Bling Bling in the ATL

I stopped going to NY 3 years ago because... because I realized I wasn't going to move there and it was so hard to keep a friendship alive with my friends who had. Everyone got cool in one way or another, and I was still trashy, tacky, scene-less me. No one had a living room I could crash in, or even a futon - everyone was wedged into closets and hallways and basement nooks and staying the night put a big dent in their piece of mind. Worst of all, no one wanted to leave their little enclave to come meet me in the east village, or greenpoint, or upper west side, or wherever I happened to be staying. That slayed me, that travelling from brooklyn to manhattan was too great a hurdle to maintain the friendship. And so, over time, it all fell apart. I stopped going, I stopped calling, I figured NY was a big black hole into which good people disappeared, got overwhelmed with their big city lives, and lost all contact with the outside world.

Last year, made my first stop in the city since 2002. I was bringing my car from Boston to ATL, and I made an appearance at an ex's birthday party. Had a lovely time - saw 5 or 6 old friends, some who drove in from upstate to say hi, ran into some people I hadn't seen in years.

Since then I thought maybe the times had changed... maybe in the post 9-11 world, New Yorkers were starting to forge new bonds to folks in the rest of the country. I was reinvigorated to renew old friendships, break the 'I only see one person when I'm in NY' rule. So before I went up this weekend, I made an effort to contact some old high school friends, see whether they were up for some skiing or a gallery opening or to have brunch. And they Never Returned My Calls. Never returned my calls. I'd say thats 40% my fault for poor planning, and 20% my fault for being AWOL for a few years, but.... they should return my calls, even to msg 'hey, Ms. bling, I hardly know ya. Can't see you this weekend, I'm super busy. '

Anyways, hung out with the boys friends instead, who actually like him. And did see a friend from LSE, who just got back from London. Entertained with stories of the beautiful south... on tuesday we do strip club karaoke, on wednesday we do bible study, on thursday we make mint juleps and fried okra, and the weathers always nice and our dog is racist. Had some knishes, threw some snowballs, went to my cousins gallery opening... fun fun. Skiing was excellent. Haven't hit the slopes in over 10 years, and still, I can stop and turn and do all sorts of stuff! Because I'm stupid, I started off by going up with the boy to the top of the mountain and then heading down a black diamond. About 20 yards in, I plunged face first into the snow, skis, poles everywhere, and then fell about 30 feet until I crashed into another skier, who, happily, was the boy. Anyways, made it down the rest uneventfully and stuck to the blue squares thereafter and it was a lot of fun!

Dear Dave Chappelle,

I've found your black white supremacist. Its Atilla, the racist dog.

So the black lab that the boy took in last week? He's racist. Atilla's not trained in much... doesn't quite know the difference between sit and shake, and stays only sporadically. The one thing he does consistently is go berzerk when he sees a black man. I wonder if its a Georgia thing. We tried to tell the bricklayer next door that Atilla 'doesn't like people' and he said, 'Uh huh. You mean my kind of people.'

How do dogs learn this? The boy grew up with a German Shepard ex-police dog (interesting choice of pet for a german-jewish family) named Girl. Girl was racist, had a marked preference for old ladies, and didn't like uniforms too much. I used to know a rottweiler who hated hats, any type of hat. Put on a hat, and he'd start growling. Atilla came with the backstory that when he was a puppy, he was beat up in a park by a black man. I don't know.

My mind has made associations, drawn tentative conclusions, of course. Between all the racist dog stories I've heard lately, add Abu Ghraib photos, Nazi police dogs, the news blip of the homophobic dog owners who went to jail after their dogs attacked and killed a lesbian neighbor.. I'm starting to wonder if dogs are a storage device for sublimated social violence between humans. Dogs separate people into types in their doggy way. I wonder how, and how often, dogs' particular aptitudes for recognizing stranger, friend, sex, age, color, hats - and their occasionally violent pack mentality - is used to complement our own social prejudices.

The more pressing question is how to retrain the dog. I'm mad at the Atilla. Everytime I look at him I think 'racist fuck'. If I walk Atilla and he scares the heck out of a stranger because he is black, I feel complicit. But how do you give tolerance training to a dog that won't even sit on command?

The boy's got a plan, I'll let you know if it works.

- ATLMmim

http://slate.msn.com/id/2079214/
http://anastrophe.co.za/very_local_news/racistdog.html
http://www.lpva.com/Archives/Editorial/Ferguson/20020613.shtml

// posted by MMIMIKA @ 3:58 PM 3 comments

FOXNews.com - FOX News Live - The Asman Observer - Reports of More Post-Election Depression

Reports of More Post-Election Depression
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
By David Asman

In the midst of all the excitement surrounding Thursday’s inauguration (search) comes more news of Kerry supporters suffering from post-election depression.

