Tell Barack ...

Finally.

I am an American and proud of it. I do not remember the last time I felt this way - definitely not in the last eight years.

This election was a very timely one for me - after taking the year off and seeing a good chunk of the country, I came to the conclusion that we had a great country, a gorgeous country ... and it is even more gorgeous now.

My faith in the United States has been restored somewhat. Americans elected Senator Barack Obama regardless of all the racism in this country; we elected someone who I will not have to cringe every time he speaks, who has respect for the other people in the world, and someone who I can actually respect.

Regardless of this - I feel a twinge of sadness that in this historic election, when we elected the first African-American to the highest position of our country, we continue to discriminate by voting in several states the definition of marriage as one man and one woman. In the future, as those laws are overturned, as our generation understands that love cannot be defined so narrowly, history will look back at this as an embarassing part of this election.

I look forward to seeing Barack do some good work - let's undo some of the damage of the last eight years.

Vote! Vote! Vote! Vote! Vote!

On an election day like today I am reminded by two scenes from Gangs of New York -

The first one is William (Bill the Butcher) Cutting smiling and looking at New York, saying -
Bill: It's Election Day!

The second one mirrors my feelings that a wide margin has to be the case....

Killoran: Monk's already won by three thousand more votes than there are voters.
Boss Tweed: Only three? Make it twenty, thirty. We don't need a victory. We need a Roman triumph.

Folks - head to your polling place and for the love of FSM, VOTE!

I leave you now with more words from Bill the Butcher - Bill: This is a night for Americans!

Banned Books ... Wuh?

a few blogs I've been reading on a frequent basis have posted a list of the top banned books, and some of these, seriously, folks, banned? wuh? Where's Waldo is banned. Mark Twain? Toni Morrison? J. K. Rowling (well, I knew that there were some controversy with the right-wing folks and witchcraft, but oh my FSM, I had no idea that it was that high in the ranking of banned books)? There's something majorly wrong if we don't want our kiddies to read these fantastic stories I've read and loved growing up.

the books I've read are in bold.

Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
Forever by Judy Blume
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Giver by Lois Lowry
It's Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Sex by Madonna
Earth's Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard
The Witches by Roald Dahl
The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein
Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
The Goats by Brock Cole
Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
Blubber by Judy Blume
Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
Final Exit by Derek Humphry
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
What's Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard
Deenie by Judy Blume
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden
The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole
Cujo by Stephen King
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
What's Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras
Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
Fade by Robert Cormier
Guess What? by Mem Fox
The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Native Son by Richard Wright
Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women's Fantasies by Nancy Friday
Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
Jack by A.M. Homes
Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
Carrie by Stephen King
Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge
Family Secrets by Norma Klein
Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole
The Dead Zone by Stephen King
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
Private Parts by Howard Stern
Where's Waldo? by Martin Hanford
Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
Sex Education by Jenny Davis
The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene
Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney
Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

(hat tip to a good number of peeps out there in the blogsphere)

accomplishments of a year off

I proudly share my accomplishment of being stung by more wasps / bees in a year than I have been in my entire life.

3 in 2008. Well, actually, not even a year ... in a total of three months, I've been stung by three bees / wasps.

Three months = three bee / wasp stings (which provides for much entertainment)

27 years and 9 months = total of *1* sting.

I'm really not sure what to make of this, tho it may be preparation for my next stages in life.

****just so you know, completely off topic, but I've been looking for an opportunity to say "see you at the debate, bitches!" but being unable to find one, I'm just going to say it!  See you at the debates, bitches! **** (google paris hilton, barack obama, and john mccain if you don't get the reference)

Illogical web spamming drives me nuts. Just sayin'.

An Open Letter to CNN.com:

Dear CNN.com,

While I may have clicked on several of your links for news, I never gave you permission to send news alert emails (which fortunately because gmail apparently is able to read my mind and saw that I never gave permission or signed up for anything ended up in my spam mailbox).

As I navigated your site to try to figure out if I had actually had an out-of-body experience and registered for your news alert distribution list, I discovered that you, CNN.com, did not have my email address in your files as to having an account with your website, so I reached the conclusion that fortunately, my sanity was still mostly intact and that I had never signed up for the alerts.

Nothing can describe my confusion when you prompted me to sign up for an account in order to turn off the news alerts emails. So, now, you are asking me to sign up for an account that I do not want, to turn off services that I had never requested for, nor gave permission for.

Please kindly refrain from killing off the rest of the marbles in my brain by stopping this news alert service immediately.

Love,

zlotte

a bit of a update ...

Been a while, yes? Not too much to talk about on my end - else than the road trip #3 (which was far too close to road trip #2 for my comfort, ugh - driving fatigue!), and that I'm missing N, M, and their dog, Kiah way too much.

First stop: Mt. Rainier National Park. Wow. Words or pictures does not do it justice - if anyone is visiting Washington State, this is a MUST STOP. I camped near the Sunrise portion of the mountain, and the weather was perfect, the view near the water was gorgeous.





After Mt. Rainier, I drove to East Washington and camped at an extremely touristy campground by a lake - nothing exciting there, move along people, nothing to see (except I wish I had a video of me jumping up and down screaming after being stung by two wasps who along with a bunch of 'em decided to investigate the picnic table that I was using for a nest location ... apparently they didn't think it was feasible.)

A couple stops later, Yellowstone. Boy do I have mixed feelings about that park. There were way too many people there. Seriously, people, that National Park had three, count 'em, three post offices. Wuh?! Some of the intersections there had off-ramps. There were traffic jams there on Monday and Tuesday. Double wuh?! Granted, I think it's excellent that people are coming out to explore nature in droves, but enjoying nature has somewhat less to do with people, but more to do with nature, that's for me anyway. Regardless - Yellowstone was GORGEOUS - and one / two days are just enough to visit - don't think I'll be making a visit back any time soon.

And a shout-out to Gallaudet!

Drove through the second most boring state in the US of North Dakota (no offense to anyone who live there - I think Kansas wins the title of the falling-asleep-while-you-are-driving state), stopped by and saw a couple of friends near Minneapolis, met up with an old college buddy out in Madison, fun was had with all - and then I decided to just book it. Drove 12 and 10 hours in two consecutive days. I had to take a couple of days of doing nothing and doing it all day to recover.

So, now you're pretty much caught up. It's all pretty boring these days - hopefully that'll change soonish.