AliThinks

Love-Hate

Every damn day I hate Facebook for one reason or another.

But then I look at the good stuff about it, and I relax. I still hate it. I will always hate Facebook to some degree, but that kid knew what he was doing. So I commend him for that, and I continue to use his service, which changed my life here in Lexington. (See? I can't hate it that much. It really helped me in a social way.)

I heard about Facebook when you still needed a .edu email to join, so I got an alum email address from my alma mater. I was an early adult adopter, and some of my earliest friends on Facebook were my blogging friends. And I don't mean that in a hipster way, like Facebook is so uncool now that they let everyone in.

(Although I'm sure that folks who were in college five years ago feel that way. To that I say I GET YOU.)

The changes Facebook has made annoy me. To be sure, rare is the FB application that I will allow. And I clamp down on my privacy settings as soon as I hear about a change. For this bullshit, I hate Facebook. But for all the rest, I love it.

And I hate that I love it.

I Wish I Had A Snappy Title For This Post

Today a Facebook friend from high school posted an AP photo of President Obama. She said "This picture was actually attached to an AP article entitled Many Obama 2008 supporters defecting to GOP....is it just me, or do I detect a little craziness in his eye? maybe its just the full moon...."

I thought of commenting that the media often uses unflattering photos of personalities. Then I thought better of it, so I said nothing.

Then I saw that another guy who was in our high school class said this about the photo: "He's a liberal...of course he's nuts."

I took the bait.

I replied, "Gee, based on that logic, I must be nuts too."

To which the guy said "That would be correct."

I replied back, "Wow. Have a great Sunday. See ya!" 

I just didn't want to get into a political argument with someone I wasn't even friends with back in high school.

My friend who'd posted the link called him out on the name calling (he'd also spewed some other stuff about liberals, then said "You can't fix stupid. LOL"), and I have to commend her for that. It was also her space that was being used, so I don't blame her. 

I addressed her, and agreed with what she had said regarding politics. She is more conservative than I am, I am pretty sure, but she seems to be open to other points of view, and doesn't label people.

The point here is two threefold: No matter our political beliefs, those who are on the other side of the spectrum are not crazy or stupid. And yes, it took a lot for me to write that. But being labeled "nuts" and "stupid" by someone whose beliefs are more conservative than my own made me realize that we tend to operate in generalities.

The other second point is that we can always learn something from the other side.

The third is that it's important to vote.

And there's another thing I thought about all afternoon: I'm proud of who I am, of my principles and beliefs. That might be another blog entry, although as my t-shirt rightly states, I never finish anyth

File Under: People Are Nuts

I have started frequenting the comments to articles on a news site. Occasionally I leave a comment. My username is Alison, because back when I signed up, I thought "First!" There is no other identifying information about me on my profile at this site.(I'm just saying that, because it's not linked to this blog, or any of my other usernames around teh interwebs.)

Last night someone found a comment I made so interesting (because I said I knew someone who was involved with what might be called "alternative religion," and if you give me an S, some ham, and an ism, you've got it), that he kind of got his panties in a wad. This person, to paraphrase, found my acquaintance with this "alternative religion guy" quite amusing. I quote, "I've read many of her posts on other political issues and found her support for Obama so unrelenting* that I suspected her true icon name was Ali's son. But this is even better."

*Um, it's really not unrelenting.

I just kind of laughed at the guy's bizarre logic. But then I got to thinking, SO WHAT? What if I were a Muslim? What if the President were a Muslim? In a perfect world, no one would care, because this is America, Land of the Free and It Doesn't Matter What Religion Others Practice. (Oh wait, in a perfect world, there'd be no religion, but I digress).

Remember when people were freaking out because presidential candidate John F. Kennedy was Catholic? I don't either. But it happened. And guess what? It turned out to be no big deal.

Perhaps in my lifetime, we'll have a Muslim president and it will turn out to be no big deal. Even better? An atheist president! Imagine that!

Ah, Welcome To France, Alison

I knew there was a transportation strike before I arrived in Paris. Aimee, Jennifer, and Kylie Mac had informed me of it during our back-and-forth messages to arrange a meeting place and time. If worse came to worst, I thought, I could take a cab from the airport.

I checked online, saw that the RER B, the suburban train that runs to and from the airport, was still running, with limited trains. But first, I decided to try the Air France bus that runs between the airport and the Gare de Montparnasse, which, conveniently was kind of where I needed to be.*

*I was leaving Paris the next day from the Gare de Montparnasse.

