Part I

'Sydney, did you poop??'
'No'
'Are you sure?'
'No poop'
'So if I checked your pull-up then there isn't going to be any poop in there?'
'Right, no poop'
Check Pull-Up
'Sydney, there is poop in there'
'Nope, it's a turd'
'Same thing'
'No it's not, it's a baby turd not poop'

Part II

'God Sydney, did you poop again?! You freaking stink!!'
'No poop'
'Oh dear god, (roll eyes here) fine, do you have a baby turd then'
'No baby turd'
Check pull-up
'Jesus Christ Sydney that is disgusting!'
Smiling 'Yep, baby poop'
'I asked you if you pooped'
'No poop, just baby poop'
'Oh, for the love of ... '

Shit proceeds to fall out of the diaper, onto the rug .. on my finger (gagging at this point) ... hanging from her butt ... on her shirt I throw her into the tub, cussing under my breath, it's just so freaking gross that I have to take the towel and put it against my face so I can scream at the
top of my lungs. 

"Silk stared at him, rubbed his wrist, and a last spat at the old man's feet. 'You cheated. You said I couldn't hit with my stick, but you hit me with yours.'

'I did! Oh, Yes!' The old man flung it into the air and parried it as it fell. 'But aren't I sorry? Isn't my heart torn? Overflowing with remorse? Oh, it is, it is! I weep! Where would you like to be buried?'"

Page 58

“In a minute I’m going to tell about pirates, but there is not any real difference between pirates and wise guys. One is at sea and the other is in cities. A big part of it is money, and money is just another way of saying freedom. If you have money, you can do pretty much whatever you want to do. (If you do not believe me, look at the people who have it.) You eat what you want to eat and you drink when you want to drink. Can have two or three women at the same time, if that is what you want. You can sleep late if you want to, and you do not have to work. If you want fifteen suits, you can have fifteen suits, and you can travel if that’s what you want. If you like a certain kind of work, you can do it. But nobody can make you.”

Page 76

“We would go where I said to go, and anybody who did not like it would have a long swim. There was no novice master to worry about, and no feds. Just about everybody on earth was chained up, even if they could not see their chains, but I was not. I could breathe in a way most people never get to breathe. I stayed at the wheel like that for the whole watch, and I cannot tell you how wonderful it was.”

Page 99

“Two things saved us. The first was that the crew was not armed. After that I asked about it, talking to a guy who had been in the French Navy and later to Capt. Burt, who had been in the British. Both navies were so scared of their own men that they kept all the weapons locked up and did not issue them until they thought their men might need them
The Spanish were the same way—more scared of their own crew that they had been of us. Most of the soldiers had gone ashore, and some of the sailors had, too. The only men on board who had swords, pistols, or anything like that were the officers and a couple of soldiers. My father told me one time that a good lawyer means a lawyer who is more scared of you that he is of the cops, and it seems to me that if somebody is more scared of his own men than he is of the enemy, he ought to go home and go to law school.”

Page 108

“I have fought quite a bit in my life. I do not think I am a real good fighter, only pretty fair one. Just the same, I have learned two big things about fighting and I will pass them along. The first one is that if you rush somebody you have to make good on it. Rushing works best when the man you are fighting does not expect it. If he knows you are coming, maybe you better think of something else.

The second one is even more important. It is that if everybody knows you are a good fighter, you do not have to do it much. People who go around picking fights do not want to lose them. It means that every fight you have is more important than it looks. You want to win it, and you want to tear the other guy up so everybody knows who won and there is no doubt about it. Never listen to guys who talk about fighting fair. Half the time they are just trying to time one hand behind you. If you box or play cards or shoot dice, you ought to play fair. Those are games. A fight is not a game.”

Page 147

“The night sky was as clear a s crystal, and there was no moon. I looked out into the vast universe, saluting suns and families of suns far away, and watched the planets creep among them—bloody Mars, and Venus radian and pure in her robe of cloud. For the first time in my life I really understood that I rode a planet like those, that Earth and I were swinging through the dark vault even when we smiled in the sunlight. All my life I had thought of Heaven as a vague place far away, a mysterious land outside the universe where God sits a golden throne. That night I realized that Heaven is not far away at all—that Heaven is wherever God is, and that God is everywhere. That every human soul is His throne room.

