Go To Your Room, Burger King - You're Grounded!

Neda Agha-Soltan

I came across this horrifying story this morning and I'm not even sure I've had enough time to sit with it to know how to write about it. What I do know is that on Saturday, June 20, 27 year-old Neda Agha-Soltan was standing in a crowd with a family friend watching a protest in Tehran when a sniper fired a bullet directly into her heart.

Although I'm torn about posting the video, I think it's important to see it and not just let Neda's death become another statistic or passing news story. Beyond that, I'm unable to articulate the significance of her murder because I've only just become aware of what happened and I'm quite simply unable to process it.

Out of fairness, I must let you know that this video is profoundly graphic and definitely should not be viewed by children.



"Neda Agha-Soltan was born in 1982. She was shot by a Basiji hiding in a building. Buried on 21st June, 2009 in the south of Tehran. The memorial service was cancelled on orders from authorities. Hamed Rad who was present at the scene writes about the event:

Basij shots to death a young woman in Tehran's Saturday June 20th protests at 19:05 June 20th Place: Karekar Ave., at the corner crossing Khosravi St. and Salehi St.

A young woman who was standing aside with her father watching the protests was shot by a basij member hiding on the rooftop of a civilian house.

He had clear shot at the girl and could not miss her. However, he aimed straight [at] her heart. I am a doctor, so I rushed to try to save her.

But the impact of the gunshot was so fierce that the bullet had blasted inside the victim's chest, and she died in less than 2 minutes.

The protests were going on about 1 kilometers away in the main street and some of the protesting crowd were running from tear gass used among them, towards Salehi St.

The film is shot by my friend who was standing beside me.

Please let the world know."

Source: http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-278996

Update: Click HERE to learn more about Neda.

Rollasole!

Shut UP! This is beyond brilliant! Okay - no one lurves their high-heels as much as I, but there are limits. I have no problem kicking off my shoes and going barefoot when it feels like all the bones in my feet are going to snap like twigs. But who wants to walk around a club (or bathroom, gross) in bare feet? Okay, I've done it, whatever. Don't judge me.

A great night out grooving on the dance floor can result in sore soles and a throbbing tumble out the door. Two British companies are capitalizing on clubgoers' end-of-night anguish by installing shoe vending machines full of cheap flats. Click HERE to go to the Rollasole site.

"My feet hurt - hey, what's this? A vending machine full of ballet flats? Right here in the club? Neato!"


And they come in these cute little boxes so you can roll 'em back up, throw 'em in your bag and have them handy (or "foot"y the next time you trip the light fantastic)...


Whoever came up with this is totally brills. Now, we just need to get them in the States! Pronto!



They are not cute...no, they aren't. BUT, when you're in pain - I'm sure they look pret-ty darn good.

Blogger Underwhelmed By One Millionth English Word

"Web 2.0"

Yup. There you have it. It's like waiting for the one millionth customer at a burger joint (say, at the McDonald's down on the 16th Street Mall) - camera crews are poised to snap, snap, snap; the entire staff is waiting eagerly by the door giddy that they get to ignore the rest of the customers ramming fistfuls of french fries in their mouths and that lumpy, liquid mess of god-knows-what on the floor by the kiddie area - smiles drawn tight across their acne-ridden little faces... waiting...waiting... and THEN, a bum stumbles in off the street to use the restroom.

Or the surprise party you've spent a month planning for your spouse and everyone is finally at the house at the appointed time, waiting in the dark for the guest of honor to arrive and the door opens and everybody shouts their cheeriest surprise and throws their entire supply of confetti up in the air when you realize it's only Uncle Ted and some twenty-six year-old he met on HookABrothaUp.com (who, by the way, is wearing so much lipgloss that the aforementioned confetti gets stuck to her lips like some sort of weird art project) because he came in through the front door instead of the garage door like you told him. You don't even like Uncle Ted.

Or like when we opened the bookshop and waited excitedly for our first customer to walk across our threshold and when she did, we were all like, "Welcome! Welcome! You're our first customer! Hurray parade!" Then Gary did a backflip AND a one-handed cartwheel because he'd been practicing all week and Holly and I stood there with little sparklers left over from Fourth of July in our hands - only to have the woman respond, "Oh - sorry I'm not here to buy anything, I was just wondering if you were hiring."