The flight from Atlanta arrived in Paris late, and my luggage was among the last off the plane. I walked into the airport hall, withdrew some cash, and went toward where the bus usually is. No bus, just hundreds of people in line at the taxi stand.

So I walked from Terminal 2E to the train station. It's not too far. The moving sidewalks help one speed along. I had to laugh at the moron who pushed a luggage cart onto the rolling metal. (One time, same airport, I watched as the wheels of a luggage cart got stuck on the way off the moving sidewalk. The logjam was impressive. Like the proverbial train wreck.) I scooted around the sidewalk and kept going.

Once I reached the train station (I was still in the airport, mind you), I got in line to buy a ticket for the RER. There were no sales windows open, but stations are full of machines where you can buy any number of kinds of tickets.

I stopped at a cafe for a jambon-beurre and to regroup, then made my way to Quai 11 for the RER B. An electronic sign informed me that the RER was running only as far as certain banlieues, and would not go further south. And because there was no way I was going to take the RER only to have to disembark at La Courneuve, I headed for the nearest taxi stand.

Fortunately, there weren't hundreds of people waiting.

Fifty euros later, I was at my hotel.

I went to check in and realized I'd left the printout of my reservation in the cab. And not just my hotel reservation, no; I'd left a wad of paper with important numbers and codes for the train and the car rental.

The hotel staff kindly let me check in anyway (not that they wouldn't have; I'd already paid for the room.) Then they apologized that the electricity was cut off, and the elevator wasn't working, all due to a fire alarm the previous day.

My room was on the 6^th floor.

If you've been to Europe, you know that means it was really on the 7^th floor. Granted, I had help, but I still schlepped my suitcase up seven flights of stairs. My room was cute, with a nice little eave or gable, and I was lucky that there was still some hot water.

There was, however, no air conditioning, because of the aforementioned panne d'électricité. After my shower, I sweated while I pondered how best to meet up with Kylie Mac. (Aimee and Jen couldn't make it to our rendezvous because of the strike and other mitigating circumstances.) I didn't know which metro lines were running, or how often. Being as tired as I was, I was having trouble wrapping my brain around what to do next.

Fatigue + humidity + sweatiness = brain fog.

Oh, did I mention? After months of chill, if I'm to believe my Parisian friends on Facebook, summer had arrived. It was HOT.

________________________________________________________

I'm going to cut this short. I wrote the above on the train from Paris to La Rochelle. I haven't really had time to write since I got here, and I think I'm out of whatever it takes to make a blog entry interesting.

I'll save the good stuff for another entry.

Traveling By Aeroplane Is No Longer Fun

...but the free wi-fi at Bluegrass Airport helps.

I'm going to France for a quick trip. It's really, really hard to get excited about going anywhere anymore when the whole process of traveling by air is so stressful. I know, call the waahhh-mbulance. Such a first-world problem.

I'll be fine once I get over myself.

The fun thing about being in airports is getting to watch people. Right now I'm kind of eavesdropping on a French guy who's not happy about something. I can only hear every third word.

So, yeah. Traveling. To France. For the first time in...a year.

Ah, Retail.

Working in a bookstore has its advantages. We tend to get a higher caliber of customer than your average store, and yet. And yet. The last time I wrote about my job, I had three stories to tell, and they all happened in one day. Nothing untoward has happened since then, but twice today I had to clench my teeth to keep my jaw from hitting the counter. And so, then, here it goes. I'll reiterate what I said a few days after my last day of doozies. (Yeah, click that link.)

I'm going to omit certain irrelevant information here, just because.

This morning I dealt with a customer who wanted to know if we had any ****** Lewis books. I asked, "Is that L-E-W-I-S?" and the customer said "Well, yes, of course, unless he spells his name some weird way." (By this time I saw that we had no ****** Lewis books, and was trying ****** Louis.) I did an Amazon search, because that's the easiest way for us to get information on any one book. We can then get the ISBN or EAN for the book and plug it into our distributor's website.

I found the author and book the customer was looking for, and plugged the ISBN into our system, just to make sure we didn't have it in stock. We didn't, so I kindly suggested that we could order the book for him. He wanted two books from this author, and I found both on our distributor's site.

I asked for the customer's name and phone number, giving my usual spiel, "We'll call you when the books come in." The guy gave me his name, but said, "I prefer that you don't call me. I'll stop in to check." He left the counter, and I proceeded to place his special order.

