A Pain in the Ash.

So, my horoscope for today:

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): "A Pain in the Ash: Volcano Irritates Alaskans." That was the headline of a news story about how the people of Anchorage, Alaska are dealing with the erratic behavior of nearby Mount Redoubt. As of this writing, the volcano hasn't exploded yet, but it keeps hinting that it might. Meanwhile, it regularly burps clouds of ash that float around and wreak a lot of inconvenience. "I would like it to have a big boom and get it over with," said one native. In accordance with your astrological omens, Gemini, let's use this situation as a metaphor for your life. The fact is, there's no sense in getting irritated or impatient with the primal force in your vicinity. Doing so would be a waste of your precious emotional energy. Besides, cultivating calm equanimity is the best way to acquire the grace you'll need to respond appropriately when the primal force does go boom.

I love getting these horoscopes because they're different than the ones you read in the paper. Rob Brezsney, to whom I was introduced thanks to my fabulous ex-boss, Karin, two summers ago, writes horoscopes that give you advice, but also incorporate literature, music, art, whatever. I love analogies. I love analogies the way I love chocolate when I'm PMSing. I love them the way I love 75 degree weather with a slight breeze. I love them like a fat kid loves cake. Which is why I love these horoscopes.

Anyway, you can sign up for them, if you want, via email. I think they're sent out once a week or once every other week. He's also been startingly accurate before, and it keeps me coming back!

The point: even a horoscope, told to me by some guy who may resemble



is telling me to find peace. Except he used the term "calm equanimity." And the need to acquire grace.

Even if you do look like the scary man with guns and two Guitar Hero controllers (I dig the wireless one myself), Rob Brezsney, you still shed insight on my life at exactly the right time. I guess this is one of those moments where the universe is telling me something, where that weird moment is finding me when I need it most.

That's my mission for .. well, the rest of my life: find peace. Find grace. Find that calm equanimity. Find something. We're all in this journey together, even if our paces are different and the shoes in which we walk vary. And maybe all the world needs is a little bit of that peace, that grace. Maybe we can find it together.

- May (every step you take be sweet).

90 Degrees. In April.

Remember that time that I almost sweat my hypothetical balls off because Rhode Island experienced a freak heat wave in the middle of April?

Yeah, so do I.

The weather here has been cooky. Kooky? Hm. I'm never sure how to spell that word; not that I have to do it that often. But anyway, it's been weird. Over the past week, the temperature has shot up to the high 80's/low 90's, taking everyone by surprise. Some people flourish in this weather. Me? There's a reason I chose to attend a school in New England. I can handle 65 - 70 degrees. 75 is the max. Anything over that, and I'm wishing that indecent exposure wasn't a crime.

But it got me thinking. On a day like today, I can't help but think about how .. powerless we are. We like to think we're in control of every aspect of our lives: who we talk to, what we eat, what to wear, who to sleep with, whatever. But, at the end of the day, we're pushed out of the pilot's seat and told to enjoy the ride.

We can't control the weather, for instance. If I could, I would turn the temperature down just a notch. Okay, more like a lot of notches. But I can't. No one can. We just have to make do and adjust and keep on trucking. Because it's those random things that keep life interesting. Keep us on our toes.

I don't know about you, but I have really weak ankles and knees, meaning I will never be a ballerina. Staying on my toes constantly does wear down the joints, and eventually, my legs give out and I collapse to the ground.

But I've realized .. it's okay. It's okay to collapse and fall. It's okay to even want to stay down on the ground for a little while, to recooperate. It's okay to cry, to complain, to whine about it, to lay back and accept defeat for a little while. But not indefinitely.

Eventually, you get up. You curse your weak ankles and knees and you try again.

And if you find yourself in the middle of a heat wave, find yourself a fan and forget the ballet all together.

- May (you have fun during the proverbial dance).

A Week Before It Ends

So, classes officially end in one week from today.