Good grief - I shouldn't blog when I'm still half-asleep.

Anyhoo.... Web 2.0 is the one millionth word to be formally inducted into the English language.

"The Global Language Monitor, which uses a math formula to track the frequency of words and phrases in print and electronic media, said Web 2.0 appeared over 25,000 times in searches and was widely accepted, making it the legitimate, one millionth word.

It said Web 2.0 started out as a technical term meaning the next generation of World Wide Web products and services but had crossed into far wider circulation in the last six months.

Other linguists, however, denounced the list as pure publicity and unscientific, saying it was impossible to count English words in use or to agree on how many times a word must be used before it is officially accepted.

There are no set rules for such a count as there is no certified arbiter of what constitutes a legitimate English word and classifying the language is complicated by the number of compound words, verbs and obsolete terms.

"I think it's pure fraud ... It's not bad science. It's nonsense," Geoffrey Nunberg, a linguistics professor at the University of California at Berkeley, told reporters.

Paul JJ Payack, president of the Global Language Monitor, brushed off the criticism, saying his method was technically sound.

"If you want to count the stars in the sky, you have to define what a star is first and then count. Our criteria is quite plain and if you follow those criteria you can count words. Most academics say what we are doing is very valuable," said Payack."

Source: http://tech.yahoo.com/news/nm/20090610/tc_nm/us_word_millionth_life_tech

What's A Few More Inches?

So...it's true: You get what you pay for. My $14 haircut? Ugh.

Today I went to see Ceria and to have her fix the mess that made me feel cheap and dirty on Sunday. I wasn't down with the soccer-mom 'do, so I had her take a few more inches off which means no more ponytail hair (I have nothing. left. to give.). It feels a million times better, but this is a new style for me and it's going to take some getting used to...



Anyway, I apologized to Ceria for cheating on her; fortunately, she's not one to hold a grudge.

Here she is: Such a sweet, pretty girl!


If you live in Denver, Ceria is at Hair People, (303) 377-0304; she's awesome - everything she does is magic - seriously.

Okay - I'm done blogging about my hair now.

A couple other random notes:

Candy Spelling is a freak. TEAM TORI!

Bette Midler was ridiculously rude to Kathy Griffin on this week's ep of "My Life on the D-List" - so disappointed in you, Miss M. TEAM GRIFFIN!

Vera Wang on "Dancing with the Stars" - really?

Heidi and Spencer weren't "tortured" enough.

I don't need to hear another word about Jon and Kate.

Sandra Bullock looks freaking amazing. Hot. Smoking hot. You go, girl!

"Real Housewives of New Jersey" is turning out to be a real snooze-fest.

What? Adam Lambert is gay? Shut up!

A'ight. I'm off to the gym.

Be Not Inhospitable To Strangers Lest They Be Angels In Disguise

From an article included in a daily digest I read each morning called, Shelf Awareness:

These are noteworthy times for Shakespeare and Company, the iconic Paris bookshop, as well as its 95-year-old owner, George Whitman. Bloomberg reported that the "French government recently recognized the singularity of Whitman's efforts by elevating the American bookseller to the rank of Officer in the Order of Arts and Letters, one of the country's highest honors and rarely given to a foreigner."

In addition, his daughter, Sylvia Beach Whitman, "who in 2006 returned with a broom and a marketing plan after 10 years in London and Edinburgh . . . is now revitalizing the shop where Durrell and Ginsberg read her bedtime stories between stacks on which Harold Robbins's potboilers were often found propping up first editions of A Moveable Feast."

"There was so much dust and dad refused to install a telephone until I came home," said Sylvia. "Hemingway understood there was no difference between a great restaurant and a great bookshop. Great food and great books can never be consumed, just digested, and you must keep reinventing them."

Bloomberg observed that "three years into the renovation, Whitman says she has reached a peace agreement with her father. He has acquiesced to opening a cafe and a theater. The decrepit rooms for writers are being spruced up to lure back older authors who honed themselves at 37 Rue de la Bucherie."

Sylvia noted that it was on the Internet where she discovered the bookshop's potential to reach a contemporary audience. "The virtual village website secondlife.com named the town’s bookstore Shakespeare and Company," she said. "When you clicked the icon to buy a book, Amazon.com popped up. I put an end to that right away, but it proved that everybody in the world has heard about what dad built here. I don’t need to rebrand the place, the job is to retool what we have and take it into the future."

