. All it would need were some nachos on top and it would be my meal in heaven. (In case you were not already aware, macaroni & cheese, nachos and pizza are the holy trinity of the good Lord's food - Jesus ate all three at the last supper. Actually that's not true, but if He were aware that these foods existed, he would have ordered in.)

I went to their website and typed in my zip code and did a search within 10 miles.

Nothing.

20 miles.

Nothing

Fine, I'll drive 50 miles.

Nope. Screw you.

Well, maybe I'll plan a road trip 200 miles.

Nada.

I hate you so much Ruby Tuesday. Why do you run ads in the Los Angeles area when you have no intention of serving me your delectable treats? You run them on ABC and Comedy Central and VH1 - there's no excuse! The nearest Ruby Tuesday is 446 miles away in Folsom, CA. Stupid stupid stupids!!! I hate you guys so very very much.

I don't know what I would do if I accidentally crossed paths with a Ruby Tuesday. Would I stand in front of her and try to explain to the patrons walking in what a total tease this slutty restaurant is? Would I try to convince them to boycott her because she's such a whore? Or would I try to disguise myself and go in and see what it's all about? Would I be completely disappointed to find a selection of smooshy macaronis and stale pizza - would Ruby Tuesday simply be another incarnation of Hometown Buffet? Would she be a delectable step up from Souplantation? Maybe something like the buffet at the Paris Hotel or Bellagio in Vegas? Doubtful.

Ruby Tuesday, see what you have done to me? I am a shell of a human thanks to you. I hate you for what you are (and love you for what you could be) Ruby Tuesday.

Mutts & Moms

If you didn't already know, Mike & I adopted our dog, Apple, from Mutts & Moms - a rescue based out of Pasadena that has recently received a lot of publicity for it's part in Ellen's dog adoption "scandal" (although it was actually Portia DiRossi who went through the adoption process.) I was sent a copy of a letter that was published in the Pasadena paper and after sitting around just reading online about all the horrible things that were said about Mutts & Moms I felt the need to speak up. I wrote a letter to the paper. Basically here it is:

"I'm not a friend of Marina's [that's the name of the woman who runs the whole thing with her 1 other friend] but I adopted our dog from her rescue. I'd like to give you some insight into how my (and I'm sure most other adoptions) were handled. She's not a crook and she's not a villain and I am upset by the way the entertainment media and Ellen DeGeneres have allowed her to be portrayed.

We met our adoptive dog a month before we were allowed to take her home along with about 4 other potential dogs. We fell in love with one 9 month old Chihuahua mix. After every member of our household was interviewed over the phone, she set a date that she would come to our place for an inspection and bring our new dog to us - we lived about an hour away from her location, so we were happy that she would be willing to do this.

We all signed the same contract and read all the words - I still have it, because it's a contract. Our dog came to us fully vetted - spayed, micro chipped and fully vaccinated with instructions on feeding and we received all the records for these things - which totaled pretty close to our suggested donation. We also had a perfectly crate trained 9 month old dog who rarely had housebreaking problems. Our suggested donation was $200, Marina told us that often people decide to donate more. We didn't and we still got to keep the dog and we got a receipt for our tax deductible donation. She made it clear and we realized that this was not a purchase of a dog like we would do through a pet store or breeder. This was an adoption. This person cared about the dogs she adopted out.

Marina checked in with us 2 weeks after we had our dog. Things were not going well. It was a small dog and the dog was being snippy and not very friendly. We told Marina about this and she offered to take the dog back but suggested that we give her some more time as small rescue dogs often have more issues than larger dogs. We took her advice. After about 2 months, everything turned around. After some flea medications, a $100 for Pet Smart small dog obedience classes and this little dog is still working out some minor kinks, but she is the center of our life. Marina called and checked in with us about a month ago and was happy to hear how things were progressing. I've read that Ellen adopted her dog on 9/20 and about 2 weeks later gave the dog away because things weren't working out. If we did the same thing, we wouldn't have given our dog enough time to get used to her new home and get used to us.