I've been in complete denial over the fact that everything's ending. That's not to say that I'm not excited over the next chapter -- I've finally come a place where I can accept and even get pumped about what's about to come -- but I'm not quite ready to say goodbye to people yet.

Then again .. are you ever ready?

One thing that I will be glad to leave behind will be the oppressive conservatism of this school. (I won't name it, but let's put it this way -- it's Catholic, it's run by the Dominicans, and .. it's Catholic). They banned the Vagina Monologues four years ago and cited some ridiculous reasons as to why. I think one of them was actually that the play focused too much on women's sexuality, rather than the other gifts that they possess. Well, yeah, that's nice. We are more than a vagina, but the play, written by a woman, shows how we can write, we can act, we can perform, we can sing, we can do anything. And ignoring the fact that women are sexual, like this administration and Church like to do, doesn't mean it's not there -- in fact, it makes us want to rebel more.

I've been in some form of Catholic school since I was three years old. THREE. I've had this stuff force-fed to me a billion times over. For a while, I accepted it, because what else does a stupid little five year old do? You follow the words that teachers tell you without having the cognitive ability to ask deeper or search farther.

It wasn't until I got to high school that things changed. I was thrown into a Theology class that was unlike anything I'd ever had before. She wanted us to question our beliefs. She wanted us to really find out why things were the way they were, figure out what we didn't support, what we did. She explained that in questioning something and searching for the answer, it brings us closer to the origin of it all. Of course, she was also the teacher who told us morbid details of people jumping from the top of the Twin Towers (9-11 happened in the beginning of that same year, and I'm in NY). That left me with a distaste for her, but I never forgot that eye-opening experience.

We can't just accept what we hear or "learn" as truth. We have to delve deeper. We have to ask questions. We have to ask as many questions as we can until we're satisfied. And I don't think we ever will be -- we have to keep learning.

I cite that Theology class, ironically, as the beginning of my fall from Catholicism. I attended Church less and less (except when mandated by the school), and by the time I reached college, I was pretty sure I didn't believe in anything spiritual anymore.

Then I went through another transformation. I went on a religious retreat with one of my room mates. For the first time in my entire life, I felt connected. I felt in sync with the people around me, with the world, and most importantly, with God. I remember sitting in the on-campus chapel after our return, begging God to always stay with me, to never let me forget those feelings or those experiences.

Of course .. I did forget. I forgot, mostly on purpose, the ridiculous dogmas of the Catholic Church. I felt they only hindered me from having a more poignant relationship with God/She/It/Whoever. Remembering when to sit, when to kneel, what to say, what to do .. It got in the way. It complicated something that was meant to be simple.

I stopped going to Church. This year, my mom didn't even ask me to go to Church with her on Easter. I knew that signified something big, because I'd always been the Chr-easter Catholic (Christmas/Easter). Those were the two holidays where I'd go to Church, mainly out of guilt, but not this year. I was demoted to a Chralm Catholic (Christmas/Palm Sunday).

Now that I don't have to worry about that, I was able to enjoy those miserable 40 days of Lent. I ate meat on Fridays because I wasn't going to abide by some thousand-year-old ritual that was introduced to save money on meat (that's the real reason for it; the Bible doesn't say anything about sacrificing meat). I ate meat on Fridays because hell, I wanted that Prosciutto sandwich from Au Bon Pain.

I know that it's about sacrifice, but I gave up other things. I didn't need some old man in expensive, Italian silks, living in his own zip code thousands of miles away from me to tell me what I had to give up in order to feel closer to God.

He doesn't even know me.

... So, I started out talking about how it's a week before the official end of my collegiate career. I ended up talkng about how I dislike the Pope. Like I said in my introduction post, I have one of the shortest attention spans known to mankind.

Hopefully you can keep up.

- May (you live the life you want to live).

My Boyfriends Ben and Jerry

After writing about the Alouette song, the rainy weather, and the sexist picture .. I realized that all that aside? It's a great day.

I'll tell you why.