Check out Shakespeare & Co's newly updated website HERE - but if you can visit in person? All the better. And throw a penny in the basin for me.

The One Millionth Word Enters The English Lexicon

"Due to the global extent of the English language, the Millionth Word is as likely to appear from India, China, or East L.A.as it is to emerge from Stratford-upon-Avon (Shakespeare’s home town). The final words and phrases under consideration are listed below. These words represent each of the categories of Global English that GLM tracks, Since English appears to be adding a new word every 98 minutes or about 14.7 words a day, the Global Language Monitor is selecting a representative sampling. You can follow the English Language WordClock counting down to the one millionth word at www.LanguageMonitor.com."

Finalists for the one millionth English word:

* Chengguan - Urban management officers, a cross between mayors, sheriffs and city managers.

* Jai Ho! - From the Hindi, “It is accomplished”; achieved English-language popularity through the Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire.

* Mobama - Relating to the fashion sense of the US First Lady, as in “that is quite mobama-ish”.

* Noob - From the gamer community; a neophyte in playing a particular game; used as a disparaging term.

* Phelpsian - The accomplishments of Michael Phelps at the Beijing Olympics.

* Quendy-Trendy - British youth-speak for hip or up-to-date.

* Wonderstar - As in Susan Boyle, an overnight sensation, exceeding all reasonable expectations.

* Zombie Banks - Banks that would be dead if not for government intervention.

"Each word is being analyzed to determine which is attaining the greatest depth (number of citations) and breadth (geographic extent of word usage), as well as number appearances in the global print and electronic media, the Internet, the blogosphere, and social media (such as Twitter and YouTube). The Word with the highest PQI score will be deemed the 1,000,000th English language word. The Predictive Quantities Indicator (PQI) is used to track and analyze word usage.

In Shakespeare’s day, there were only 2,000,000 speakers of English and fewer than 100,000 words. Shakespeare himself coined about 1,700 words. Thomas Jefferson invented about 200 words, and George W. Bush created a handful, the most prominent of which is, misunderestimate. US President Barack Obama’s surname passed into wordhood last year with the rise of obamamania."

Personally, I'm pulling for "Noob"...

Source: The Global Language Monitor

French Monopoly

Well, sort of. I guess one hotel does not a monopoly make - but - when it's this hotel, who cares?



Paris' Hotel de Crillon is up for sale for a paltry $420 million... Hey, honey? remember that section of stairs from the Eiffel Tower I asked for for Christmas last year? If memory serves, that didn't work out - but - I do have a birthday coming up.

Just sayin'...

Ignore This Post - It's Stupid*

I remember wanting to cut my hair off after having Holly and again after I had Duncan. New babies are demanding and there's just not enough time to mess around with your hair when you have a needy newborn to nurture.

In many ways, our bookshop is a needy newborn and, as with my human babies, I'm finding that this little brick and mortar baby needs lots of attention, so something has to give.

The picture of me over there <---- was taken about a year ago and I haven't really had my hair "cut" since then - a trim every two or three months, but that's about it. Needless to say, it had gotten pretty long. I love long hair - love it, love it, love it! But it's a lot of work. I found myself throwing it into a ponytail more often than not - or wearing my sunglasses like a headband to keep it out of my way. But the ponytail holders began to damage the top layer of hair around my crown and the sunglasses pinch my head and give me headaches.

I'm not a "wash-n-go" kind of girl, either. I'd love to be that girl, but my hair is a funky hybrid of frizz and curl that demands lots of time and attention. I found myself spending a half an hour trying to tame my tresses every morning only to wind up strapping it down in one way or another once I got to the bookshop. Frustrated, I took my maddening locks to Ceria (the lovely girl in whose hands I've put my hair for the last six years or so).

Six months ago I told her, "I'm tired of the layers - no more layers." But then I found my hair to be flat and lifeless and impossible to work with. Two months ago I went to see her and said, "I think what I need is more layers." So - she gave me layers. Lots and lots of layers. And one really long layer that I couldn't quite figure out so, I woke up one morning and cut that layer - maybe two or three inches. Then I had Gary come in and straighten out the mess I'd made. We've tag-teamed my hair a few times - it's not pretty, but when a girl wants her hairs cut, she wants 'em cut now.

