worldmegan

I had a far nicer Christmas than I had any right to expect.

You folks just make me all warm and gurgly, I’ve got to tell you.

Have a beautiful evening. :}

There is nothing more satisfying in the whole world than taking far too many obnoxious christmas photos and putting them all in one garish red and green jpeg. So, in the tradition of obnoxious christmas cards everywhere, I’m going to tell you all that I love you.

Because I do.

So please be safe and clever over the holidays, and celebrate whatever the fuck you want, and do it with a lot of joy and peace and contentment. And if it pleases you to do so, high-calorie foods and liquor. And for heaven’s sake, friends.

I get forwarded messages occasionally, though infrequently. I admit it, I discourage them. Even more infrequently, I get messages that seem worth the forwarding, and this is one of them. I am not sure how accurate this information is, but it all seems to make sense. If you have any thoughts, comment or drop me a note – I’m not going to forward this to anyone else, but I am going to pass it along like this. I’ve done some formatting to take it out of crappy email forward territory and allow it to carefully approach legible blog territory.

“...We can now add to the list of victims the retired 77 yr. old TCU professor from Ft Worth whose body was found recently in Oklahoma—and the 11 yr. old in Sarasota, FL. Because of these recent abductions in daylight hours, refresh yourself of these things to do in an emergency situation…This is for you, and for you to share with your wife, your children, everyone you know.

“After reading these 9 crucial tips, you might want to forward them to someone you care about. It never hurts to be careful in this crazy world we live in.

1. Tip from Tae Kwon Do: The elbow is the strongest point on your body. If you are close enough to use it, do!

2. Learned this from a tourist guide in New Orleans. If a robber asks for your wallet and/or purse, DO NOT HAND IT TO HIM. Toss it away from you….chances are that he is more interested in your wallet and/or purse than you, and he will go for the wallet/purse. RUN LIKE MAD IN THE OTHER DIRECTION!

3. If you are ever thrown into the trunk of a car, kick out the back tail lights and stick your arm out the hole and start waving like crazy. The driver won’t see you, but everybody else will. This has saved lives.

4. Women have a tendency to get into their cars after shopping, eating, working, etc., and just sit (doing their checkbook, or making a list, etc. DON’T DO THIS!) The predator will be watching you, and this is the perfect opportunity for him to get in on the passenger side, put a gun to your head, and tell you where to go. AS SOON AS YOU GET INTO YOUR CAR, LOCK THE DOORS AND LEAVE.
   • If someone is in the car with a gun to your head DO NOT DRIVE OFF, repeat: DO NOT DRIVE OFF! Instead gun the engine and speed into anything, wrecking the car. Your Air Bag will save you. If the person is in the back seat they will get the worst of it. As soon as the car crashes bail out and run. It is better than having them find your body in a remote location.

5. A few notes about getting into your car in a parking lot, or parking garage:
   • Be aware: look around you, look into your car, at the passenger side floor, and in the back seat.
   • If you are parked next to a big van, enter your car from the passenger door. Most serial killers attack their victims by pulling them into their vans while the women are attempting to get into their cars.
   • Look at the car parked on the driver’s side of your vehicle, and the passenger side. If a male is sitting alone in the seat nearest your car, you may want to walk back into the mall, or work, and get a guard/policeman to walk you back out. IT IS ALWAYS BETTER TO BE SAFE THAN SORRY. (And better paranoid than dead.)

6. ALWAYS take the elevator instead of the stairs. (Stairwells are horrible places to be alone and the perfect crime spot. This is especially true at NIGHT!)

7. If the predator has a gun and you are not under his control, ALWAYS RUN! The predator will only hit you (a running target) 4 in 100 times; And even then, it most likely WILL NOT be a vital organ. RUN, Preferably ! in a zig-zag pattern!

8. As women, we are always trying to be sympathetic: STOP. It may get you raped, or killed. Ted Bundy, the serial killer, was a good-looking, well educated man, who ALWAYS played on the sympathies of unsuspecting women. He walked with a cane, or a limp, and often asked “for help” into his vehicle or with his vehicle, which is when he abducted his next victim.

9. Another Safety Point: Someone said that her friend heard a crying baby on her porch the night before last, and she called the police because it was late and she thought it was weird. The police told her “Whatever you do, DO NOT open the door.” The lady then said that it sounded like the baby had crawled near a window, and she was worried that it would crawl to the street and get run over. The policeman said, “We already have a unit on the way, whatever you do, DO NOT open the door.” He told her that they think a serial killer has a baby’s cry recorded and uses it to coax women out of their homes thinking that someone dropped off a baby. He said they have not verified it, but have had several calls by women saying that they hear baby’s cries outside their doors when they’re home alone at night. Please pass this on and DO NOT open the door for a crying baby—This e-mail should probably be taken seriously because the Crying Baby theory was mentioned on America’s Most Wanted recently when they profiled the serial killer in Louisiana.

