Cubicle Hell

When I lived in San Francisco, I pulled a short stint as a "video coordinator" for Macromedia's advertising department. My job was to sit and watch CD-Rom's that had been Made With Macromedia. Adverts, mini-movies, cool music videos and the like from all over the world. I catalogued the video and picked out the best of the heap for the ad department to run in campaigns.

Until that point, I had never worked in a cubicle. And after that job, I swore never to do it again. Cubicles, I decided then, are modern day insanity-inducers robbing people of human contact and comraderie while also stealing privacy - you hear every phone conversation from the other side of that walled "rat maze".

Don't agree? Watch this video and see if you don't get caught between that sad/pitiful place of laughing out loud and wanting to cry.

Erykah & Tyrone

Just heard that Ms. Badu is headed to Israel. Yahoo. This has to be her best number.

Rapping it Out

While living in San Fran, I tutored inner city kids in my spare time. I would go into the "rougher" neighborhoods and help kids hone literacy skills. Reading, comprehension, essay writing..

It was never daunting but the challenges were built-in. Their essays didn't cover "what I did during summer vacation"...their stories were about the homeless man lying in his own urine at the apartment building entrance, living on welfare, dreams of escaping the projects, crime scenes, shoot-outs, gang warfare. . .

"Reaching" a kid or passing on a love of literature was my reward.

I came across this series on VBS.TV. It reminded me of the kids.

Wedding Blues

This is what happens when the mother-in-law issues the invite...Thanks to my friend "G" in Europe for this one...

Taking a Smoke Break

Yesterday I rang up an old colleague to get some news industry information. In the throes of home renovation hell for over a year, my friend was "having a moment" when I called.

How's it going?

If one more contractor pulls a no show I'm going to kill myself! There are two, maybe three days left on this job and then we can FINALLY move into the house. WHAT IS THE PROBLEM???!!!

To top it off, my husband's way of dealing is to take off for hours without a trace, my father is having an old-age depression breakdown and our family has been living out of suitcases in temporary homes for over a year. This should've been finished 6 months ago. Any day now the woman who has been kind enough to let us stay in her place is gonna tell us to hit the road. I'M GOING OUT OF MY MIND!!!!!!

Ummm...Well...Er....Do you smoke pot?

Are you kidding? Five minutes ago. Five times a day. All the time. I hate to think what state I'd be in if I didn't. . . Why? Do you?

Naah. If I did I'd never get anything done. I wouldn't leave the house. I'd sit around eating Dorito's all day.

Well what's wrong with that?

Think about it: All we have in this life is time. Just time. And the meter's running. But we get stressed about building houses and arguments with in-laws and messy divorces...all this CRAP! We're all gonna end up in the same place. So what are we running for and stressing about? Sitting around the house relaxing and eating Dorito's may not be such a bad thing!

Queen of Mean

Jury for me is really really really out on this comedienne...Most of her stuff's way over the top and all racist, sexist, etc.

But this is a "tame" bit of her schtick..

Paint Jam

Check it out. Thanks, Elif!