someone on my friends list is getting something unexpected in the mail.

be on the lookout....

damn, that song is stuck in my head...bad g-nus.

i am overcommitted, overextended, overmyheaddeded. ferk.

i'm a yes-man(girl), i'm a people-pleaser, and a neversayno person.

which gives me connundrums.

i am not sleeping because of anxiety related to work, future school, and work II, and then today, took on a second class. which means 1/2 time at job one, 16 hrs at school, and 2 nights a week at training class. plus lab, and massive studying in case i might want to pass said class, and normal everyday having a life type stuff.

insane, for an inherently lazy person.

i also found that i love recumbant bikes, although i look like a tool. i rode one this weekend that looked like the recumbant version of the bike in Pee-Wee's big adventure. sans lion horn. i'll need a lion horn.

hope all is well. my comp is un-internetted for now at home, so i'll be few and far between.

feeling crafty? want to impress me with your computer SKIZNILLS?

i need some new icons...now accepting donations.

running book recommendation... No Need for Speed, by...SomeGuy. it may come off as a bit trite to some, but if you're a aspiring couch athlete, you might find it helpful.

guava margaritas from Acapulco's Gold=best margaritas ever.
blood orange drops from Saucebox=best drink ever.
and i'm not even supposed to be drinking!

irish music rec for the day=Gaelic Storm. overlook the "Titanic" thing, they're really quite good.

heading over to Bend on friday for the long weekend. hopefully we'll have nice weather and swimming dogs.

i need about 4 pairs of double pointed needles in various sizes for various projects, but if i buy them all at once i'll look like a crazy hoarding person. :\

nothing to see here, move along....

> WARNING

Delilahbowie is radioactive. Wear protective clothing at all times.

Username:

From Go-Quiz.com

djcrowley's moving West! \m/\m/

L.A. is definitely in my future travel plans.


EDIT: struck with a wave of homesickness for New England. those were some days.

i'm becoming a yarn whore. i just bought a few skeins of Manos del Uraguay because it's gorgeous and i figured the noogstah would appreciate the fact that it's hand-dyed by female craftspeople and maybe would overlook the fact that it's wool if i made her a felty bag with it. the stuff is soooo pretty. also bidding on some noro on ebay. i love the noro, i want to eat it up.

i've determined i need more knitters in the pdx area because my coworkers and boyfriend are getting tired of me shoving unfinished pieces in their faces and making them google over them. but i have half a skull sleeve knit on my skully and it's exciting! sigh.

this week was an abismal exercise failure. only two runs, and yesterday's was curtailed by achilles pain. and oh cinnamon roll, why must you torment me? my two breakfast bananas, uneaten for the last few days, are spooning each other on my desk. they feel safe, as they know they have passed ideal banana ripeness state, and now i won't eat them. i will, however, take them home for teh puppies.

fuck. i have such predictable weaknesses, i'd find myself endearing if it wasn't me. as it is, i find myself to be a large pain in the ass.

i have baby broccolis in the garden, finally! they are so cute, i long to crunch them. also, i saw a white strawberry yesterday...yeep!

ok. work can bite it until after coffee.

i have Cheetos cheeze-fingers! eek!

bleh.

can i quit my job please? right now?

Anti-gay Kansas group protests at Oregon Supreme Court

04/20/2004

Associated Press


A band of anti-gay protesters from Kansas trampled the American flag and warned gays that they will stand before God's judgment during a demonstration outside the Oregon Supreme Court building.

With his feet planted on the flag, Jonathan Phelps said it symbolized his contempt for the country's growing tolerance of homosexuality.

"I'd be burning it, but I didn't get a burn permit," said Phelps, whose father, the Rev. Fred Phelps Sr., leads the Topeka-based Westboro Baptist Church, which travels around the country to protest homosexuality.

The elder Phelps did not take part in the three-day swing through Oregon.

"He's got other responsibilities," Jonathan Phelps said Monday.

Other members of the group held signs, such as "Fags doom nations."

Postal worker Don Kinder, who recently married his gay partner in Multnomah County, engaged the protesters in a sharp exchange. "My God doesn't believe in hate like you guys do," he said.

Margie Phelps, one of 10 protesters among the Kansas group, responded to Kinder: "You are going to stand before God's judgment." He replied, "You are, too, lady."

Several state troopers kept watch, making sure the 45-minute event stayed under control. It did. Kinder said curiosity prompted him to confront the protesters.

"I couldn't believe people like that existed," he said.