Hell is right here, too.”

Page 251

“It is a mortal sin to take your own life. I know that, and it was one of the things the monks pounded home to us—do not kill yourself so that your soul can be with God. It will not. You are not free to reject His gift of life.”

"...Americans worship technology. it's an inherent trait in the national zeitgeist. Whether we realize it or not, even the most indefatigable Luddite can't deny our country's techno-prowess. We split the atom, we reached the moon, we've filled every household and business with more gadgets and gizmos than early sci-fi writers could have ever dreamed of. I don't know if that's a good thing, I'm in no place to judge. But I do know that just like all those ex-atheists in foxholes, most Americans were still parying for the God of science to save them." pg 166. 

"The book of war, the one we've been writing since one ape slapped another was completely useless in this situation. We had to write a new one from scratch.

All armies, be they mechanized or mountain guerrilla, have to abide by three basic restrictions: they have to be bred, fed, and led:. Bred: you need warm bodies, or else you don't have an army; fed: once they've got to be supplied; and led: no matter how decentralized that fighting force is, there has to be someone among them with the authority to say "follow me."  pg. 271

"You can blame the politicians, the business men, the generals, the "machine," but really, if you're looking ot blame someone, blame me. I'm the american system, I'm the machine, that's the price of living in a democracy; we all gatta take the rap, ...Nice to be able to say, "Hey, don't look at me, it's not my fault." Well, it is. It is my fault, and the fault of everyone of my generation." pg 334

"...so we have each of us in the dustiest cellars of our minds a counter at which we strive to repay the debts of the past with the debased currency of the present." pg 66

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"'A dog is born a dog and a bird is born a bird, but to become a human being is an achievement--you have to think about it. You have been thinking about it for the past three or four years at least, little Severian, even though you may never have thought about the thinking.'

'A dog just looks for things to eat,' the boy said.

'Exactly. But that raises the question of whether a person should be forced to do such thinking, and some people decided a long time ago that he should not. We may force a dog, sometimes, to act like a man--to walk on his hind legs and wear a collar and so forth. But we shouldn't and couldn't force a man to act like a man. Did youu ever want to fall asleep? When you weren't sleepy or even tired?'

He nodded.

'That was because you wanted ot put down the burden of being a boy, at least for a time. Sometimes I drink too much wine, and that is because for a while I would like to stop being a man. Sometimes people take their own lives for that reason. Did you konw that?'

'or thay do thins that might hurt them,' he said...

'Yes,' I told him. 'That can be the same thing. And sometimes certain men, and even women, come to hate the burden of thought, but without loving death. They see the animals and wish to become as they are, aswering only to instinct, and not thinking.'" pg 97

"'...until I saw the boats and the rounded curves of the thatched roofs of the village I had not known how solitary I had been...It was more than mere loneliness, I think. I have never had much need for companionship, unless it was the companionship of someone I could call a friend. Certainly I have seldom wished the conversation of starangers or the sight of strange faces. I believe rather that when I was alone I felt I had in some fashion lost my individuallity; to the thrush and the rabbit I had been not Severian, but Man. The many people who like to be utterly alone, and particularly to be utterly alone in a wilderness, do so, I believe, because they enjoy playing that part. But I wanted to be a particular person again, and so I sought the mirror of other persons, which would show me that I was not as they were.'" pg 150

"'Do you know what the trouble was with the bad uncle? With Gundulf?'

'I supose that he was in love.'

'No, that was what was right with him. Every person, you see, is like a plant. There is a beautiful green part, often with flowers or fruit, that grows upward toward the usn, toward the increate. There is also a dark part that grows away form it, tunneling where no light comes.'

I said, " I have nenver studied the wrtitings of the initiates, but even I am aware of the existence of good and evil in everyone.'

