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wSpring Tide |
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The tandem pull of the sun and the moon
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wWednesday, August 28, 2002 |
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Been working temp for a few days. I'm a lab rat at an environmental toxicology lab. The lab tests water, soil, wells and storage tanks for various toxics all over the state. I support the chemists, which means I wash a metric buttload of glassware each day, deal with lab waste -- various solvents, mostly -- and do whatever else needs to be done.
I look so official-like in my white lab coat.
posted by
Just Mary at 9:20 PM
1 comment
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wSaturday, August 24, 2002 |
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The word has come down from the Cnidarian email list:
You have a gaggle of geese, a herd of cows, and now:
a smack of jellyfish.
Rumor has it that the term comes from the sound a jellyfish makes when it hits the deck of a boat after being dumped out of a plankton net.
posted by
Just Mary at 10:19 AM
2 comments
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wTuesday, August 20, 2002 |
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Ooh, I love the produce of summer. I just got french green beans, lemon cucumbers, mixed salad greens and lemon basil all from the University organic farm's produce stand. I'm going to have a totally yummy salad for dinner.
I got some orzo which I figure I'm going to use with the lemon basil. I better email Mark for advice...
posted by
Just Mary at 5:26 PM
5 comments
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random thoughts of the day:
Recent TV footage of Al Queda testing chemical weapons on... puppies! Is there any better depiction of evil? Hey I don't mean to downplay the seriousness of terrorists mucking around with chemical weapons. The footage just gives me this wag the dog feeling. If I was trying to come up with images to demonize the opposition, I can't think of anything much better than puppy abuse.
I gave up on not taking antihistamines. Generic Benedryl. I'm eating 'em like candy. Vivid dreams, but Sutai is staying away. For now, at least. I don't remember what last night's visitations were about, but they were disturbing. I remembered enough to be disturbed, but not why.
Finished a fun book... Blood Music, by Greg Bear. I like Bear a lot because he brings science into his books in interesting ways. Some people critisize him, saying the science gets in the way of the story, but it doesn't for me. At least not so far in the 4 books of this I've read.
Been really jonsing for cigarettes lately. Its been over 8 months. What keeps me from 'em is the knowledge I have to pay a friend $100.00 if I smoke. Since I can't afford it, I abstain. sigh.
posted by
Just Mary at 9:17 AM
13 comments
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wSaturday, August 17, 2002 |
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Ugh.
This blog entry will have more than a modicom of bitching in it. So brace yerself peoples.
First of all, I've been in Allergy Hell� for the past week or so. On several days, its been so bad, I've broken down and done OTC drugs, which give me that lovely "wha planet is this???" sort of feeling. Passing out for 4 or 5 hours after taking antihistimines seems to be standard practice.
I really hate being doped up like that, which is why I don't do antihistimines on a regular basis. I know if I did them on a regular basis, I wouldn't notice the side effects, but I don't like that idea. I spent six years of my youth on daily antihistimines, and I don't think its really good for you. Especially when you stop taking them. I know there are drugs like claritan which have "no side effects" but one of the side effects of being an unfunded marine biologist (cough *unemployed* cough) is that I have no prescription drug coverage and not a lot of money. (hmm... maybe I should start begging for "spare change for allergy drugs" on my blog, like that chick who's begging for money on her blog to pay down her credit cards... oh wait.. there's that dignity thing... damn. ) So I wait until I'm sneezing repeatedly, utterly miserable and then take the cheap OTC drugs and then pass out.
Ya-fugging-hoo. I look so purty with a red chapped nose.
On the up side, I did get to have this lucid dream/hallucination while doped up that Sutai, a character from clanlord, was standing in my room in a monkly way, offering advice on my life. Think "Kung Fu" monk.. the older one who calls the young Quai Chang (sp?) "grasshopper..."
Wait.. hallucinating Sutai... is that really an "up side?"
But AllergyHell� is just one aspect of my lovely life right now. Regular viewers of the JustMary Chronicles may recall that I live in an interesting shack behind a house in a run-down part of the beachtown where I was going to school. (sigh. no, I haven't moved. don't have the cash flow to move yet) I pay money to the people who live in the "Big House" which they in turn pay to Pacific Gas & Electric. Theoretically.
Yesterday I was working on my very part time soon to be ending web gig, when suddenly the lights snapped off. I stuck my head outside to find a PGE tech turning off our power. I asked what was up and he sneers at me "I'm shutting you off because you haven't paid your bill."
"How exciting" thinks I. I check the tag they put on the door and it turns out the bill is $500. "Gee... wonder what my neighbors DO with the outrageous sum of money I give them each month for electricity?"
Well, long story short, they paid it last night and the rumor is it will be turned on today. A sympathetic neighbor gave me an extension cord from their house so I could write this screed and regale you all with my tale of woe. So while I couldn't read, I could get some work done last night, and I could even clan.
Ah, clanning by candlelight... a sign of the truly addicted.
So today I'm waiting for power, thinking about taking allergy drugs, fearing further Sutai visitations and pondering going out to buy another cup of coffee (yes, we have no gas either.)
Did someone wish that I got to live in interesting times? Well I do. Yes indeedy.
posted by
Just Mary at 10:31 AM
7 comments
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wThursday, August 08, 2002 |
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Happy Birthday, Mom.
posted by
Just Mary at 7:52 AM
3 comments
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wWednesday, August 07, 2002 |
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In other news, I'm going to be a Course Assistant for Biochemistry in the fall. I'm completely jazzed.
posted by
Just Mary at 7:55 PM
3 comments
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I grew up in a world of contradictions. My parents instilled the idea in me that I could do whatever I wanted, be whoever I wanted to be. Yet the world around me didn't agree.
The first time I ever got in trouble in school was in 7th grade at St. John's. My teacher -- my first male teacher -- was having career day and was talking about what we could do when we grew up. Boys could be President, or firefighters or airline pilots and girls... well girls could be mommies or secretaries or... you get the idea. They couldn't be CEO's or policemen. They weren't as mentally acute, emotionally sound or physically as able as men, according to my teacher.
Now I know its hard to believe, but I argued with him. Challenged him. I don't remember the text of the exchange, but I knew he was full of shit, and I told him so. The argument ended with me shouting at him that he was a "fucking male chauvenist pig" and him throwing me out of class. Off to the principal's office I went. I didn't get in a lot of trouble -- I was an excellent student and I think Sr. Ruth was sympathetic to my point of view. The next parent-teacher meeting had my teacher tellling my parents I was an overacheiver. Heh. While my parents didn't use the exact words "fuck off," they did walk out.
Damn if I just wouldn't accept my place.
That day stuck with me. Its one of my defining moments, I guess. It brought home to me that the world thought there was things I shouldn't be allowed to do because I was a girl. And that line of sexist thinking was nowhere more pronounced than in the Church.
I've never understood why only men could be priests in the Catholic Church. I never got why I couldn't be an altar girl -- why helping out with the Mass celebration and the partaking of the Sacraments was a duty reserved for boys only. Why were women nuns and men priests? It didn't make sense to me. Original sin? huh?
The year of that incident with my teacher was the year that I began to question my faith as well. I'm not sure of the links between the two except that contradictions in the world were becoming more clear and contradictions were rife in the Church.
I'm reminded of that time when I hear that news that the Pope has excommunicated seven women for claiming the priesthood. I applaud those women for sticking by their beliefs, even tho' I don't understand the investment of energy into a sexist institution like the Church. How can you love and revere an institution that uses religion to perpetuate sexism, just as they used to use it to perpetuate slavery?
posted by
Just Mary at 7:00 PM
9 comments
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