FREE ICE CREAM DAY AT BEN AND JERRY'S, that's why! It was also $.50 coffee day at Dunkin Donuts! (Mind you, those USED to be free .. I guess times are tough for everyone, even the most over-populated coffee/bagels that suck/donuts/munchkins chain in New England).

So anyway, back to the free ice cream. I'm not a huge fan of the frozen dairy product. I'm just not. As a kid, my teeth were always super sensitive (thanks, non-existent pre-natal care!) and the icy delicacy made them hurt. But my eyes were always bigger than my stomach, so I'd always order it, ignoring the protests from my mom and dad that I never finished it and they didn't want to spend ___ amount of money on something that was just going to get thrown out, take a few licks, and then declare that I was done. Sometimes, I'd wait for it all to melt into a pinkish soup (I always got strawberry), slosh it around a few times with my spoon, and declare that I didn't want to drink my ice cream and didn't want any more. Of course, I purposely waited for the warmer temperature of the restaurant to start dismantling the mound of cream and sugar .. and my parents knew that.

But that's slowly started to change.

I point the accusatory finger at the four root canals I've had over the past five years (I told you, pre-natal care was virtually non-existent over in S. Korea). The front four teeth on the top of my mouth have no root in them, so I can't feel a thing. This makes it easier for me to bite into the ice cream without any kind of complaint. Sometimes, I get a little over-zealous, like today, and ... maybe I got in line a second time for a second free ice cream cone.

Maybe.



... Okay, so I did. And I pretty much looked like ^ that guy.

The first time, I got the cake batter .. which didn't taste a thing like cake. It tasted like chocolate fudge with vanilla ice cream. But I wasn't going to complain. It was free. I used to my hand as a makeshift umbrella for my ice cream cone as my friends and I stood in the rain. After we gobbled them all down, we decided to give it another shot, try another flavor. As I stood in the line, I had a huge pang of brain freeze, but decided to persevere. After all, free cone day only came around once a year .. I wasn't going to blow this chance. Not yet.

I got the Sweet Cream Cookie for the second round. Which is the Vermont company's way of saying "Cookies n' Cream." It was delicious. And I ate it just as fast as the first.

My stomach's already been pissed at me. Mind you, I was filling it up with two rounds of ice cream, which it's still not entirely used to having, AFTER already filling it with Teriyaki and Honey BBQ wings ($.25 each!) AND .. a bottle of Killian's.

Can't you just hear the angry growl?

I immediately regretted my decision for the second cone, but then, as I was curled over on the toilet, I thought to myself -- 'Fuck it. It's free cone day. If anything, you should've gotten a third.'

- May (you always feel full, in more ways than one).

Rain Rain Go Away

I was randomly thinking about some childhood songs I used to sing without really understanding. One of them was "Alouette," which .. as it turns out .. is kind of a mean song. Alouette, in French, means Lark. Like the bird. And the French songs talks about plucking feathers from the poor bird's body!

Don't ask why I was thinking about this song or why it suddenly dawned on me that it's some inadvertent way to promote ripping feathers out of a poor bird's body. I mean, I obviously didn't know that when I was a kid -- I just thought that I sounded cool and bilingual, singing songs in French. Add on Frere Jacques and heck, I could work for the United Nations .. so long as they sang in rhymes and catchy melodies.

And also stuck to those two songs.

Maybe this is what dreary, rainy weather does to people because you can't do anything else, like .. hiking. Or sun bathing. Or .. any number of other activities which require sunlight and warm temperatures. Like calculating how strong UV rays are.

In case you don't remember the song, the Wikipedia entry is here.

Oh, I also found something funny in Googling pictures for my thesis presentation.



Okay, so the premise is funny. To an extent. The file title is called "Why Most Men are Republican." First of it, there are plenty of men who aren't Republican (and if you're one of them, please feel free to send me a message). Second, since when are credentials based solely on a person's looks?