Now, I feel bad for the kids - truly I do. But dog rescue isn't a hobby for Marina - it is her life. She responds to the e-mails, she makes the house calls, she does all the work. She, and other rescues with the same policy, have seen too many dogs back in the shelter on death row after a good family realizes that they are too busy to care for a their family pet anymore. All you have to do is scour the classifieds or your local Craigslist pet board to see how many families are giving away their "beloved" pets of 3, 5, 7, 11 years to a "good home" because they just don't have time.

Mutts & Moms cares for these dogs and like I said, these are considered "adoptions" in the rescue world. When you adopt a child, you can't just give that child away to another good home if it doesn't get along with your other family members. While I know that dogs are legally considered nothing more than property, most people who go through dog adoption processes treat it as if it were a child. Sure, Ellen made a mistake of passing on the dog without reading and understanding her contract. Her bigger mistake was taking it public and turning an uniformed nation against a rescue that was doing exactly what it said it would do."

Mike and I have talked about this situation a lot since it's sad to see Marina basically have to shut down her rescue, receive death threats, and shut down her boutique pet store because of a gaggle of fanatic Ellen worshippers. There were protests organized outside of her home and work and Marina's private home address and information were spread all over the internet.

We don't know the whole story - Mutts & Mom's lawyer is saying that the new family refused to fill out an application and go through a home inspection. The family is saying they filled out an application online. Whatever the case is, it all sucks - but I'm kind of mad at Ellen for not understanding the power she wields on her show. She's got this huge weapon that could single handedly destroy another person's livelihood and she used it in a situation where it wasn't necessary.

I really like Ellen - I think she's talented, funny and smart. I'm disappointed in her judgment - it seems like she let her emotions take over. She's got money up the ying yang, she could have stayed off her television show and handled the mess privately. She didn't need to invite TMZ into her home and into the home of her friends to make a spectacle of it. She could have called up her lawyer, they would have put the dog into a holding pattern while the law figured out what needed to happen. A quiet means to an ends. Why did she need to get America involved? I don't watch her talk show, does she do this for everything? If her refrigerator is broken and the repair man can't fix it, does she turn to the nation to get involved? I just don't get it. It's not a human rights issue, it's not an animal abuse issue, why is this the way to handle it? If Mike & I had given away Apple at 2 weeks to one of our friends who we knew was a good home, do you think the nation would be sending Mutts & Mom's death threats because they took back the dog? Why do we as a society allow celebrities the benefit of not living under the same rules as the rest of us? Please, this dog is not Elian Gonzalez.

When Paris was in prison, TMZ was practically crying every day over how "unfair" it was for Paris to be there. I'm sorry, but if you or I had multiple DUIs, showed up to court four hours late, and repeatedly violated the terms of our release, do you think anyone would have sympathy for us? Where did these "free Paris" people come from? Could you imagine if the Free Paris people and the Mutts & Moms haters united and used their obvious loads of free time to changing the world - maybe on something like Darfur, global warming, domestic abuse - or shoot, even REAL animal abuse? Anyone have any ideas on how to get these sheep moving in a better direction? Or do they only listen to talk show hosts?

Selling Out

Mike and I signed up for the Blockbuster video delivery program a few months ago. I, being me, added about 250 movies to our queue. Films like Die Blecktrommel (The Tin Drum), Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (Umbrellas of Cherbourg), and a long list of documentaries, bizarre foreign, animated and art house films. Mike - feeling the need to balance my list of oddities added films like The Last Starfighter, Mystic River and this movie that I just saw (which is probably up next on our queue since Kamikaze Girls has a "long wait") - Relentless Enemies - which I think is about lions battling each other in the African bush. Not exactly something I'd watch. Anyway - Mike lets me not watch movies I'm not interested in watching. I'm not as forgiving and he's very patient to put up with it.