'Was I speaking of good and evil? It is the roots that give the plant the strength to climb toward the sun, thought they know nothing of it. Suppose that some scythe, whistling along the ground, should sever the stalk from it's roots. The stalk would fall and die, but the roots might put up a new stalk.'


'You are saying that evil is good.'

'No. I am saying that the things we love in others and admire in ourselves spring from things we do not see and seldom think about.'" pg 240

"There is no limit to stupidity. Space itself is said to be bounded by its own curvature, but stupidity continues beyond infinity." pg 327

Into the distandce disappear the mounds of human heads.
I dwindle--go unnoticed now.
But in affectionate books, in children's games,
I will rise frim the dead to say: the sun!

Well, the bike didn't kill me but aspiration pneumonia almost did. Just out of the hospital. Some advise--keep your veins in good condition cause it's no fun being some half-witted RNA's practice pin-cushion.

 

 

Page 448: remember the point when we first found out that Santa isn't real

"It's particularly interesting being based in a toy company." she says. "All the bitter ironies are so much clearer here. You think about childhood, and what it is, and it is all lies and contraditions. Mummy or Daddy sits there in their leather shoes going 'Moo cow' while you look at the pretty pictures of cows in a feild. You don't make the connection with 'Moo cow' a couple of years later when you're begging for your Happy Meal toys at the same time. We can sell Finbar's Friends to happy suburban kids who are able to think of toys as somthing Santa makes, not third world slaves. We can sell them fluffy animals that they curl up with in bed. We can sell animals as long as they are pretend. The animals will be loved as long as they remain pretend. We sell the sort of attachment to abjects and sentimentalism that means that a kid will run back into a burning house to rescue a toy rabbit, but Dad won't swerve in the car to avoid a real one. That is the real power of brands, when you think about it. One rabbit has a label on its arse, another one doesn't. You can love the one with the label and everyone accepts that. Risk your life for a real animal and people say you're mad."

[...]

"We all remember the point when we first found out that Santa isn't real, or that meat is dead animal, or that Mummy and Daddy had to hae sex to make you, or that when you buy something in a shop for $4.99 it probably cost something like a penny to make." She smiles at me. "You know when you're a kid, and you suddenly find out all this stuff...? You go alittle bit mad for a while, and then you just accept it. Then you grow up and you find out that there's another level of lies that you hadn't spotted but they're easier to accept, because by now you're used to lies. You realise that if someone invites you to come in for coffe they actually want to have sex with you; that the advertisement that suggests you will be beautiful and thin if you use a certain shampoo is not true; that 'Stupidly Low Prices,' when you go into the shop, doesn't mean that at all; that the guy who e-mails you saying he will give you a share of a few million dollars never will; and whenever you see something adverised as 'free' it just isn't. You just think, 'God, I've geen conned again,' and you eventually get used to it. And that's fine up to a point. But the lies get a lot bigger, and sometimes they're so big that pople don't spot them. They can't."

"Have you heard of cognitive dissonance?"[...]"It's the idea that your brain has trouble processing certain things," she says. "For example, say you belonged to a cult that believed that aliens were going to arrive on Earth tomorrow, and you'd believed that for thirty years. Tomorrow, when the aliens don't turn up, what do you tell yourself? Do you say, OK, I must have been wrong all these years? Maybe ou should, but you can't: you've had such a big investment in the idea that they'll turn up. In fact, your whole identity is based on it. What you experience at that moment is cognitive dissonance, as your brain rejects the idea that your life has been meaningless. To overcome it, you tell yourself a story that you want to hear, You tell yourself, for example, that the aliens didn't come because it was raining. Or that your calculation was wrong and they're actually coming in ten years' time. Well, some radical psychologists have applied this idea to our meat-eating consumer culture. They've found that people tell themselves stories to make themselves feel OK about doing the things we have to do to be 'normal.' People tell themselves that animals have happy lives before they are slaughtered, for example, or that third world slaves are happy. And it's very hard to take those ideas apart, because people have so much invested in them."