Anyway... the day after we cut my hair, I tried to get in to see Ceria but she had the day off so I decided to have a hair affair at the place next to the bookshop. The new girl cut off another three inches. What? Three inches? But I just wanted it evened out.

BTW - I hate going to new hair people. They always find fault with my hair. "Do you dry your hair everyday?" "You must color your hair." "What kind of products do you use? Oh, those aren't any good." "Your hair is dry." "Your hair is damaged." "Your hair is too thick." "Your ends are too thin."

Thanks for the commentary. I always walk out of a new place feeling dirty and bad. No wonder they call them hair affairs. I'm sorry I cheated on you, Ceria.

Ceria never says bad things about my hair and, when Gary and I cut it, she always says, "You actually did a pretty good job." And when I turn it green, she says, "Oh, it's not that bad - we can fix it." And she does fix it. I heart her.

Ok... so after I cheated on Ceria, my hair was about three inches shorter than my blog picture. I tried to work with it, I really did. But I hate that length. It's not short, it's not long. It's blah. And I still couldn't figure out how to work with it. Seriously - what's going on? Is it me? Is my hair changing on me? Hormones? WTF?

Today I realized I couldn't spend any more time fussing with my hair - I'm over it - it's got to go. Now. Now, as in, on a Sunday. As in - on a Sunday when all the good hair salons are closed. I tried a few places but they were already closed or booked up and Ceria won't be in again until Tuesday. I couldn't wait until Tuesday.

Now.

I found a (gulp) "place" that was open and that could get me in. I won't name names (but it rhymes with Schamtastic Fans). I kept telling myself that I'm just getting a bob - how difficult could that be? Plus, it'll most definitely be better than any cut performed by the Flying Piserchios - right? (Sorry, honey, in spite of what Ceria says, we're just not that good.)

Bad sign number one: You have to pay extra to have them wash your hair.
Bad sign number two: They only wash the top half of your hair (maybe it costs more to have them wash *all* of your hair?)
Bad sign number three: The customer sitting beside you has a mullet. A *serious* mullet. Two inches on top and on the sides and about 12 inches long in the back. I always wondered where people went to get their mullets cut; now I know.

I put my face in my hands and fought the urge to walk out. It's just a bob, it's just a bob, it's just a bob...

When it was all over, it looked awful, of course - but not because of the cut. My hair's just funky and only I know how do de-funkify it. It's short - another four inches gone (about ten or eleven inches all told). I have soccer-mom hair now. I guess I just have to resign myself to the fact that I will always either have big pageant hair or soccer-mom hair.

I came home to rinse it out and see what I could do with it and you know what? I couldn't do anything with it so it's tied back in a ponytail. A realllllly short ponytail.

Damn.

*I didn't know how to title this post. It's silly to rant about hair - especially when there are so many more important issues going on in the world. And I'm really sorry if I offended anyone who gets their hair cut at Schamtastic Fans.

And I'm super-double sorry for cheating on Ceria. Twice.

Rue Du Bourg Tibourg

This time next year...

And if anyone knows hows to pronounce this street name, please send a shout-out. Hard "g"? Soft "g"? Until we can pronounce it, it will be henceforth known as "Cyborg"...

Ahh - we just found out the "g"s are silent - and the rest is complicated. Mystery solved and tongue strained! (Thanks, Stefan!)





Lots of fun stuff to research about our new Parisian neighborhood!

Ligne Roset

I came across Ligne Roset (a *very* cool furniture company) on Facebook because I fell in love with this chair and had to find out who did it...



And the matching couch (well, not matching color-wise - but you get the idea)...


Talk about fireworks in the bedroom...


Always on the lookout for interesting chairs...


This sort of looks like something that was plucked out of the Millennium Falcon...


Comfy? Not sure - but it's got a nice, little perch for my tea set and a place to hang my beret (if I wore a beret, that is)...


These decorative pieces are from a series called, "Clouds"...










I'm not sure what they are, what they're made of or how they're used; it matters not - they're just freaking cool!

Click HERE to visit Ligne Roset's in Facebook - it's definitely worth a look!

Yeah - What He Said!

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." ~ Mark Twain

The End Of The Cheese Saga

I shouldn't break up my posts - I lose momentum...and interest. I'm sure you have, too, so let's just leave it at this: Whatever you put out into the universe (good or bad) will usually find its way back to you.

