I cried for a politician today, not something I thought I would ever do.
Jack Layton, the only politician I ever believed in and was proud to support and vote for died today.
With his death I feel the hope draining, the darkness coming forward.
I did not hear of his death until I was out picking up my lunch and I saw it on Facebook - the news caught me off guard, but even more so, my tears.  I am not a crier (I've been known to not even cry when someone I know dies), but the news took me by surprise and took my breath away for a minute.  The news and knowing the impact his death will have on our political spectrum and our country, the current NDP supporters that will drift away when a new party leader emerges - I mean, who would want to follow that act?  Who could fill his shoes and do what he did for so many of us by putting hope and renewed vigour and passion back into our hearts and government?  He put the fight back in so many of us and for that I will never forget him.  Let's hope his supporters honour his memory by giving the new leader a chance and keeping up the good fight.
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I realized the other week that TLC now has another Say Yes to the Dress show.  They started with a New York show, then added an Atlanta show, and now they also have the fat girls show (in the same New York shop, actually titled Say Yes to the Dress Big Bliss).

So, WTF?  Why did they choose to start a new show not based on location or budget but instead based on the size of the bride? 
What's next Say Yes to the Dress Dwarves Edition?  Say Yes to the Dress Segregation Edition?

It is both baffling and insulting - I see no reason to separate the so-called big girls from the girls they want you to call normal - to me, the only reason to separate the 2 is so they can make a spectacle of the big girls. 
What's wrong with having the original show be more realistic and show both types of brides on the same episode?  A bride is a bride.  They show brides of all races and religions, but for some reason decided to separate out the big girls.
They can't possibly think that big girls weren't watching the original shows to look the the dresses, they can't possibly think that now that there are 2 options the skinny girls will watch the original show and the big girls will only watch Big Bliss...can they?

I think having a whole separate show "dedicated" to bigger brides would make larger ladies feel worse about themselves, feel like they are freaks who need to be separated from the skinny brides, not thankful that they get their own show.

But maybe that's just me.
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Someone else summed up my thoughts:

Christianity:
The belief that some cosmic Jewish Zombie can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magically tree.  Makes perfect sense. 

I don't care for religion, any religion.  Religion in general is a cult, a club that survives through its never-ending cycle of brainwashing.  Think about it - if you are religious, have a specific religion - did you choose it yourself?  More likely this religion is yours because your parents chose it for you, as their parents did them and so on.  Or perhaps your spouse had an ingrained religion and now that is your religion and the religion of your children.  It's pretty rare for a person to go out and seek a religion and make a personal choice - sure, it happens, but not enough. 
I believe a club is something you choose to be part of, not something you participate in because your parents did (if your parents were in a polka club would you be?  If your parents jumped off a bridge would you?).
I consider myself fortunate to have not been brainwashed into a religion growing up - the fact that my parents came from different religious upbringings meant that we essentially had no religion in our house.  My brother and I are not baptized or christened.  I'm pretty sure I only went to church once on Easter Sunday and once on Christmas Eve, any other appearances at church were for weddings or funerals.  My summer camp was a Christian non-denominational camp, and we attended "chapel" twice a day and they gave us Bibles and tried to convince us to let Jesus into our hearts.  I refused to be brainwashed, though I did like singing the songs, and camp was fun and it was what my mom could afford, so we put up with the religion.  I do remember there was one counselor who told us dinosaurs did not exist and were made up by scientists - which, even at 12 I thought was hilarious/crazy-town.

If you feel you need religion to get through the day, to feel better about yourself, to purge yourself of your so-called sins, that's fine, that's your choice, even if it wasn't initially your choice.  But if you have children, is it fair to make that choice for them?  Baptizing or christening your child as a baby is the first step in taking choices away from them. Do you want them to grow up feeling obligated to the religion you chose for them, or do you want them to grow up feeling free to make their own choices?

Copied from new multi-authored site that I am part of (plus, stupid feed for this site seems to not be updating on blogrolls again and I cannot figure out why)

Work.  What would I do without it?
Well, we'd be poor and I'd be very bored, and when I'm bored I spend money - but that wouldn't work because we'd be poor...and the circle of life continues.

I like my job.  I am a different person at work.  I am certain, authoritative, people think I know what I am talking about.  People listen when I speak (and maybe sometimes it's because I'm loud).  I  like knowing what I am talking about, I like that people use me as a resource of information because they trust me to know the answer, or to find the answer if I don't know it.  I like telling people what to do.  I like process and order.  Not that you can tell that from my desk, which is usually an explosion of paper.  My desk is the only think that is like I am when not at work - scattered, messy - ordered only to me as I know what's where and why.  My brain is wired differently than most people, I think differently, I see things from a different perspective, and sometimes that makes me the black sheep or the odd one out (after all, I am an INTJ aka Mastermind), luckily, in my current work, this usually helps me and (I think) mostly my crazy brain goes unnoticed.  Mostly, though I think my outrageous nail polish (really?  who knew nail polish could be considered inappropriate by some?), my odd jewelry choices, tattoos and clothes are noticed more than my craziness.