“Dear Abby" (search) advice columns are filled questions from depressed Kerry supporters, which led to this bit of advice from one write-in shrink: “Don't worry. Many psychologists I've spoken to about post-election depression say those feelings are normal, especially now, with inauguration festivities underway.”

Now, if it seems like this is the first election where the losers took a beeline to the psychiatrist’s couch, we may have discovered the reason why.

OpinionJournal.com reports on a new study that shows a relationship between states that went for Kerry and states that have a high concentration of psychologists (search). “The ten states (including the District of Columbia) with the highest ratio of psychologists per 100,000 residents, were, with the exception of Colorado, all blue states, which supported John Kerry...The ten states with the lowest ratio of psychologists per 100,000 residents, all were red states, supporting Bush…”

Well, red or blue, for all of you who choose the couch in front of the TV instead of the psychiatrist’s couch, sit back, tune in FOX News and enjoy the show.

February 2, good night to have dinner out in ATL, or coffee.. or beer. %20 of proceeds goes to Care. I looked at the list, most places I go to anyways are on it. Nice!

http://www.dineoutfortsunamirelief.com/restaurants.html

Ugh. Now I'm hungry. Hmm. Maybe theres some leftover bagels in the staff room. Students are back, that means food...

- Ms. Bling

Oh, yeah. And this. 43 and co. are so pomo, they've realized that politics is just entertainment and news is just reality television like everything else. Except its not.

At a time when no one in television news could get an interview with Dick Cheney, Mr. Williams, of all "journalists," was rewarded with an extended sit-down with the vice president for the Sinclair Broadcast Group... In that chat, Mr. Cheney criticized the press for its coverage of Halliburton and denounced "cheap shot journalism" in which "the press portray themselves as objective observers of the passing scene, when they obviously are not objective."

This is a scenario out of "The Manchurian Candidate." Here we find Mr. Cheney criticizing the press for a sin his own government was at that same moment signing up Mr. Williams to commit. The interview is broadcast by the same company that would later order its ABC affiliates to ban Ted Koppel's "Nightline" recitation of American casualties in Iraq and then propose showing an anti-Kerry documentary, "Stolen Honor," under the rubric of "news" in prime time just before Election Day. (After fierce criticism, Sinclair retreated from that plan.) Thus the Williams interview with the vice president, implicitly presented as an example of the kind of "objective" news Mr. Cheney endorses, was in reality a completely subjective, bought-and-paid-for fake news event for a broadcast company that barely bothers to fake objectivity and both of whose chief executives were major contributors to the Bush-Cheney campaign.

I want my fucking money back.

- Ms. Taxpayer in the ATL

Quit smoking 10 days now. If only my other self improvement projects were going this well - still have very little discipline at work. American Lung Association site works quite well - helped mentally prepare a lot. Didn't notice until my quit day, but I'm a lot more solid than I've been in the past - I feel like this is super, super managable. And, of course, the patch. This weekend is a step down, so I'm gonna be closeted in the house again just in case my mood gets quirky. The boy and I have been holing up, first because we hadn't seen each other for a while, now because I'm not going out to bars quite as much (only twice a week, I guess). Been taking long walks just to get out of the house. Oh well. I'm sure we'll start socializing again soon enough. Might have a gingerbread crack house party, or dinner.. who knows.

Kool-Aid references resurface... CNN says 43 is eyeing Iran.

"As people say to me, when it comes to meetings about this issue, if you don't drink the Kool-Aid, you can't go to meetings," he said. "That isn't a message anybody wants to hear."

The plans are not limited to Iran, he said.

You know, I wouldn't be surprised. Inauguration on the 20th, we're going to try and make a little noise at the CNN coverage of ATL inauguration watching. Then off to an event at the 5-spot.

I'm getting to know L's dog, Atilla. He's a dumb black lab who knows that people like it when he sits, and thats the extent of his training. He's staying at the boys for an indeterminate amount of time, and the boy is not altogether pleased with having to train a puppy thats not his. Though I think he likes having a dog. I've been having fun with it - jogging with a dog is awesome, because they enjoy it so much, hard to get bored or bitch to myself. And, its nice to have a pet around that comes when you call, and will feel guilty when he does something bad. Not like Jack and She-ra, those ungrateful brats. Shera clawed my hand the other day because I was brushing her too much. After all my love and attention and care! I was pretty pissed. Goddamn cats.