I think that Miss South Carolina pretty much proves that just because you're physically attractive does not you're a full set of Chef Tony's Miracle Blade knives. Maybe they forgot the Rock n' Chop at the warehouse or something. Or maybe she was that piece of the boot that he cut up and forgot to throw in the trash.

Anyway. It just made think of sexism. Because hello, it's overly blatant in this situation. I couldn't find any similar images with men, because women are the only ones who are judged based on appearances -- at least in most circumstances. So, because the creator of this wonderful little image carefully chose the most attractive Republicans and the least attractive Democrats, that somehow proves their value and their ability to think clearly and make rational decisions. Just because they're aesthetically pleasing.

But if we're going to play that nasty, dirty game, must I remind the image creator of Shirley Phelps-Roper?



One of THE MOST conservative, Republican people in the whole freakin' universe?

Don't play that game with me, you random Republican person with too much time on your hands who should have his/her internet taken away so you can no longer do Google image searches! You're going to lose!

- May (you find the strength within yourself).

Om Nom Nom Nom

I wish that I could chomp down and swallow up NOM (the National Organization for Marriage).

I wish that I could take all of the hateful people in the world and just .. let them secede from the rest of the earth.

I wish that people could simply be who they are, be who they want to be without fear of judgment.



The reason for this post is because of the ridiculous ad that the National Organization for Marriage came out with not too long ago. It's called "The Gathering Storm," and it's fueled by the lack of support for Gay Marriage. PS - If you're like me, you may suffer a stroke, heart attack, leprosy, enlarged duodenum, or other uncomfortable/deadly ailment from watching that. I was pretty sure I had a seizure following that video. A large, leggy creature was also crawling its way across my desk, unbeknownst to me -- a sign of a plague, I'm sure, except it's the Plague of Hatred.

And look, I understand that not everyone is in support of the movement. I get that. I can respect that (though barely). But the arguments given, particularly the ones in this video, are laughable, at best.

If anyone can figure out what kind of job the Californian doctor has where she would have to choose between her job and her faith, please share with the rest of the class. My room mates and I couldn't figure it out. I'm sure there was .. actually, you know what, no. I don't think there was anything logical in the entire commercial.

Except for that rainbow coalition they mention at the end. Which I found to be rather ironic. A rainbow, huh? Are you sure you're not just a bunch of closet homosexuals?

There was a study done, actually, where scientists took two groups of men (one was homophobic, the other wasn't) and studied them to see if they had any kind of sexual response to homo-errotic stimuli. They would measure the circumference of a participant's penis before showing pictures or videos of homosexual people (I think it was both women and men), and then measured the circumference again. The ones who were the most homophobic had the greatest increase in measurement, meaning more bloodflow to the penis, meaning .. they were sexually aroused.

It just goes to prove the old addage: "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." Except in this case, instead of lady, it's homophobic idiot.

May (you feel love).

Dreaming a Dream.

I had a weird thought today.

It was a shared thought with a friend who's visiting for the next two days. We started talking about that woman on "Britain's Got Talent," the one who's practically taking the world by storm. I mean, Oprah wanted to interview her -- you know you're big when Oprah's requesting you to be on her show.

Anyway, I later Youtubed the clip because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

The thought that I had was how much weight we put into appearances.

Now, don't get me wrong -- I can appreciate an aesthetically pleasing person as much as the next woman or man. I have no qualms with admitting that I've got massive girl-crushes on the likes of Angelina Jolie and Natalie Portman. I also have no issues with revealing my daydreams involving Gerard Butler and/or Adam Levine, purely based on the fact that I think they're gorgeous.

But when does that kind of behavior and thinking have to stop?

I think that Susan Boyle's audition shows that boundary. She walks on stage, very unassuming. The audience rolls their eyes when Simon asks her what she wants to do and she says that she wants to be a professional singer. The girls with too much eyeliner and artificially-straightened hair scoff at seeing this woman with a pepper-colored mini afro, thick eyebrows, and a figure that would never be allowed on a runway wiggle her hips awkwardly.