My work defines me as a person to an extent, but as I've noted before, you can't just put me in a box and call me Project Coordinator or Document Controller, because I won't let you.  These words are too small to actually define me.
Just like Teacher, Banker, Secretary, Manager, Vet, Stay-at-Home-Mom or Housewife (etc, etc.) might be things that you are, things that you do, but they are not you as a whole - you need to remember that - and don't let them put you in a box with a neat little label on it - there is no label that can describe you as a human being, we are novels of words, not post-it notes.

(now I feel I must say "Nobody puts Baby in a corner")

My memory is quite horrible when it comes to events, to things I did. I remember specific dates (birthdays, anniversaries, deaths), but not much else. It's always been this way with me. Older generations will remember when James Dean or Elvis died. I remember when River Phoenix and Kurt Cobain died (and for some reason when Brandon Lee died). It's been 17 years since Cobain's body was found. I was in 11th grade, on a field trip to visit a local university. It was before Twitter, it was before texting - you still heard news on the radio or television or by word of mouth. News travelled fast but not at light speed. You could hear something and still doubt it until it was confirmed by a newscast of some sort - you did not rush home and Google it only to find 10,000 stories had already hit the web confirming it. That's all I actually remember though - I think, because we were on a field trip and therefore "out of touch" for most of the day, we did not get an inkling that our Kurt was dead until the big yellow bus ride home, and even then, it was word of mouth to be doubted, it was unbelievable and needed to be confirmed, it had to be a bad joke.
Of course, it was real, it was confirmed. I know I cried, I know I wrote overdramatic why why why poems. I know I wore all black for at least a week, but no one noticed because I generally wore a lot of black anyway. I know my heart wrenched when Courtney broadcast his note on TV a few days later. Already dark, depressed, disillusioned and at sea, this event impacted me. I was not a crazy Cobain fan, but Nirvana was one of my favourite bands at the time (but I've always preferred Eddie and Pearl Jam), I suppose a big part of it was I was just 17 and Kurt was ours and grunge was ours and it was dead and bad things happen.
Would he still be making music now had he lived? I don't know, but I do know I fucking cringe when I hear the Foo Fighters on the radio. What is is and can't be changed (at least not in this universe), his music and self impacted my life and it's been 17 years and it still makes me sad if I think about it.
It's been 17 years, and the 25 year old who sits next to me at work does not know what Nirvana is or who Kurt was and doesn't care.

So, I have a new (another) addiction.
I was already an avid user and fan of Etsy, as I love custom things, odd things, one of a kind things.  I love the idea that I can get something personal as a gift for someone, that is not from a big box store, and that supports artists, crafters, whatever you want to call them.  I think it's awesome that if I want something specific, and it's something that I cannot find in a retail store, or is something I really cannot make on my own, I can go online and source that something and make it a reality.  It's kind of like waving a magic wand.
The magic wand has now become very dangerous.  My cousin is a fashion designer and she Etsy is one of the outlets she uses to sell her clothing.  She came across an Etsy coupon site called Heartsy.me and recently had her store featured there.  Heartsy works with the artists on Etsy and, like Groupon, provides shoppers with a major discount to stores on Etsy.  Shoppers can also vote on Heartsy to say which shops they want to get discounts at.
So far in the past 3 weeks I have gotten:

$16 for $50 Online Store Credit at Love Betsy Rue for Vintage Jewelry
$19 for $50 Online Store Credit at Jewelry Deli
$40 for $100 Online Store Credit at Simone's Rose (my cousin's clothing store)
$19 for $50 Online Store Credit at Circuit Board Jewelry

See how this is now dangerous?  Sure, I've spent $94 dollars for $250 dollars worth of goods, but I also spent $94 dollars that I did not need to spend at all (with the exception of my cousin's store, as I was going to buy some of her stuff regardless).
I have been a very bad girl and for a while I will be avoiding the Heartsy notifications so as to not tempt myself....

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So, I made this today:

Rude.
It occurred to me today that perhaps their had been a global directive to redefine the word rude.  That perhaps the definition as I learned it and as I believe it no longer applies.  It certainly seems this must be the case as I see rudeness being accepted as par for the course on a regular basis.

But then I Googled it, and was surprised to see that it does in fact, still mean:
/rud/ Show Spelled[rood]

When I was far younger and cuter...