Actually - no, I don't think that's where I was going with all that. While I do believe that to be entirely true - I think the intention of my original post was to postulate the theory that if you say something out loud - to other people - it's more likely to come to fruition than if you don't say anything at all.

For instance, "I will get published." "I will find a job that I enjoy doing." "I will find love." "I will be healthy." "I will ..."

Yeah - that's where I think I was going with this whole thing. Maybe the tangent I went off on during the last two posts might speak to someone and it won't have been a complete waste of space. Do what you love - love what you do. You will love life a whole lot more - I promise.

And, finally, we will be going back to Paris next June. At this point, it looks like a complete impossibility, but believe me, I will make it happen.

Hear that, Universe?

...Cheese (cont)

Okay - where was I...

Oh yeah, I hated my job. So, in the spring of 2007, I tried to find other things to do in my life to compensate for that misery and that's when I did The Artist's Way. In going through this recovery slash healing process, the synapses in my brain began to fire more effectively - meaning they began connecting with their receptors - and I began to feel more empowered about what was going on in my life.

That's when I decided to quit dreaming about going to Paris and make it a reality. I hated my job, but I was making very good money - money that could afford me the opportunity to rent an apartment and spend a month in France. I still hated my job, but I hated it less.

I was also a year from finishing grad school. Getting a Master's degree from a private college is not cheap, but guess who was paying for it? That's right - my employer.

With a plan coming together, I was suddenly feeling a lot better about dragging my ass into work every day.

Save money for Paris. Finish school. Quit.

This plan became my mantra and I began to feel grateful instead of hateful. (I really didn't mean for that to rhyme.)

Things at work got gruesome. No one seemed to know how to steer that massive ship and it started to go down in a big way. Closed-door meetings started taking place. Higher-ups from other regions started infiltrating our office. People started disappearing. It was stressful and depressing and we were all completely freaking out.

Because the company has a policy of not doing lay-offs around the holidays (because of the high suicide rate around the holidays and what company - especially one that's in the midst of issuing mass lay-offs - wants to be associated with the suicides of a bunch of former employees), there was a brief reprieve in November and December. But the lay-offs resumed after the first of the year - and this time, they were happening in our office. The big fish were the first to go - and then, by February, the time had come for the managers to hit the chopping block.

I already shared the story from this point on as it was happening; but basically I packed up my desk and took everything home two days before I was invited to a meeting where 14 other managers received the news that our "positions had been eliminated." Even though we were let go in February, we were still employees of the company through the end of May.

So...my plan actually came to fruition - but in a much better way. Not only did I save up for Paris and finish grad school - I got a very nice severance package. Had I quit as I'd originally planned, I wouldn't have had the cushion - and I certainly couldn't have anticipated how wide-spread the problems were in our economy and the fact that my job prospects would be nil - so that cushion came in handy.

Okay - so why am I regurgitating all of this now? The universe. I know some people say that "putting your intentions out to the universe" is hocus pocus nonsense. But, I dunnnnooooo... it sure seems that whenever I do it, it works out that way. Let's be clear - I'm talking about "intentions" not something like, "Okay, Universe, I want the winning Lotto numbers!" It doesn't work that way.

I have to run for a bit, but I'll come back and finish this thought in a little while...

Stitches

I was sitting behind the counter at the bookshop yesterday when a rep from a publishing company walked in and plopped a thick galley down in front of me. I get lots of galleys and, while I wish I had the time to read them all, I simply don't. This one, however, piqued my interest immediately and I heard myself promising her that I would read it.

It's called Stitches, by David Small, and it pulled my heart right up out of my chest. Several times.



Many writers have tackled their childhood traumas and shared them with the world, but this writer and illustrator encapsulates his painful story so beautifully and his imagery is so powerful that you want to pluck his spindly, little body off the page and give him a great, big hug. This is one is not for children.

Stitches won't be published until August or September but you can click HERE to see more.

What Color Is Your Cheese?

I have a theory. It's not my theory, but it's certainly one I'm happy to hang my hat on: If you put something out into the universe, it's more likely to happen than not.