What the hell?



How do those girls somehow have the right deem this woman "less than worthy" of .. whatever it is she deserves, not only as a woman with extreme talent, but simply as a human? How does altering one's appearance to be unnatural in a lot of ways mean that one is better than someone who really doesn't care about that kind of thing? If anything, shouldn't that kind of beavior mean that one is even further from that authoritative role?

I think there's a real need for change, not just in the US but in other places, too. We should be judged by what we do -- do we help the old lady across the street? Do we laugh at someone who is different from us? Do we try and leave this earth a little better than how we entered? -- and not by how we look.

But I'm glad that everyone got a dose of their own medicine at that taping of BGT.

Maybe people are just jealous. Heck, I know that I'm jealous of that's woman's ability to sing "I Dreamed a Dream." Lord knows that I've tried (yes, I do have a karaoke verison of the song) and try as I might, I don't sound even a quarter as good as her. And if I did?

I'd be damn lucky.

-- May (you be happy).

Trying my heartest .. Get it? Didja?

Good news, New Yorkers! Well .. for the LBGT ones and for the ones who support the LBGT community, like this wee Asian girl does.



Gov. Paterson said yesterday (Thursday, April 16th, in case you've got selective amnesia like me) that he's going to introduce a bill to legalize same-sex marriage!

I think I just heard a part of the earth explode with cheers, dancing, maybe some confetti. No, it's okay. Take your time. I'll still be here when you're done. In fact, I'm going to join you in the confetti-dancing because this is great news!

It's about damn time, don't you think? After seeing what happened in California (boo to you, my West Coast Brother), I'm glad New York is trying to take a step in the right direction. Don't get your underoos all in a twist if you don't agree with it. I don't want to hear all of those excuses like it "takes away from the sacred institute of marriage." Since when has marriage really been sacred? Since Vegas opened up those 24-hour chapels for people to get hitched? Since the 1950's when girls who got pregnant out of wedlock were forced to get married to the guy she probably never wanted to see again? Since Britney Spears had a 55-hour marriage while in a drunken and idiotic stupor?

Don't tell me about the "sanctity of marriage" when straight people (and I'm included in this category, so I'm allowed to talk about it!) go and defile it all the time. While religious meaning of marriage would be great for the LGBT community, the focus for this is on the legal meaning -- thousands upon thousands of Federal rights that married couples take for granted. Seriously. Look it up. I'm not lying.

For all of those who say that two people of the same sex can't get married because marriage and the subsequent sexual relations that occur are unnatural, please kindly find a bridge and jump. You know what's unnatural? Trying to restrict and impede upon another person's rights. Or trying to interfere with someone's life that really, really doesn't affect you at all. If LGBT people get married, the world isn't going to blow up in some fiery apocalypse -- we're already halfway there thanks to a man called George W. Bush and his greed for oil and money and power. If anything? Allowing LGBT marriage will save us from the raging fires of destruction.

When love is shared and felt and spread and given and taken, you just get it. And somehow, things are a little brighter .. the world's a little better .. and you're smiling a little wider.

Besides, karma's a bitch, and it doesn't like when you keep sending its Negative-Nancy-sister to people who haven't harmed you in the least. So stop it with the negative attitudes and energies!

Anyway .. for all of those who actually like the idea of celebrating in love who are currently in New York? Let's make it happen. Let's show our support in every way we possibly can.

You've got to spread love to get love.

May (you find peace).

Introductions are for suckers.

But I'm a sucker for a lot of things, so here it is.

I had another Blogger page a while ago (here), but I thought it was high time for another one. High time .. what does that even mean? Can it be low time? Middle time? Nowhere time?

Oh, that's another thing .. I have a virtually non-existent attention span. And I have conversations in my head. So if it seems like I'm starting out somewhere in New York and suddenly it's like I'm in Dubai, don't worry -- you're not mistaken. I'm just a really fast runner.

Hi, I'm May.

And I'm a blog-aholic.