I mean, I LOVED Die Blecktrommel! I watched it in college and had talked about it forever and wanted him to watch it - so he did. And I think the little boy (who's character is really an adult who looks like a boy) having sex with his baby sitter who ends up being his father's second wife and maybe his step mother or maybe the mother of his own child after his father's first wife ate eels and raw fish basically to the point that she killed herself because she was having an affair with her cousin really threw him for a loop - but in the end he said he found the film to be interesting. Which really, is all I wanted.

Being that Noam Chomsky is one of my ideological heroes, I added the documentary Noam Chomsky - Manufacturing Consent to our queue. It's not something Mike would have picked out himself. It was made sometime in the 90's and is basically a chronicle of many of Chomsky's speeches and interviews since the early 1950s.

The first Chomsky book I read was off the Rage Against the Machine website in college - What Uncle Sam Really Wants for free download. His writing was dry, unwhimsical, literal, boring and filled with facts and statistics.

There were moments of humor, but often they were lost on me. Often I had to read the same page twice to understand what he was saying. It was like a text book - only I couldn't stop reading. It was the first time I had read something where the writer wasn't "pro-Democrat/anti-Republican" or "pro-Republican/anti-Democrat" his thoughts on world affairs transcended liberalism, conservativism, or nationalism - he was pro-human (although if you ask him, he's some sort of libertarian anarchist or something like that... his ideal government is run more by local government and run by communities that loosely interact with one another rather than a big government structures that determine how small government is run.) I continued to read and was surprised that a book written in 1992 could still be so accurate about our post 9/11 world. It was as if he had already seen everything that happened.

Anyway, Mike and I watched Manufacturing Consent over 2 days - it was a 2 1/2 hour movie - so we watched it in two sections (it was conveniently split with an intermission.) It wasn't exciting or particularly shocking. Chomsky is a very calm, smart man who tends to ramble on brilliantly.

It seems the point that the documentary directors were trying to get across using the words of Chomsky was that the ideal form of media would be an open media (mind you this is much different from a "liberal" media.) National news stations run by the people and working for the people rather than by a corporation working for sponsors. They seemed to cover almost every aspect of the media and it's part in modern day propaganda. Today's propaganda is about business.

It was pretty clear that there wasn't a secret society of men, or a bunch of liberal or conservative politicians sitting in the government somewhere manipulating the media for personal gains or to bring down America. There is no need for any of that. The scandal has always been right in front of our face and I think we're all ok with it.

Our TV networks are for-profit and when profit comes into play, "fair and balanced" goes out the window. CBS, NBC, CW, ABC, FOX - we all know networks sell their time to advertisers. The networks aren't worried about the good of the people, education, or art, they are catering to advertisers, who tell us what we need so we'll go out and buy it. It's no secret, it's no conspiracy.

Having been a film & TV student I was taught that TV comedies were to be 20 minutes long and TV dramas were to be 40 minutes long to allow for commercial breaks. I was taught in my screenwriting classes that ideally films would be approximately 90 minutes long for peak profitability (this way movie theaters could turn over a new audience every two hours - most of those movies - like Big Momma's House where you wonder, how the hell did this get into the 1 box office spot? probably about 90 minutes long and really really stupid.) We had class periods dedicated to appropriate product placement (that's what the whole WGA issue was about) and the importance of Nielsen ratings for advertising sales. In essence, if you couldn't make mind blowing film, you should at least be good at making money.

My teachers were not teaching me these things in the hopes that I would one day go on to manipulate the world with evil profit-driven propaganda. They wanted me to succeed in the industry and were giving me the tools of the trade. Horrors and teen sex comedies are the most profitable. You can have D-listers star in them, directed by a no-name, filled with plot holes, crank it out in a few months and make on a minimal budget and people will still turn out to watch a scary or raunchy movie. I went right along with it - I wrote a 90 minute horror screen play about 3 girls in a boarding school who play with an evil Ouija board. It's embarrassing. There was some interest in it, it got into the top 10 of a writing competition and if I had actually been proud of it, I may have been able to go the extra mile and BS some writers agent into believing that my shit actually smelled like marshmallow roses. It doesn't and I'm not competitive and I'm not good at talking up my own crap. I don't think I was really built for business.