So, yesterday was my birthday, I am now old (but don't I say that every year?).
I find it (interesting? dismaying? pathetic? sad?) that the majority of the people who "happy birthday-ed" me yesterday are people I never see or speak to except for on Facebook.  I am not a random Facebook-friending whore, so my FB friends are people I like, and care to keep in touch with in some way or another.  But I noticed that the people I see and am face-to-face friends with (rather than just FB friends) missed my birthday for the most part, no emails, no FB messages, no cards, no phone call, and it's just kind of crappy, because FB or no FB, I always try to make sure I email, or send a card or a text or something when it's a special occasion.  The FB posts are nice and all, but life is not a popularity contest, and I'd rather have 2 notes from close friends than 40 FB notes....

Original sketch from my idea, Keith Durocher, PennyBlack Ink

Foot tattoo, in progress since December, still have a few hours of work to go on it before it's finished.....

Initial 2 hour session

and for this week's dose of irony, I now have a tattoo that says Read or Die, and I was told this week that one of my retinas appears to be detaching. 

Second session, 2.5 hours

So, there's that.
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I am not an overly emotional person, except when I am.

Right now I want to puke, cry, and commit murder all at the same time.  Today is the type of day that reminds me why I generally try to avoid the news, why I purposely keep my head in the sand and look the other way, it's the type of day that reminds me the human race is fucking disgusting.

What caused this?

100 sled dogs slaughtered in Whistler when tourism slumped: Report

I am disgusted, I am outraged, I am helpless to do anything because the act has already been committed.  Is there someone I, as a citizen, can go to and seek a similar decision be made to euthanize or cull the useless excuses for human beings that made the decision and (literally) pulled the trigger on these poor animals?
Would that I could.

 
Pandora.
I knew not of it until I visited my sis in Seattle a few months ago, she lamented that it wasn't available in Canada, but of course down south it is there for the taking.
I was sad.  Then I Googled it and found a way to get it here (simply block my IP and the blocker assigns a random IP, and for whatever reason the random IP is a US IP).
Now I have it, and it's lovely.  See, I like music, but I'm not an addict.  I don't surf iTunes on a regular basis, in fact I probably add songs to my iPod like once or twice a year, which my husband thinks is insane because it means I am listening to the SAME 800 or so songs ALL YEAR. 
The thing is, I can't be bothered to go wading through all the crappy music out there, it seems like every fresh-faced teenager has a single and really, do I need to hear that?  Somehow, I think lyrically a 14 year old's song will not appeal to me. 
I did have a satellite radio for a while a few years ago and I loved it because I had 2 channels that played my kind of music but added some other stuff in there, and it was in sync with the stuff I love.  However, paying fifteen bucks a month for all eternity to listen to music once or twice a week became a bit ridiculous, so buh-bye satellite radio, hello iPod.  Now, with Pandora, when I am at home and want to listen to some tunes, I can open up my Macbook and say hello to Pandora (and unfortunately I must alos say hello to the odd sudden commercial interruption between songs) and goodbye to my same old 800 songs.

Jesus Fuckin' Christ. Can the world get any more ridiculous? Is there no sanity?
Art is art, whether it is literature, music, a movie, a painting, a sculpture...
So why is it suddenly acceptable to revise a classic novel to make it more politically correct? I find it truly sickening that someone has decided to take it upon themselves to change history - because changing a classic piece of art, regardless of format, is changing history. The only person who should have the right to change a piece of art is the creator of that art. If the creator is dead, I believe NO ONE should have the right to alter a creation. It is one thing to sell the rights or mass produce, or do a farce on an existing piece of art, particularly when the creator is dead, but it is another thing entirely to alter the art.
The decision to alter Huckleberry Finn is simply wrong.
Art is meant to challenge, to cause conversation, and sometimes to offend. To remove certain words is backhanded censorship and will cause the book to lose some of its impact on readers.
We need to stop censoring and PC'ing everything and instead have discussions about why the art was created in that way, at that time, why it was acceptable to use the word nigger in a piece of literature.
If we don't, before you know it feminists will be crying out to the Thought Police to have the word cunt removed from all existence, some of Shakespeare's more colourful language will be edited, and chickens will cry fowl when the term "chicken" or "chickenshit" is used to mean scaredy-cat (uh, oh, did I just offend cats?).
Shit happens, history is history, deal with it and leave the art alone.

PS - don't worry, I calmed down a bit and am no longer wanting to stab a baby, especially not yours.
PPS - The quote at the top is most likely the only thing crazy Charlton Heston said that I agree with.

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So, I managed to read 61 books in 2010 (no more, no less than 2009), below, in no particular order are my top picks. 
51 of the 61 were ebooks in 2010. Approximately 51 books were part of a series (though some were book 1 and I am unlikely to read book 2), this tells me I am either obsessed with series regardless of genre, or it's hard to find good stand alone fiction, so I stick with what I know.