give ya novels a chance

So I went with [Anna}, my favorite pinko-commie friend, to this anti-war meeting tonight and boy, it was a trip. The meeting was endless, if informative, and I certainly got to know some interesting people. Sample dialog:

Boy Whose Clothes Consist Entirely (And I Mean Entirely) Of Patches (Patches, for Short): I don't think we're paying enough attention to Palestine.

Emotional Pigtailed Girl: I would like to echo what Patches said and say that we aren't paying enough attention to Palestine.

Redheaded Doctor: I would like to say that while I understand what both Emotional Pigtailed Girl and Patches are saying, the peace movement in America is facing a FIERCE TEST and I think we should focus on that. We are about to be TESTED! We must be FOCUSED! DETERMINED!

Facilitator Dude: Excellent point.

Patches: I hear what you're saying, but I still don't think we're paying enough attention to Palestine.

Emotional Pigtailed Girl: I would like to say that I completely agree with Patches.

[Ten minutes of pointless, roundabout discussion resolving nothing.]

Facilitator Dude: I hear what everyone's saying. How can we fix this?

Random Peacenik: I think we should make a flier.

Facilitator Dude: I think that's an excellent idea.

That turned out to be the go-to solution for almost everything, making a flier. Every time a flier was proposed, it sparked a twenty-minute discussion of who would make the flier, where it would be copied, how it would be picked up, where it would be distributed, etc.

It was a good meeting though! Very informative, and it's nice to see people being all active and stuff. Even if I did have to sit next to a smelly guy with a nervous tic who kept talking to himself. Or maybe he was talking to me? I couldn't tell. I smiled and nodded a lot.

Anyway, after that, Anna and I grabbed dinner at the local vegetarian person and I was feeling SO socially responsible, eating vegetarian and attending peace meetings and the like, that I felt the immediate need to go to the nearest massive corporate box store and thusly we went to Border's. There, Anna and I indulged our Border's Tradition, which is to go to the young adult section and pull out The Likes of Me, a book which has, I believe, the funniest back cover ever! Ever! Reproduced here for your enjoyment:

Cordelia Lu Hankins is half Caucasian, half Chinese -- and all albino. She has grown up isolated from the world, with her distant father and a giant stepmother named Babe (after Paul Bunyan's blue ox), in a remote lumber town in the Pacific Northwest. She is convinced she is ugly and that her father has deliberately hidden her away. Then in the summer of 1918, when she is fourteen, she meets the dashing Squirl. Squirl is charming and handsome, and Cordy falls desperately in love with him. But her father forbids her to go near Squirl. One day they meet on the mountain and Cordy receives her first kiss, as well as a wild ride down a log flume that gets Squirl fired.

Determined to follow Squirl, Cordy runs away. She begins an exciting adventure that takes her to the sideshows of Seattle's Luna Park, where her unusual looks bring her fame. But her journey also brings tragedy in this thought-provoking coming-of-age novel. Randall beth Platt has created an original, resourceful teenage heroine with a strong voice and a gutsy determination to make her way in the world.

Okay, so, I'm sure the book is quite good and maybe someday I'll actually read it (I tend to go for fun over substance in my YA novels, which is why I'm such a fan of The Princess Diaries and the like), but I don't know if it could ever live up to the sheer enjoyment factor of that back cover.

And now I must go to bed and ready myself for another day in the salt mines, aka the law office. But! Tomorrow's Friday! Woo!

hair, flair, and vacuum operators

Breaking news: I have new hair! Very new hair! Very short, new hair! I'm still dealing with it and keep veering between Oh, It's So Cute and Dear God, Do I Look Like An Irish Round-Faced Justin Guarini? For my hair is pretty curly (though a smidge more relaxed than ole Justin's) and the fear is there. Everyone keeps saying they like it, but this is one of those situations where that can't be trusted because people are going to lie and say they like it even if they don't because, you know, does anyone ever actually say they don't like someone's new haircut?

Anyway. It's an adventure! It's modern, or so my hairdresser said! I think because it's longer in the front than in the back though I can't really tell. AND (extra bonus points) it's very low maintenance. So much less time to blow dry! New hairdresser also said I don't need conditioner, which is exciting and cuts the Jess Maintenance Budget a bit.

In other news: I think one of the maintenance dudes in my office building likes me. Which would be okay, except he's not so much studly heavy-lifting maintenance guy as non-verbal, shifty-eyed vacuum dude. I was in the elevator with him once last week and he held the elevator for someone who didn't end up coming on the elevator with us and I said something about how it was a nice gesture and we exchanged pleasantries about the weather, etc. Now he keeps staring at me whenever we run into each other! Today I had to call building maintenance because Mr. OCD Boss noticed a few salt deposits under his desk and needed them vacuumed up IMMEDIATELY and so shifty-eyed maintenance dude came up with his vacuum. It was awkward because he kept looking at me like he had something to say but never said anything. So I just sat there and did my best to avoid eye contact without being rude while answering the phones at a dull roar since the commercial vacuum sounded not unlike a jet during takeoff. "[UNPRONOUNCEABLE FIRM NAME]!!!!....WHAT?....WHAT??....HE'S NOT -- HE'S NOT HERE, CAN I PUT YOU THROUGH TO HIS VOICEMAIL??"

Anyway. I hope I don't sound mean or anything because I'm sure the guy is a nice guy and everything, but he just doesn't seem like he's all there. Which would be fitting, for my one male admirer in my fourteen-floor office building to be someone a few cards short of a full deck. And really, what would we talk about? He vacuums for a living! I hate vacuuming! It could never work.

Thinking about this, I wonder if my parking garage attendant looks upon me, as I flail about helplessly half-leaning out of my ghetto station wagon, with the same benevolent caution I do shifty-eyed vacuum dude. Something to ponder.

Tonight I went out to dinner with my parents, as I do almost every Friday night because I am a BIG FAT LOSER, and our waiter looked like he'd been plucked from the background of some scene in the Godfather. The hair, the flair, the whole nine. The restaurant was Italian and made all of its waiters dress up in vests and bow ties and all that, which just added to the mystique. And! We were right near the back of the restaurant and all of the busboys and waiters were handing these huge wads of money back and forth and talking on this pay phone and it was all very Corleone.

And I think that's all for now. Except! I FORGOT ABOUT THE NBA ALL STAR THING! I may commit ritual suicide. Or just mope for the rest of the evening. I am SUCH A MASSIVE TARD! Dammit.

Off to read people's responses to the NBA thang...