A minute later he came back and asked me, "Are you sure I didn't confuse you with the books I wanted to order?" I showed him my monitor, pointed out each title, and said, "No, this is what you asked for!" He thanked me and left. I called out a similar thank you, and once he was out the door, said to my manager, "Thanks for the vote of confidence." My manager said "Seriously." (I'm so glad he has my back.)

It's funny. Yeah, this is a retail job, but each retail job has Things You Come To Know. So if you're working in X clothing store, you get to know your products and the distribution system. The same goes for a bookstore. And I was flabbergasted that this guy thought I might not be capable of placing an order for the books he wants.

And my hair isn't even blonde anymore.

____________________________________

The second happening (and I should probably make this another entry), was the picking-up of a special order. A semi-local, horse farm-owning woman who's hard of hearing ordered a book which was released this past Tuesday (I'm writing this on Thursday, two days after the release of said book). When she was in our store last week, it took her about two minutes of convincing to realize that we didn't have the book she wanted, because it hadn't been released yet. She decided to place a special order for it, which was fine. She gave me her name, and said that it should be in our system, since she'd ordered from us before. This was true, but she was in the system last name first, so rather than being listed as Bertha Ballcrusher, she was Ballcrusher Bertha. 

I placed the order and modified her file so that it conformed to the first name/last name system we use. I'm going to call her Ballcrusher Bertha, though. 

Today Ballcrusher Bertha called the store in order to inquire how much the book she'd ordered cost, sales tax and all. She wanted to write a check for the full amount, because her son was going to come to the store with said check and pick up the book. I rang up the book, gave Ballcrusher the total, repeated it just to be sure, and then canceled the sale.

A couple of hours later, a middle-aged man entered the store. At first I thought he was with a woman who was walking slowly with a cane, but as soon as he could get around her, he did, and he made a beeline for the counter.

At that point I knew who he was, so I was reaching for his mother's special order while he was asking for it. I brought the book to the register, and noticed that he was looking at the check his mother had written. He asked me "What's the list for this book?"

I was thinking, "Nice use of lingo there, dude," but I said, "Thirty dollars."

He replied "You sell this book at list price," as if it were a crime.

I answered, "Yes, we do. We can't do it any other way, sir." 

He acquiesced, since he had a check from his mother for the full amount, $31.80, but I feel sure he was going to give her shit for not buying the book from W*lM*rt, where she could have paid the wholesale price.

Then I asked if he'd like a bag, and he said yes, but when I brought it up from underneath the counter, he said, "Don't you have anything smaller?" I said, "I have something thinner," and showed him the flimsy bag we sometimes use if a book is large or lightweight. Ballbuster Bertha's son then refused all bags and left.

I rolled my eyes, and then I bitched about him to Allan on Gmail chat:

me: Jackass just came to pick up the book for his deaf mother, and when he saw the book, he asked for the list price. I told him "Thirty dollars," and he said, kind of incredulously, "You sell it at list." I said, "We can't do it any other way."

 Allan: Oy.

5:08 PM me: I know, right?

  And this is from a guy whose mother owns a horse farm.

  So, um, FUCK him.

 Allan: Did he buy it?

5:09 PM me: Yes, because he had a check from her for the exact amount; she called earlier to know the price with tax.

 Allan: Fuck him.

 me: Exactly.

Yeah, so there you go. I'm totally Judgy McJudgerson. But Ballcrusher Bertha gets points for buying her books from our store, even if she is totally deaf and very hard to deal with.

It's funny how the strange stories happen on the same day. I hadn't felt the need to tell a bookstore story since that time back in November, because I had three episodes of weirdness in one day. Today I had two episodes. And either I haven't been paying attention, or this was the first day since November that there were customers who exceeded the norm.

Although, if you really think about it, it was a couple of male chauvinist customers. The one wasn't sure I could handle the order he placed, and the other wasn't sure his mother was sane for buying a book at our store when she clearly could have bought it at W*lM*rt.

Hmmm.

Meh. Whatever.

Yeah, that's pretty much how I'm feeling about this webspace. When I started blogging nearly six years ago, it was still a novel thing. Now everyone and their goddamn mother has a blog. (No offense to all the mothers out there!) I don't know where I fit into the blogosphere anymore. My blog stats plummeted after I moved to Lexington to be with Allan. I still have a core of readers, and I appreciate them all, but they know how to find me in an emergency.

So...meh. Whatever.

O RLY?

God. I get so annoyed at people sometimes. I know no one can read my mind, but DUH, do you really think I wasn't aware of that?

Anyway. Here's a photo of the ORANGE! wall.