Margie Phelps, the daughter of Fred Phelps Sr., offered a parting shot before the group left for Portland, the only big city in America issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

"This is an extraordinarily God-forsaken community," she said. "They love to have perverts as their leaders. That justifies their own disobedience to the creator."




ok, one comment. i'm so very pleased to read that they came off as big wankers! and flag-trampling will really win them support from our nation's conservatives, so good show there too.

damn, he looks pretty good these days.

i've been thinking today about the nuances of language, and how over-reliant we are on the spoken word. i've been thinking about it in relation to my class tomorrow, as i know the hardest thing for new canine parents is to recognize that their verbalizations often mean little to their dogs, and how it's not just like they speak a different language. dogs speak no "language" per se, and so relating to dogs within the construct of our language and expecting them to learn it is really setting yourself up for frustration. dogs can certainly learn verbal cues, and that a certain set of sounds has a specific meaning (cookie=yummy treat, bath=yucky water), but they can't really learn the subtleties of spoken language (try to ask only one of your dogs to sit when you're holding a cookie if they're well-trained. trust me, you can't do it with verbals alone. it requires body language and eye contact and timing to do, even then, they often get it wrong and both sit on cue.) by the same token, we are clumsy as hell at communicating with body language, while our dogs can do it with such subtlety and grace you hardly notice.

i'm thinking it would be an interesting experiment to try spending an evening with a loved one without verbal communications (ok, get your mind out of the gutter!). what strange ways might you find to express concepts without yammering on about them? would you start to recognize the small ways in which you communicate to each other with your bodies? maybe not, maybe it'd be a boring evening where everyone falls asleep early.

Everyone who reads this should ask me three questions, no more no less. ask me anything you want. Then go to your journal, copy and paste this allowing your friends (including myself) to ask you anything.

who knows what happened to Johnny Marr? post The The, i mean.

so, Fred Phelps (i don't know if he goes by Rev. or Preacher or what have you) is coming to Portland. there's been interesting discussion regarding the proper way to disagree with his demonstrations. people have been suggesting that provoking a confrontation is essentially encouraging him to extend his speeches, and the best response is no direct response. i just don't know.

sure, it's true that freedom of speech, blah blah, which of course is not blah blah but is sacred and needs to be protected. so yes, you've got to let him have his say, but i feel somehow that there ought to be a response, a direct response. if not, it's like letting a bully go unchallenged. isn't it important for someone to stand up and say that's not how we treat people? because for all the smart folks who'll ignore that behavior, there is always someone, usually a young impressionable someone, who internalizes it and says, hmm, maybe he's right. or hmm, maybe he's talking about me. maybe i'm the one going to hell. i just feel like there ought to be a response, a visible sign that hey, his is not the only message to be internalized. that not all people feel like that. because, no matter how untrue the premise behind hatred is, it feels violent and damaging all the same.

i don't know. i'd like to think there is a way to joyfully and peacefully counter such evil. it just seems too blase to say, "oh, just ignore him, and he'll go away".

highlights-

"Under Pressure", with Gail Ann Dorsey providing the second vocal line. damn, Freddy Mercury ain't got nothing on that girl.

"Sunday"/"Heathen"-there's just something about the way he does those two songs back to back. wonder if he wrote them together, one as an answer to the other.

"Hallo Spaceboy"-right over my head! incredible view during this song. moon dust will cover you.

it was lovely to meet eclipse69 and neondiz. i was bummed i had to be such a killjoy and go to bed early. i knew today would suck tho, and so needed at least a few hours of sleep. i now would like a few more. i've been dizzy all day, which nearly led to vomitagoria. missed a vein, i never do that! i'm getting old and fragile.

this is part of an interview that appeared in Whole Dog Journal with veterinary behaviorist Dr. Karen Overall. since this is the sort of vet i'd like to be when i grow up ;), and since i respected a lot of what she had to say, i've posted my favorite excerpt.

WDJ: Why is it a bad idea to use punishment when training a dog?

KO: First, because the punishment techniques that are most commonly used with dogs are not about teaching them something. Almost every person I have ever seen punish a dog was angry, hurt, disappointed, or embarrassed, and that’s why the dog got punished, not because the punishment was going to help the dog learn.

By definition, punishment is something that will decrease the probability of the occurrence of a certain behavior. Generally, this punishment involves something that is sufficiently startling or aversive so as to thwart the “problem” behavior. If the dog has benefitted from the behavior in the past, it will take even more startling or aversive punishment to override his expectation of getting that reward again.

Frequently, a punished dog stops attending to you; you become something to be avoided. And if you overstep and really scare the dog – even just once – you have taught him that you are a threat. It should not be a surprise that dogs learn through fear very quickly, and then try to avoid the thing that caused the fear response: you. The amygdala (the area of the brain that’s concerned with generating the fear response) and the hippocampus (the area that’s concerned with how information is processed and stored) sit right against each other. The circuits between the two are hard-wired, allowing dogs to learn avoidance behaviors very quickly. This makes sense, from an evolutionary standpoint. If you want to avoid a predator, hanging around and reasoning it out are not great survival strategies. Fear responses save your life, so they have to be constructed from a straightforward, direct, simple pathway.

Whether or not you end up teaching the dog what you wanted him to learn, he’ll learn that he shouldn’t trust you, and that humans are unpredictable.

WDJ: Why is it important to preserve a good relationship between dogs and people?

KO: Violence not only breaks our bond with dogs, it damages us, too. It affects how we deal with all of our relationships, with particularly worrisome implications for people with children. In my practice, I often see people who have used violent training techniques that have made their animals worse, and they are devastated. They are truly damaged by the terror they inflicted on their animals.