The peons at the bottom have good intentions at heart, the execs at the top have their pockets at their hearts and nothing is more important than that dollar. When you're worried about who's advertising dollars you'll loose, who are you really working for? How complete is the story I'm getting?

I don't have the answers. I love TV and I'm sitting here writing a blog while ad space flashes all around the page. I guess what I'm really trying to say is that among other things, Manufacturing Consent finally helped me understand why Arrested Development was cancelled.

Growing Up Icelombian

When I was in college, I took a sociology class as part of my GE requirement. The course was taught by an outspoken and intimidating African American woman. She was one of the more memorable female teachers I had because of the strength she emanated from her spot at the front of the classroom. She was the type of woman who would wear a business suit to class one day and a traditional African dress the next. I remember going into her office which was covered wall to wall with African print fabrics and African artifacts. She clearly had no doubts about who she identified herself as.

One day in class, another African American woman who worked for the Chapman administration came into class with my teacher to get some feedback from the students on an idea they had been working on for the Chapman campus. This woman was decidedly much less "African" seeming and much more American with African lineage. She was stiff and seemed a little bit uptight. This was their idea. At some other large California colleges, dorms had been set up specifically for the different ethnic groups on the campuses to ease the transition for these students into a new situation like college so they could be with other people that were like them. So, there was an Asian dorm, a Latino dorm, and an African American dorm and there was the general dorm. You wouldn't be forced into any of the dorms, but you could opt to be in one of those dorms.

At Chapman, there was a Latino organization, an African American organization and a Pan-Asian organization - I don't remember them being very big, I would say that Chapman is not the most diverse campus in Orange County. Immediately this dorm idea didn't sit right with me. When it comes to social issues I find that I am pretty "left" leaning (although I don't identify with either a "left" or a "right") and still, I couldn't put myself into those shoes and see how it was ok. Actually most of my classmates, primarily Caucasian but also the Latinos and Asian students seemed to think it was not a good idea either. My teacher and her guest seemed surprised by the reaction - they tried to explain that this was good comfort for these students and an opportunity for them to have the ability to understand more about their own cultures. To me it seemed like voluntary segregation.

Maybe that was just because I couldn't identify. Who would I voluntarily segregate myself with? When taking standardized tests all throughout school I always looked through the options that they listed on every exam:

Male - no, I know that for sure.
Female - Yes, this is me

Caucasian - no not really I don't think... unless... is it summer or winter?
Asian - no, not at all
Pacific Islander - no, not anymore (in the 2nd grade we had so many Filipino family friends that we called cousins and aunties and uncles I thought I was somehow Filipino.)
Latino - no, not entirely, maybe? I dunno.
Black or African American - Nope, not me
Other - I guess this is me. I'm Other.

Eventually they started putting "Decline to State" which became the only thing I checked off.

In high school, when we had to prepare for debates on a large assortment of social issues, I was assigned "PRO: Affirmative Action in Colleges" Initially I thought, fantastic! I totally think everyone should have the same opportunities and yes, certain groups of people are prone to less fortunate circumstances, poorer primary education and harder home lives. With Prop 209 looming around the corner I found myself torn again.

I didn't want to be known for being male or female or for being "other" because it shouldn't make a difference. I'm just as good as my the 20th generation American classmates and my grades account for it. What seemed to be the bigger divide was money - the largest minority communities were also the poorest, these were the kids with the least opportunities, with the weakest education systems, the groups that suffered the most because of the great divide between them and the wealthy kids in the next town. Couldn't we still be color blind? Couldn't we modify the arrangement to provide opportunities for individuals based on annual income rather than race or ethnicity? Wouldn't that work?