Yeah. It's orange. And the other walls are yellow. And it's BRIGHT, y'all!

Which was, of course, our intention.

I said to look for me in March. Here I am.

I Was Going To Write About...

...how much I hate bikram yoga at the beginning of class, and how much I love it at the end of class, and not just because it's over.

However, I just updated my iPod software and installed a new app, which when I tried to associate it with a couple of other social networking accounts, wouldn't let me log into said accounts. This made my blood pressure rise and gave me the urge to throw the iPod against the wall.

Sometimes computer stuff makes my blood boil when I can't get it to work.

Then I remembered I'd changed passwords on both accounts, but hadn't used them on the iPod since I'd changed them.

Yeah. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Letting Go

Today some plans went awry, and I'm still upset about it. I'm mostly upset with myself for not having the presence of mind to switch a couple of things around so that it could all work.

It's not a huge deal, but some of us were disappointed. I'd write about it (it's not a state secret, either), but I don't really have the energy to explain right now. 

Instead I'm going to work on letting it go. It won't matter in the long run.

Yesterday Sucked So Hard It Pulled Today In With It

It's 3 am, and I woke up with a stabby pain in my throat, right up near my right ear. GREAT. When I wandered into the kitchen and saw that it was 2:15, I almost cried. I thought it must be about six, which would be bad, but not that bad. My attempt to fall back to sleep was unsuccessful, so here I am.

I'm still processing what happened at the clinic yesterday. It was not good. A friend wrote me an email asking how it went with my face, and here's what I wrote back, slightly edited:

And The Snow Falls

We've had snow on the ground for about a week, and I don't mind at all. When I refilled my coffee mug this morning, I noticed it was snowing again. My only concern is the roads; today I have to work.

Having grown up in Pennsylvania, I'm no stranger to snow. Even better, having grown up on a hill, I associate snow with sled riding. FUN! I'm sure my parents felt differently about it.

This morning I'm thinking about other things than snow, however. I'm thinking about the nature of blogging and what it means to have a weblog. A friend of mine had a Diaryland blog back in 2000 or 2001, and she sent me the link. At the time I thought "I couldn't possibly put my thoughts ONLINE! For just ANYBODY!" Three years later, I started to do just that.

As this blog has evolved, so has my attitude toward it. I'm content. Settled, if you will. I'm not so willing to put it out there. But I have Facebook and Twitter accounts. I'm connected. 

So I'm not sure what my feelings are about a certain blogger* I follow (in all three places, mind you). I'm pretty sure she's an attention whore. But aren't all bloggers, to some degree? Face it, if you're posting things online, anywhere, you've got a desire for attention. 

No, it's more than that. Could it be jealousy I'm feeling? If so, what am I jealous of? I can't put my finger on it.

Maybe I just want her to be a little more subtle. Maybe I wish I had her drive. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Maybe I should unfollow her.

*No, I'm not talking about YOU.

Ya Know...

...the decade doesn't really end for another year.

Do we count from zero to nine? No. We count from one to ten.

The current millennium (um, also, decade) didn't start until 2001, and the next decade won't start until 2011.

Just sayin'.

Edit: Apparently I'm a total buzz kill. What can I say? I have perfectionist tendencies.

Comments

Longtime readers of this blog know that I usually answer comments with a personal response. Lately, I haven't been doing so, and I blame it on Typepad and Gmail. It should be easy* to answer your comments, but Gmail is crapping out on me in this regard. I thought Typepad made it easy* to answer your comments within the blog entry (and that it would be all threaded and all that, and you know what I mean), but no.

This means that for the time being, I'm not going to answer you personally, or maybe even at all. Please know that I do read and appreciate every comment. I hope this information doesn't deter you from commenting. One of these days, I will overcome the ghost in the machine. 

*Mmm, yeah, easy. Pardon me for wanting some things, including responding to blog comments, to be easy. It doesn't mean I love you any less. Really. The Gmail blog-responding works for Allan; it's not working for me. :\

Angry

So last night history was made when the House of Representatives passed a Health Care Reform bill, 220-215.

Not to get all über-feminist on you, but it is truly HIStory. In this health care bill, women get the shaft. Pun intended. Let's all bend over, ladies.