Page 347: people simply fight their own, individualistic wars

War. When Hitler was around, it was quite clear who the enemy was. But how, or what, do people fight now? I sense that people simply fight their own, individualistic wars against their noisy neighbours, or drug addition, or the mobile phone receiver in their garden (but not the one in the next town, or the unjust war 1,000 miles away). Perhaps the world seems like too big a thing to try to save, especially when there are so many enemies out there. It's too late! Save yourself! Does that make more sense? I have always felt incapable of "saving" anything: myself, the world, whatever. One person doesn't matter. One person can't matter, unless that person is a head of state. I think about my grandfather and all the small personal battles he fought. He was against greed, and acquisitiveness, and plundering the environment for whatever treasure you thought it might contain. If he received bad service in a shop, he would never confront the assistant. Instead he would come home and write a long letter to the managing director of whatever company it was, complaining about their exploitation of their staff and how, since this company so obviously exploited its staff, and since this led to a bad service, he wouldn't be shopping there again. One time I suggested to him that perhaps the member of the staff was to blame. Surely people should take some responsibility for their actions? If their company was that bad, surely the employee could just leave? "We all have to fight the system," he said to me. "Otherwise no one will."

Page 390: Maybe I have some idea of who the enemy is now. Maybe the enemy is me.

[...]people don't think of chinese factory workers in the smae way they think of themselves. I remember a writer I like saying that we sometimes look at old gravestones and see records of babies that have died a six months old, or nine months old--sometimes several in one family--andi we think that these losses are somehow less painful bercause they happened often, and to strangers, and at some distant point in history. We think that these remote people would have "got used to it," and that their pain would be less than ours would be at losing a child. But in doing this, we dehumanise these people. Of course the pain isn the smae. By imagining chinsese factory workers like this, as strange people, pherhaps living four or five to a room, eating mainly rice, living on the scraps thrown to them by the companies that exploit their labour, and by thinking that even this imaginary, exotic version of these people are happy with what they have got...Well, it's the same sort of dehumanisation, surely?

I suddenly remember something else. A saying. Where does it come from? I think that an ex-boyfriend's father used to say it, a long time ago, He said: "Beware of cheap goods. If you buy cheap goods, you a re stealing someone else's labour."

[...]

Probably 95 per cent of the cosmetics have been tested on animals. How much blood, pain, slavery and torture exactly does go into creating all this stuff, which we are told is so frivolous, so much fun? People like us [R&D] are paid vast amounts to come up with the concepts, and then the actual objects are made and tested...where? Somewhere invisible. Somewhere that doesn't matter. Somewhere very, very distant. Of course, we all know that actual objects don't matter any more. What matters instead is the logo, the idea, the lifestyle, the brand. Companies are now required to spend millions of dollares establishing this brand, paying sports stars and actresses to endore it, paying marketing gurus to tell them how to make it "go viral" and so on. How can they compete otherwise? Perhaps there really is nothing left over to actually pay to make the product. Perhaps that's why the people who make it have to live in poverty, and why the materials are substandard and glue shows on even the coolest trainers. They pay only to make the lable, nothing else.

[...]

It used to be that we would joke about the enemy, not really believing that the enemy existed. But maybe the enemy does exist after all. Maybe I have some idea of who the enemy is now. Maybe the enemy is me.

Page 273: Can't people just desire you because of your breasts any more?

[He] happily rambles for the next ten minutes or so about American remakes of japanese independent films, B-movies, anime and old westerns until he seems satisfied that I know what he is all about. He dosn't tell me where he grew up, how many brothers and sisters he has, what he is scared of, whether he likes his toast done well or not, whether his hair colour is actually natural, what he would do to improve the world, whether he believes in God (although I already know the answer to that one, I think), who he would vote for, what his perfect political party would stand for, what items he would take with him if he was to be stranded on a deserted island of anyting at all about this cyber-paganism in which he is supposed to be so interested.

