The Joy of Being Single
Mood:  not sure
I've had such a rough and mixed-up weekend. Along with bucketloads of work and emotional stress, I now have a guy who likes me and whom I (cruelly or foolishly) led on and got involved with. I let him know that I can't commit to a relationship and he was so nice about it, and still wants to do "a dinner date, maybe a movie..." Well where does one draw the line between dating and a relationship, and when, in this age of instant gratification, does one stop being single? I have recently said that "I believe in true love, but not for me." Now I just feel like a closed-minded, self-absorbed person with commitment issues and a martyr complex. I really, really, really don't want to give up my status as single. The again, we all have needs, and this guy is just sweet. How much is too much?

I'm never going to parties again. They only cause trouble.

Doing good things is fun.
A few days ago I was washing my hands in the bathroom of the Sterling library basement when I noticed a silver and sapphire ring on the shelf above the sink. Instinctually, I picked it up and tried it on. It was slightly too big but looked very nice, and I thought about leaving it there but worried that someone might take it. I tore out a page of my notebook and made a sign with my contact info, figuring that whoever lost it would come back. Finally I got a call today from a woman who worked in the library and had lost it. She was so, so happy that I had it, and she gave me a hug when I returned it to her. That felt good. I like doing good things. Furthermore, years of Tolkien fandom have made me very wary of keeping strange rings around. Yay.

Is Bush Wired?
This might not be true, but I hope it is. A rumor is circulating that President Bush might have had an electronic device that allowed, say, Karl Rove to speak into his ear during the first debate. This theory has been reported in such websites as New York Indie Media and even has its own site, www.isbushwired.com.

The evidence for this is surprisingly substantive. First, Bush has been known to have used earpiece prompters before, albeit not in situations where it would have been a scandal. Since he is dyslexic and has trouble reading from a teleprompter, he has replaced visula aids with auditory ones in speeches.

Then there is the odd pre-debate agreement not to show shots of the candidates from the back. Bush aparently made a big deal out of this. Why? Well, it turns out Bush didn't get his wish -- he was filmed from behind, and this produced some interesting photos:


He has a boxlike lump in his jacket. Hm. This is even more convincing on video.

Finally, there is the matter of Bush's debate style. As we saw in his comparatively strong (although still outdone by Kerry, I feel) performance last night, Bush doesn't always speak in the halting, distracted manner of last Thursday's debate. I was shocked to see how out of it he looked during the first matchup, but the strangest part was about 40 minutes into the debate, when Bush said "Let me finish" to -- whom? Neither Kerry nor the moderator had interrupted him, and he had plenty of time left to go as no red lights were flashing on his podium. What could possibly have prompted (pun intended) him to say that unless he were talking to the voices in his head?

Born to Run
This morning I went running for the first time since I've been back. Ironically, it was in the 40s when I woke up, but I just didn't feel like going to the gym. Instead, I ran through the cemetary for 25 minutes, and it felt great. (I'm such a neo-Romantic freak. Who runs around cemetaries for 25 minutes?)

There's such a difference between a treadmill and actually moving forward through the air. I'm going to make a habit of this now that the humidity is gone.

The Empire Strikes Back


Last August, I heard someone say that the Vice Presidential debate would be like watching Luke Skywalker take on Darth Vader. Throughout the Cheney-Edwards duel tonight, those images kept running through my mind. The imagery is too perfect. What many people forget is that the first time Luke crossed lightsabers with the Dark Lord, he didn't exactly come away with a resounding victory. He got his hand lopped off, his psyche impaled, and his innocence shattered.

Granted, none of these things happened to John Edwards, at least, not on camera. But watching the grim VP and his wide-eyed challenger face off, you couldn't help but notice that Edwards was usually on the defensive. He did a good job -- he spoke pretty eloquently, knew his facts, and made (in my opinion, but I'm biased) better arguments than Cheney. Yet somehow Cheney gave the general impression of swatting Edwards' arguements off like flies. Dick Cheney is a smart, smart man. I'm not sure if, in his entire career as a lawyer, Edwards ever had to argue with a man like Cheney.

Edwards got some good jabs in. The debate came closest to paralleling Thursday's when Edwards astutely, directly (yet so obviously) told Cheney towards the end that we were not attacked by the same people we invaded. But Cheney was nasty with his cutting remarks about Edwards' frequent absence from Senate voting sessions.

Unlike Bush's stellar convention speech, Cheney did not for one minute even hint of winning me over. Edwards, who said "It's wrong" on at least two occasions, was clearly in the right and trying his best to advance that. No mistake about it, this was good versus evil. Unfortunately, it was also good getting its butt kicked by said evil.
So it goes.

Hair today...oh forget it.


I'm considering growing out my hair again. As much as I like it short, I feel like I don't take full advantage of the cut. My hair was always so noticeable and pretty, and it's harder to notice now. Hmm...high school self, where have you gone?

Here's the mail, it never fails...
I got my absentee ballot in the mail today! Woohoo! Actually, I got so much mail from organizations asking me for money and offering me free address labels. Today I had mail from Planned Parenthood (plus a petition), the National Parks Conservation Association (sticker and address labels included), Habitat for Humanity (more address labels, plus five cheesy greeting cards), the Appaliachian Trail Conference, and the Southwest Indian Relief Council. I have never given any of these people money, even though I would like to contribute to all of them. All I know is that I have way more address labels than I'm ever going to use.

Putting Bush in his place
Now Playing: "Wooden Ships," Crosby, Stills and Nash
Congratulations to John Kerry for working Bush in Thursday's debate! I think he really came off looking "presidential," whatever that means. I watched the SNL parody last night, which picked up on a point I had missed: Bush says "it's hard work" or "we work hard" a LOT. Before this I'm not so sure the presidency was thought of in terms of hard work. Bush seems to almost equate it to manual labor. I suppose it's an appeal to the common man, sort of like his Texas accent. I know people who were born in Texas that don't talk like that. Bush was certainly not born in Texas. He was born in New Haven. Why is he talking about hard work, anyway?


Congratulations to the Dodgers for their NL West victory! Yeah L.A! I have so much West pride these days. I'm not sure why that is.

Memory Lane
Now Playing: "The Other Side," David Gray
TheFacebook.com is amazing! A girl I haven't seen since third grade requested to list me as a friend. This inspired me to search all the people who went to PenHi and find out where the all go to school now! It was really fun. I considered sending requests out to a few of them. It's amazing what the internet can do. Someday w will live in a world where being a hermit is impossible.

The writing circle met today. Other than me, there were four girls who showed up, as well as a learning-disabled man from New Haven. I really wasn't sure what to do with him. He is writing a book about how useful computers are for people with disabilities. I would like to include him in the group now that he's here, but I was planning on it being all students. I guess I didn't make that clear on the ad. Anyway, it was a good meeting. There are two more people who want to join but couldn't come today. I'm really excited to read what everyone has done!

Archaeology is so cool!
Mood:  happy

I really love my classes this year. I'm learning so much archaeology so fast! I wish I were more motivated to make these blog entries as interesting as my courses are. I'm constantly learning about places I want to visit and mysteries I want to solve. My particular combination of courses is especially nice because they all cover different aspects and levels of the field. With ceramics, I get an in-depth horizontal study of one focused area of analysis applicable worldwide. With the Andes I get the opposite -- a vertical study of all elements in one geographic location. Finally, Foundations presents the history of the discipline in a way that illuminates the approaches we take and that our predecessors have taken in studying the past. They all connect beautifully with one another and some things I learn in one class often appear tangentially or in the background of the others. And it's fun. The world is my sandbox.