I still feel like I'm missing some piece of the puzzle. I sucked at my debate. I wouldn't have been able to argue Pro or Con on the issue because I couldn't even figure it out in my head. I knew that I could get scholarships if I checked off "Latino" I couldn't bring myself to do it. School counselors advised me to do it - all I had to be was a quarter Latino to qualify for hundreds of scholarships and I couldn't do it.

What am I? I grew up Icelombian I guess. Probably more of the -lombian part since my mom raised us with her cultures ideals and values, but there are clearly some Ice- parts in the development of my persona.

I know that full Colombians and other Latinos and their children see me as not really a real Colombian, not really Latina. They look at my brother and I and think we act like Americans. They don't think we are affectionate enough, outgoing enough, we don't speak Spanish and probably don't appreciate our heritage as much as we should. I very much appreciate my Colombian heritage, my family thinks of me as Colombian. I don't speak Spanish because my mom moved here and feared that we would be discriminated against in the same way that she was and she didn't come here with a lot of Colombian friends waiting. I am proud to say I am Colombian, but to a "real" Colombian, I'm just another gringo. If I was to be put into a dorm filled with people of Colombian descent we would have some similar stories to share about our mothers, we'd probably like the same foods, but outside of that, I would feel completely lost.

Then there's the Icelandic part. The cool collected Ying to the fiery passionate Yang that is my Colombian spirit. My father, cousins, uncles, aunts, grandmother - fearless. They say exactly what is on their mind even if - maybe, especially if - you don't want to hear it. If something needs to get done, they do it themselves and anything that isn't happening right now, is probably not worth talking about. Workaholic. Maybe a little alcoholic (not my dad - but why do you think the highest number of AA groups per capita is in Iceland?) To that side, I'm watered down Icelandic. There aren't very many Icelandic families living in Orange County. I didn't grow up around Icelandic people (other than my cousins when they came to visit... for 3 years.) I don't have an authorized Icelandic first name, I don't speak Icelandic fluently, and even though my family thinks of me as Icelandic and I crave kleinur, have brúnaðar kartöflur with Christmas dinner, get bagfuls of harðfiskur with every visit and started up the Iceland on MySpace group - I know to the very proud and very selective "real" Icelandic people, I'm just not Icelandic enough.

Culturally, who am I? I would say I could be American - in an old sense of the term. The original Melting Pot idea, perhaps... but I don't think that's necessarily considered American anymore. With multi-generational Americans that proudly trace their history back to the signing of the constitution and things like "traditional American values" I find I relate to that idea of America less than I do with either my Colombian or Icelandic ideologies. In grade school I remember going to my "American" (meaning they were multi-generational Americans as opposed to me being a first-generation American) friend's home at Christmas time and asking them where their nativity was. They pointed at this tiny set of figurines, and I said "no, where is your real nativity? The big one?" Blank stares. It wasn't until high school when I overheard someone talking about their mom's waterfall in their nativity that I realized this aspect of my life was not just mine but belonged to a group of people I had never before thought to identify myself with - Latinos. I'd take bags of dried fish (that's the harðfiskur) to grade school for snacks when we had them and gleefully eat it all - not totally understanding why my classmates didn't desire to partake in my delicious dried fish snacks. I found I related best to the children of other immigrants who like me, did not speak the language of their parents, brought weird foods and snacks to school with them and pronounced certain words (like drawer or ambrosia) with a strange accent. The difference seemed to be that these children often had large families with cousins who were just like them who would be around at family parties - our family didn't have that, so we went to their parties (hence why I thought in the 2nd grade I was somehow Filipino.)

I was never sad about it. I liked being unique. I liked explaining who I was and I liked having a story. Culturally I was like no one else, and on a less obvious scale, my Icelandic heritage became my logos, my Colombian heritage my pathos and my American education my ethos. I became who I am because I was surrounded by a hurricane of cultures and didn't know any other way of life. I don't fit easily into a category other than Female "18-25." Categories are for trivia games and blogs anyway and I never wanted to be categorized in the first place.