Is this how it works now? Do we just let film-makers create identities for us that we can buy for $12.99? Is that what identity costs? Or is it how you put the units together that counts? Does a zombie film plus and experimental Parisian inner-city heist film make you a different person than two Hollywood romantic comedies do? Would either of these poeple get on with the person who has every series of their favourite SF TV show on DVD, arranged in such a way that their edges make one Picture on the shelf? You can string this stuff into lines of cultural DNA that can be seen without any kind of microscope, until anyone looking at you shelves can use this information to establish "who you are" and whether or not they want to have sex with you. Can't people just desire you because of your breasts any more? Maybe they do, sometimes. But if your cultural DNA can't link up with theirs then they'll fuch you and leave before you wake up, just like everyone said they would. Or you'll do the same to them, because they like alt country music two years after is was fashionable, or they own Titanic on DVD.

Page 396: Scare them before they can scare you. Never appear weaker than them.

My new stratagy for surviving at shool is a constantly evolving entity. At first, I take a jumble of things--images, ideas, people--and pack them for school every day as carefully as my garandfather packs my lunch box[...]I take ideas about imprisonment and freedom from Woman on the Edge of Time. I tell myself that no one's life is as bad a the heroin Connie's life. She is locked in a cruel mental institution despite not being mad. I am trapped in this school but at least I can lock the door when I go to the toilet. On the other hand, Connie has the ability to time travel to a better world. I do not have this ability. But sometimes, when things are really bad, I imagine that I, too, can summon this future up in my head and step into it as easily as stepping through a door. I take this image of another world around with me all the time, folded up in my head like an old map.

Other things I carry around with me, in my head: snapshots of Roxy, of Jasmine, of the blue-haired girl in the clothes shop. They wouldn't take any shit, I know that. (I am using words like "shit" now a lot in my head. This is what happens when you are exposed to so much adult literature before you are even twelve.) Sometimes, if one of the boys says something to me, something designed to hurt my feelings or humiliate me (and there are myriad ways of doing this at shchool, believe me), I say something so horrible back that they leave me alone for a while. When Mark came up to me recently and asked why I don't have any friends, I looked at him with Roxy eyes, and imagined myself with blue hair and said, "Get fucked, Mark." No one says things like this at school, not in the first year. Another time, the other kieds got hold of one of those anti-vivisection leaflets. "Where's your can, Butler?" they kept saying. I didn't know what they were talkig about until they slapped this image down on my desk--a cat with wires coming out of its exposed brain--and said, "We found your cat, Butler. Sorry to say it's not in a very good state." They all laughed, probably imagining that I was about to cry, or wet myself or something. Instead, I looked coolly down at the image and then looked up at them in a confused, grown-up way and said, "I don't have a cat, you morons." I didn't let them see that they had upset me. I have learnt various rules. Cry in the toilets, not in public. Use the scary, dark tiolets on the third floor for this purpose, as no one else uses them. Use swear words that they don't understand. Scare them before they can scare you. Never appear weaker than them.

Page 411: however you play, it's a game you can never win

I was thinking about the SF. The Supreme Fascist. It's what Paul Erdos Called God. It's his verson of the Supreme Being, I suppose. He said that life is a game that you can never win, because every time you do somehting bad the SF gets one point, but every time you do somehting good, neither of you score. The game of life is to keep the SF's score as low a possible but however you play, it's a game you can never win."

I was practicing in a parking lock and tried to make a turn too tight. I realized I was going to hit the curb no matter what I did--atleast with my skill set. So I pulled the clutch and hit the brakes. Less than two miles/hour is what I hit that curb at. Of course my new japanees bike's handle bars immediately snapped in the opposite direction and I slowely went from upright to a position I normally reserve for sleep. Though I rarely nap with a four-hundred pound motorcycle on my ankle, seeing as how uncomfortable it happens to be. I hit the kill switch, pushed the bike off the ground with my left foot and waited for my step dad to park his bike and help push the monster off me. Screw my ankle, thank god my bike wasn't hurt! I rode the 250 for the rest of the day even though I felt more comfortable on my bike. Dad said he thought it was best. I think he just wanted to ride my bike.

The ankle is just taunting me now. I know it'll wait til morning to really punish me. X-rays Monday, since I work.