“I’d like you to forward this to all the women you know. It may save a life. A candle is not dimmed by lighting another candle. I was going to send this to the ladies only, but guys, if you love your mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, etc., you may want to pass it onto them, as well.

“Send this to any woman you know that may need to be reminded that the world we live in has a lot of crazies in it and it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

Shannon LaForge
Courtroom Deputy to Judge Robert Junell
U.S. District Court for the Western District

It all sounds pretty good to me. Despite Youngstown’s economic illnesses, these are still things to keep in mind—and even more so if you live in an area more tightly-packed with human beans. Stay safe, folks. :}

I may have just had a coke, a gingerbread man, and two B-100s.

Possibly.

In case you’re interested.

I’m on the phone with the National Information Center for Passports. I should have called earlier, I suppose, but I don’t think I’m going to run into any problems because of it. The hold time says 2 to 3 minutes, and that’s reasonable. The elevator music, that’s what this post is about.

I don’t know what song this is.

It’s classical, and it doesn’t have any words. It’s somebody’s sonata, or symphony, or opus number something. (Yes, I went to music school. What of it?) It is incredibly familiar, but I can’t place it. I feel like it is something that made an impression on me when I was growing up. Clearly it did, or I wouldn’t recognize it so easily, and it wouldn’t give me this funny feeling. I can’t tell you anything about it, except perhaps to hum it for you. If I think about it too long, it will drive me crazy wondering what it is, where I heard it—but if you’d like to call the National Information Center, it’s been the elevator music every time…

I suppose I should forget about it and get back to work.

I just ate a hard boiled egg sandwich.

On raisin bread.

With mayonnaise.

Would someone please take me grocery shopping?

It’s been an incredibly interesting morning. I got through a ton of email, plenty of work, watched Sky High with Marty, and watched a peculiar (albeit entertaining) Masters of Horror ep about politified zombies. I think Boing Boing covered it here. I ate a piece of toast with jelly (plus vitamin C and superduperdophilus… ah… that’s not the technical term…) and some crackers with creamcheese. And now my mother has arrived with groceries. She is making pasta.

I, for my part, am going to keep working. I used my first sip of coke to pop a B-100 and my headache will be gone any minute. I am going to pound this to-do list till there just ain’t no more to pound. You understand what I’m saying? Pow. Wham. Kavoomie.

I have out-of-town plans between the 30th and the 5th… with a day or two on each end to prepare and recover, I expect. And the next two weeks will be spent plowing through piles of Have To Be Done. But other than that, forecast is peachy. With peaches.

Here I go!

Ten minutes later: It worked! Voom!!

My little sister is neat, and it’s totally her birthday. In fact (craziness of craziness), it’s her twenty-first birthday. Isn’t that wacky? Imagine the totally legal hijinks we can get up to when she visits again!

0.o

I can but speculate!

Remember when she was reeeeaally little? And she made all those funny faces? I have pictures to prove it!

Early Emily: These five are random – see the rest here.
Middling Emily: These five are random – see the rest here.
Current Emily: These five are random – see the rest here.

I really like my sister.

She’s done a lot of great things, often brave things. She is using her Morris genes very cleverly and is already beginning to add incredible things to the great things, and the brave things. She seems ethereal, on occasion—focused past real human capacity. Some of us know what a geek she is, under her skin—if you don’t believe it, just consider her strange alien heritage!

We love her and we’re glad we know she’s ours (alien quips or no).

I don’t know her nearly well enough, and although I know I have plenty of time to turn that around, I’m very impatient. But it’s totally going to be worth it.

There is a Hat For Sale, and also an EP.

Happy birthday, Emerneenie. :}

Missy’s right, I’m all over the place today. The colder it gets outside, the warmer it gets in here… the more brilliant I feel, the more thoughts cram themselves into my head, the more people I talk to get overwhelmed by my rampant subject changes. I’m skipping dimensions, man, I’m crazy. And I know it’s the weather, and the holidays coming up. They make me feel funny. Funny good funny. They put me in a different atmosphere. They’re chilly and sweet.

Last night I watched the greatest Daily Show ever. EVAR, I mean. After a string of old episodes and Sex-and-the-Cities, I finally landed on December 1st, and the White Stripes. The White Stripes! Woo!!

I don’t know the White Stripes very well. I think I discovered them via a short-term friend on the ‘net. Seven Nation Army, Hardest Button to Button, that was all I had for awhile. I saw them here and there after that, but never really paid a lot of attention, except to the songs I got attached to. But last night they were incredible, all red and black and riffy and chordy and rhythmy. Gurgly.

After the first song, I grabbed my laptop and bought their two most recent albums. And they are NEAT.

I’m not sure how long it’ll take this feeling to go away, this funny brilliance. It’s going to make my head strange for awhile, no doubt about it. But I wonder if it will make me more productive, or less productive, or productive in strange, incredible ways…?

Well, we’ll find out, if I post a little more often… :P