A great idea is only one part of the process. If you don't do anything with it, then it just bounces around your head acting as a constant reminder that you've neglected it. You've neglected yourself. Your dreams. Your passion. Then you start beating yourself up with wouldas, couldas and shouldas. Those internal tapes seem to regurgitate the same negative messages until paralyzing hopelessness sets in and then... And then...

I don't know about you, but I get a little prickly. And a lot sad.

It's funny how one bad thing in your life can spoil the whole of your existence. Waking up in the morning feels like an insurmountable chore. Getting ready to go to work - to go anywhere? Forget about it. Just let me stay in bed, curl up in a fetal position and be weepy and miserable, thankyouverymuch.

When you're in the barrel with all the ingredients of your life - bills, debt, relationships, kids, extended family, immediate family, ex-family, work, health, lack of health, etc...) it's hard to pinpoint the exact cause of your distress or turmoil. And damn the eternal optimists. Who are these people anyway? Silver lining? Ha!

In early 2007, I read The Artist's Way. The exercises - the writing - forced me to examine my life through a new lens. I was about to turn 40 and felt like I just kept missing the mark. I'd married the absolute perfect, right guy - no problems there. My kids are truly the lights of my life - good, bad or otherwise - so no problems there, either. I'm lucky in that my health has always been excellent (knock wood, salt over the shoulder, pip pip and all that rot), so again, all okay on that front. I love my in-laws and my own family - good. I have no control over ex-family, so I don't give that much thought. What's left? Oh yeah - work.

Getting ready in the morning meant so much more than a little lipstick and a comb through the hair. It meant saying and doing things that felt completely foreign and totally ridiculous to me. I used to go to meetings and, instead of take notes, I would write down every stupid corporate euphemism that was uttered during the course of what was otherwise a complete waste of time. Sometimes I would present the list, as a gift, to my business analyst. We would giggle like school girls and I would feel satisfied knowing that the meeting wasn't a complete waste of time after all.

Most of the people I worked with were nice and seemed normal; we were all in the same boat and kind of pretending to be all corporatey when all we really wanted to do was get out of there and go home to our families. Or go out for happy hour. Or bowling. Or scrapbooking. Or whatever - just as long as it took us far, far away from our putty-colored prison. It's impossible to be positive when every freaking time you get on the elevator - or go to the copier - or sit down at a meeting - or go to the freaking bathroom - someone says, "Is it Friday yet?" The last thing I need to hear at 8:00 on a Monday morning is, "Is it Friday yet?"

Because no, it's not Friday yet. And you know what? Knock it off. Quit wishing your life away. I would imagine millions of corporatey people everywhere uttering that mantra and actually willing time to speed up. Running through five days to live for two. And then, when Friday would come, everyone would complain about how they had this chore or that to do and how the weekend was going to be shot. Or they'd go out and get plowed on Friday night and spend the rest of the weekend feeling like crap. It was all just one, big WTF sandwich.

When you're in it, you learn to cope with it. You tell yourself that you're lucky to have a job and that this is how life works. You have to work hard to get the things you want in life - even though you really only want to live two days a week and you're working so hard that you can't really enjoy anything. It's like being in an abusive relationship - it's safe because it's all you know. Only when you flee the madness can you realize that you'd been living in some sort of altered reality fraught with fake smiles, dumb euphemisms and buzzwords o' the day.

Align. Upsell. Off-line. Win-win. Dashboard. Due diligence. Performance. Kudos. Best practice. Strategic planning. Goal-oriented. Synergy. Touchpoint. Touch base. Team-building. Conduit. Etched in stone. Granular. Alignment. Fast track. Exposure. Interface with. Big picture. Benchmark. Pushback. Paradigm. Dynamic. Skill-set. Prioritize. Wow factor. Result-driven. At the end of the day. Out of the loop. 24/7. Infrastructure. Core competencies. Revisit. Bottom line. Strategic fit. Think outside of the box. Value-added. Proactive. 110%. Gameplan. Lever. Leverage. Moving forward. Vision statement. Intellectual capital. Conceptualize. Streamline. Backward compatible. Low-risk high-yield. Open door. Lessons learned. Team player. Broad-based. Gap analysis.

Where was I? Oh yeah. I hated my job and it was making me totally miserable.

Good grief. I've worked myself up into a lather and am totally off track now. And I'm pretty sure my eye is twitching.

I'm going to go offline for awhile, get centered and come back to finish this thought later...