'Can't stand em standing around, not lookin me 'n the eye. Tell'n me how good I'm lookin'...I c'n trust you, you won't give me that bull shit.'

'I know dad. You did look like shit Sunday and you look even worse after they give you those damn pain pills. You really are looking better though...relatively.'

'Comin' up later?'

'Yeah, right after work. Three-thirty.' Ha! Trust me huh? What about that lie, 'I'll be up there after work'. Whatta son.

Boy tasered at John McCain Speach. 
                         -Apparently he forgot to raise his hand.

Black Water inc. kills eight civilians.
                          -Relegated to Green Zone by Iraqi leaders.
                          -Ambassidores mad that they'll have to rely on the American and Iraqi army's for protection.

Angry Mother's speach cut out by Fox during Emmy speach.
                   -Who was that crazy lady who wants to end this profit making war
                   -She must not own stock.

1. Go to Career Cruising, http://www.careercruising.com
2. Put in Username: nycareers and Password: landmark.
3. Take their "Career Matchmaker" questions.
4. Post the top twenty results
5. Put the careers you have seriously considered in bold

1.
Genetic Counselor (um...what?)

2.
Psychiatrist (haha, me and all the crazy women of the world handing out meds)

3.
Sport Psychology Consultant (aka douchebag)

4.
Humanitarian Aid Worker (aka doormat)

5.
Psychologist (me and all the creepy men of the world)

6.
Rehabilitation Counselor (Let's just say I'm not one to throw stones)

7.
Mediator (sure, why not?)

8.
Marriage and Family Therapist (hahahahah)

9.
Foreign Service Officer (wtf does that mean?)

10.
Naturopath (sounds like some Adult-Swim cartoon)

11.
Mental Health Nurse (hahah call me, "Mrs. Ratchet")

12.
Social Worker (Oh god, kill me now)

13.
Addictions Counselor (Never have to look for a dealer again!)

14.
Licensed Practical Nurse (no go. Though I do fancy the latex outfits from some movies)

15.
Plastic Surgeon (fudge no)

16.
Surgeon (let me get this right, I'd be better at plastic surgery than just plain ol' surgery?)

17.
Audiologist (I do have both ears)

18.
Anesthesiologist (I practice in my time off)

19.
Botanist (not interested, my plants would agree)

20.
Computer Support Person (Hello Howwww may Iee elp ju?)

21.
Veterinary Technician (aka poop scooper/dog killer)

22.
Gerontologist (aka poop scooper/grampa anti-killer)

23.
Stationary Engineer (I have no problem sitting in one place)

24.
Pharmacologist (Ah, we're on to something)

25.
Millwright (Wrong!)

26.
Biologist (vagina technition)

27.
Chemical Engineering Tech (aka explosion fodder)

28.
Chemist (aka rave salesman)

29.
Power Plant Operator (I don't think anyone would lack the brains to offer me this job)

30.
Industrial Machinery Mechanic (see twenty nine)

31.
Nurse (ass wiper)

32.
Prosthetist / Orthotist (I'd joke constantly and then go kill myself)

33.
Marine Biologist (I hate water--those fish pee in there)

34.
Office Machine Repairer (hmm, I'd do more harm than good)

35.
Electronics Engineering Tech

36.
Electrical Engineering Tech

37.
Occupational Therapist

38.
Cabinetmaker (I'd like this the most...would I have to be good at it?)

39.
Biological Tech

40.
Zoologist

"So, what brings you in to see us today?"

"I was teri'fied!...I saw a spider."

"Ok...I'm going to take a picture of your chest, alright?"

"It weren't no bitty one either!"

"Ok...I'm sure it was very terrifying. Did you have a fall or any physical injury?"

"No, sure did scare me though."

"Yes, spiders can be very upsetting."

Chart says 'chest pain'. That I can believe--since she weighs over three-hundred pounds. I stifle the urge to mention her slight size advantage. I assume that the spider lived to tell the taleof the mammouth screaming pig woman. Hell, maybe it had a heart attack too.

Tap! Tap! Tap!