I'd be elated that we are on the way to health care reform in this country if it weren't for a little thing called the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, which will make it illegal for even private insurers to cover abortion costs. Planned Parenthood has a great explanation:

The Stupak/Pitts amendment violates the spirit of health care reform, which is meant to guarantee quality, affordable health care coverage for all. In fact, this amendment would create a two-tiered system that would punish women, particularly those with low and middle incomes, the very people this bill is intended to assist. The majority of private health insurance plans currently offer abortion coverage, and the Stupak/Pitts amendment would result in the elimination of private abortion coverage in the ‘exchange,’ the new insurance market created under health care reform, as well as in the public option, if one is created.

I'm angry, because although I'm lucky enough to be able to afford birth control (and an abortion, if I ever needed one), this amendment means that so many other women will not have access to such care.

Abortion is a legal procedure that has helped millions of women stay on course with the lives they want to lead. Nobody wants to have an abortion. But sometimes the condom breaks. Your antibiotic interferes with your Pill. Or, worse, you're the victim of rape and you get pregnant. 

It's unconscionable that health care coverage for a legal procedure is being tampered with, especially on the private level. (There's been no public funding for abortions, except in certain cases, since 1977.) 

This post is not meant to spark a moral debate on abortion. I am firmly pro-choice; I always have been and I always will be. If you think abortion is wrong, that's your prerogative. But as it's a legal (yes, I said it again. LEGAL.) medical procedure in this country, the debate needs to lie with whether the government has any right to legislate the private insurers' coverage of it.

I know, how ironic. I'm rooting for the private insurers on this one, but only because I'm rooting for women and their rights. And the Stupak-Pitt amendment relegates us to second-class citizen status.

An Open Letter

Dear Lady In The SUV Trying To Pull In The Parking Lot Which I Was Leaving,

Perhaps if you had had both hands on your steering wheel, instead of one on the wheel and the other on your cell phone, you would have been able to make your turn without waiting for me to pull out. Really, I wasn't in the middle of the parking lot entrance. I wasn't blocking you in my little Honda Civic. And I took a risk leaving the parking lot when I did, because it was hard for me to see around your large vehicle.

Next time, SUV Lady, hang up your damn phone and just drive. 

Sincerely,

Alison

EDIT: I don't have anything against SUVs per se. I realize they can be useful automobiles. I just can't see around or through them!

Whatever

I turned 39 today. I'm at the edge of the proverbial abyss, right?

Whatever.

A Slight Departure From The New Norm

Longtime readers know that this blog ain't what it used to be. I don't write much about what I'm feeling or what I'm doing. And yeah, I'm trying to figure out how to remedy that. In a couple of days, I will have been blogging for five years. That's almost ancient in blog years.

There's a reason I no longer blog without abandon. And I really don't want to say what that reason is. To get all meta on you, the reason I no longer blog the way I used to is the reason I can't tell you the reason I no longer blog the way I used to.

Is your head spinning yet?

I miss blogging. I want to write about Facebook. I want to write about Twitter. (Although, both things have contributed to my lack of content here.) I want to write about our friend Katie's amazing novel (it's destined to be Great American Literature, people). And I want to write about the meal I just ate, and the party I attended, and that thing I saw, and that other thing. Oh, and that thing, too.

So I'm left wondering how to reclaim my blog. I miss AliThinks.

Only Slightly Dead*

I haven't calculated this, but I do believe that the total "weight" of the photos I have taken this entire year — as in 2008 — doesn't even equal a month of photos from 2007. By weight I mean file size; in France, a large file is referred to as a "fichier lourd," lourd meaning heavy in this case. (Lourd means other things in French, which we will not delve into now, parce que c'est trop lourd pour moi en ce moment.)

Wherefore the lack of photographic evidence? I don't know. I couldn't even say if the loss of my photographic mojo coincides with the loss of my writing mojo. That's how complacent I am.

So while I contemplate all of this, I'll ask you to look at some other notable photos I've seen around the web lately. The first one to come to mind was taken not far from me; Louisville is 60-some miles to the northish-west.

Next is pretty much anything on this guy's Flickr stream. We've met once, but only because he recognized Allan and me in the Rite-Aid down the street. Seriously. We need to touch base with J.

And while I know she doesn't *need* the traffic, I can't resist directing you to dooce's Daily Chuck series. If ever I have a dog, he will be like Chuck. No, really.

Last, but not least, Explore is always a source of cool photos.

*As opposed to mostly dead, in reference to a movie which shall remain nameless until you mention it in the comments.

A Completely Random Expression Of Annoyance

On the jar of natural peanut butter (ingredients: peanuts, salt), in no less than two prominent places, are these words:

Oil separation is natural. Just stir and refrigerate.

Are we really this far removed from our food?