really aggressive buddhism.

“So, my unsolicited advice to women in the workplace is this. When faced with sexism, or ageism, or lookism, or even really aggressive Buddhism, ask yourself the following question: “Is this person in between me and what I want to do?” If the answer is no, ignore it and move on. Your energy is better used doing your work and outpacing people that way. Then, when you’re in charge, don’t hire the people who were jerky to you.” -Tina Fey, Bossypants

quote of the moment.

Did you ever stop to think about all the people we kill?  They’re always people who tell us to live together in harmony and try to love one another; Jesus, Gandhi, Lincoln, John Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, John Lennon.  They all said; ‘Try to live together peacefully.’  BAM!  Right in the fucking head!  Apparently we’re not ready for that!

– George Carlin

quote of the moment.

“Everything burns.  There remain only God, the human soul, eternity, and love.”

— Mother Maria of Paris

like a circle.

Do you ever do this?  Dig up old projects in order to either finish one of them so you could have something completed, or get inspiration for a new one — so you could have something completed.  But in the end you find yourself having spent three hours of digging through pages of unfinished stories or articles, tweaking gigabytes of badly edited photographs or scans of drawings, moving around metres of yarn and fabric.  And when you’ve understood the futility of it all and declare yourself done with that, you realise you’ve no energy left to truly complete something — be it old or new.

I do this all the time.  I’ve been doing this for the past three days or so.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results. — Albert Einstein

think.

 

"After spending several years trying to answer the supposedly incredibly complicated question of how we should eat in order to be maximally healthy, I discovered the answer was shockingly simple: eat real food, not too much of it, and more plants than meat."
— from here

It really is that easy.

almost.

 

Roses are reddish,
Violets are blueish.
If it weren’t for Christmas,
We’d all be Jewish.
— Benny Hill

I wanted to go to a Hanuka celebration held at one of the public halls here.  I woke up when it had already started, though, so I stayed home.  A bit sad.

damage.

 

When ten-year-old Melissa Poe learned about pollution, she wrote to President Bush. The letter he sent in reply told her to "just say no" to drugs.
– from How to Live Green, Cheap, and Happy: Save Money! Save the Planet!

This is so unfunny, that it actually is a bit.

Unfortunately, I don’t see ecosavviness in children around me, but it may or may not be because children around here are mostly preoccupied with their own survival.  I can only hope they will not grow up to be bitter enough not to care about the Planet.

still love her.

 

In 1992 Time/Warner published Sex, a book by Madonna. According to Vanity Fair, this megacorp printed 750,000 copies, the largest number by far of any first printing, and distributed them worldwide. Three-quarters of a million tons of aluminum were used to produce the covers, none of it recycled. Five colors and five different paper stocks were used, none of them recycled. Each copy came in its own disposable Mylar wrapper. Of the twenty thousand photographs taken of Madonna for the book, only a few hundred were used. Individually wrapped audio cassettes, CDs, and music videos were released concurrently. From an absolute waste standpoint, this book made Madonna the first celebrity in history to generate as much garbage and toxic effluent as a small town.
— from How to Live Green, Cheap, and Happy: Save Money! Save the Planet!

It’s fascinating, although in a scary way, if you think about it.  Also, sweet Jesus mother of God,twenty thousand photographs.

i don’t really like mark twain.

 

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.
— Mark Twain

.

I watched the Santa in the Slush yesterday; bit of an ill-timed occurrence, since Autumn barely began today. That’s what you have to deal with when you watch a dub of a two year old season.

I am now a huge fan of mistletoes.

But this is not about timing and plants and fanaticism.

I am now going to sing Christmas songs until March. Because, you know, I love Christmas music. I love Christmas. And as I was writing in my journal earlier, I realised something.

I grew up in a secular environment. The first time I went to church was in 8th grade, and it was on a school touristy type of trip. My interactions with religion up to that point were rare, and unfortunately they weren’t positive. There’s no point in getting into the whole shabang, though.

I have a friend who had once referred to her family as secular Catholic. I liked the term, because I could very much apply it to my situation: I grew up in a family who was secular Orthodox. I mean, we celebrated Easter, and we celebrated Christmas, and other holidays, and we would fast. But I guess there was no real ground beneath that. Even though there was Christmas, there was still New Year’s Day, which was a bigger celebration. That would be the time to set up the table etc. And usually, when discussing plans or thinking of gifts, I’d think of New Year, or the ambiguous Winter Holidays.

And today, when I wrote in my journal, I wrote "for Christmas". And when I was talking to my Mother, I said, "I love Christmas." And I’m sitting here, thinking of Christmas, singing Christmas carols quietly.

Yay.

I’m still going to celebrate the whole shabang for about a month, though. I’ve got friends who celebrate Hanuka, I myself really fancy Yule, and in Russia the whole holiday thing starts on 24th of December, and lasts till 15th of January — that’s what you’ve got with having two calendars and the everlasting people’s (nation’s) memory.

But yay. Christmas. I feel all snuggly.

Still sick though.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
— Hebrews 11:1

today’s just work.

 

If God had wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates.
— Jay Leno

The sad truth is that excellence makes people nervous.
— Shana Alexander

I hate life, I hate death and everything in between just doesn’t interest me.
— Chris Rapier

Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it.
— Oprah Winfrey

Work is not man’s punishment. It is his reward and his strength and his pleasure.
— George Sand

I’m reading George Sand’s novels ATM, albeit slowly. Consuelo, for example, is taking me years. I mean, literally. Years. I started it sometime late November ’07, I think. It’s a good book if you remember that back then people had no television, radio, and photography. For the hyperactive mind of today, overwhelmed with RSS readers, constant television, and other visual noise, all the landscapes and feelings she paints are tedious.