And, TMS proposed to WH. Thats quite big news. From a distance, it feels good. I hope I get to be in the wedding party and meet Paul Farmer and Jeffery Saks. ; D

-ATLMmim

In grade school my nicknames were pretty poor seconds to my real name. Think 'Elvira' or 'Ebola' or 'bat-girl'.

So I wasn't terribly pleased when the boy nicknamed me 'el', not only because my name is better but also because I have to share my nickname with the boy's best friend 'L' and the hebrew god.

All this means is that when me and the boy are having a nice moment on the sofa and he says 'oh, El, please, yes, please, don't, stop, i mean go' I immediately turn on the lights to see if he means me or if the other 'El/L's have wandered into the room.

Um. I've been reading Dave Barry all day. Can you tell? And Dr. Sherry Turkle, who writes about interactive computer games like Piaget writes about theory of self and Goffman writes about toys. And I took a humor quiz which said that I scored 66 out of a hundred overall, 64 on 'generating' humour and 72 on 'appreciating' humor.

I didn't get this one joke on the test: 2 bears are eating and one bear says to another bear, 'pass the salt.' And the other bear says, 'what do I look like, a washing machine?'

I don't get it.

More jokes I don't get: a Jew, a U.U., a Catholic and a born-again Evangelist all got together last night for weekly bible study at J's house. We made it to the 4th day of Genesis before the Jew and the Evangelist started fighting over A. whether El made the sun and moon with the heavens, or when I adorned the heavens, B. whether or not there is original sin and C. who is being more condescending/going to hell (if there were a hell)/both.

I was careful to communicate that as a Unitarian Universalist, I was the best prepared for interfaith conflict and even predicted last month that shit was going to hit the fan if people didn't stop being so goddamned specific about their beliefs. I also warned them that in my native land, I am a considered a princess. To the catholisms credit, J didn't join in the fray, just drank a lot, suggested we spend next week discussing lust, and then ran off for a date with a Marine whom she promised not to do anything with because she still hasn't legally separated from her husband.

Maybe we can drop the whole bible thing and attend the wicca zen yoga retreat my congregational association is having next weekend instead.

Got to work easily today... up at 7, left the house by 8, at work by 9. Seems easy. Hard part is actually getting something done once I'm here. But slowly slowly. 3 PM. 2.5 more hours, kids, then I'm FREEEEEEEE!

Come on, I deserve better than a 66. Don't I?

xo, el

Had an out of body experience last night. Today I feel good but not quite settled in my own skin. A little disoriented.

Bizarre.

Woke up very early. 5:30, with the intention of going to Zen meditation. But... I didn't. Instead I made samoan cocoa rice and ate a mango. Very yummy.

Back to work and chores,

- ATLMmim

OK, so today I'm quitting smoking.

I've got little notes to myself in my palm pilot, I'm installing a quitsmokingmeter on my computer, I've got events planned in my calendar. I'm gonna spend the next 3 days doing the withdrawal thing, tonight I'm going to destroy my little smoking niche by the window with the fan, this weekend I'll clean house and car because I know its going to bug me how much smoke is in the place.

Tomorrow I get the paper and I'm going to have to read it with no cigarettes. Hmm. Maybe I'll go to a coffee shop. Or, might go to a sunrise service or meditation session - they do Zen at 6:30 AM every day at my church.

I need a mantra. I hate that craving moment where I start compulsively thinking, looking, searching for cigarettes as a last stop gap before going out and buying a pack. So I need a positive compulsive behavior to stop that.

And some replacement behavioral stuff - mouth and hands busy. Find my koboloi, or some bracelets to play with. And buy some lolipops and gum and stuff. And to start excercising more, I guess. We'll see.

I guess next weekend I'll plan to do a detox. That should be fun, I've wanted to for a few months now, but whats the point when you're chain smoking the whole time?

Lets see, its been 7 years exactly. I started smoking in the beginning of 98. Never thought for a minute that I was starting a 7 year habit.

I guess I'm a little bit patient and not to worried about it. Good to get anxious a bit, in preparation, but basically I just know that I am going to have a little bit of a crazy, hermit weekend, and that after that, it'll be fine.

I just need a mantra though. Something half decent that I won't mind engraving into my brain.

I went home for lunch today and found a hole where my front door lock used to be, an assortment of screws and tools and lock pieces on my desk.

Note to self: don't lock the boy in the house when you leave for work in the morning.