Responserbillery.

I'm all grown up now and as such, I'm taking, like, active control of the direction of my life and junk. Parts of it, anyway.

Goal number 89 was to keep detailed accounting data for one month. I've done better - at the beginning of February, I created a budget file in Excel, with two pages. One sheet functions as a checkbook for my debit card, savings account, and credit card, complete with formulas so that I don't screw up the math and a banner at the top that shows all my current balances. The primary sheet, though, I am especially proud of - it aggregates all my purchases into categories, on a week-by-week (and month-by-month) basis, and includes the rough estimates for my budget... because technically, a budget is a PLAN for your money, not just keeping track of where it goes after the fact. I made a category column in the checkbook sheet, so at the end of each week, I go through and add up all the "E"s and "S"s and so forth to track my expenses.

I set fairly liberal spending allowances when I established the budget in February, when I was going out a lot more. I underestimated my income (not by a lot, but about $100 a month at least) and overestimated food and entertainment expenses by a lot, so I could wean myself slowly down to a more savings-oriented fiscal plan (and thus move myself more expediently towards a responsible move to NYC). Here's what the original budget figures were:





As you can see, I also allocated $70 per month for health-related expenses, which would basically encompass everything I would buy at CVS or Walgreens - razor blades are exorbitantly expensive these days. But I also wanted to set it that high in case I needed to go to the doctor and buy medicine in case I got sick, so that I'd know the money would be there without throwing the whole rest of the budget off. Getting my throat swabbed for strep does NOT count as Entertainment, you know? The last column, Leftovers, is additional de facto Savings. The Savings column itself encompasses my Keep the Change transfers, and a monthly $25 scheduled transfer from checking to savings that I set up to avoid monthly fees. SOOO all that money I'm not really spending on health gets saved up, along with all the other money I keep by underspending on food and entertainment. To the right of each month's leftovers, I set up a running "Total Savings" formula, which adds together that month's savings and leftovers and adds it to the previous month's total savings.

It turns out that increasing that single number has been the best motivational tool for me to 1) continue using this sometimes annoying system - Bank of America reformatted their website last month and it's an enormous hassle to do side-by-side windows to input the checkbook data - and 2) cut back my spending, the whole point of setting this goal. I didn't think to add that until mid-April or so, for a solely practical reason: I had too much data for one page and didn't want to have to be scrolling all the time; there is a huge corresponding jump in the amount of Leftovers between March and April, which becomes even more extraordinary when you factor in that I was in NEW YORK CITY at the beginning of April and I ate very well. Anyways! Budget working, ergo, budget goal OFFICIALLY COMPLETE.

Now, a completely different mechanism for getting my adulthood together: I took the LSAT on June 7th. (Goal number... TWO, for those keeping score at home. Yeah, that important.) I could pretend that the five weeks of grueling prep tests I did were the reason I didn't post so much in May, but we all know the real reason is that I'm tremendously lazy. Except for the part where I established a rigorous schedule for practicing, stuck to it, and saw real improvement in my (practice test) scores because of it. I don't get the real score back until the 28th, and I absolutely do not want to jinx it, but I feel safe at least saying that my goal of 167 was definitely reasonably within my reach. I think I qualified that enough to evade the wrath of the jinx demons. I hope.

Well, this is getting long, and I started it at work this afternoon and it is now approaching one in the morning, so, yeah, over and out. OH WAIT no, before I forget, I have another swingset - Colin Park, beachside in Daytona. Squeaky chains, really quite awful as swings go, but it was a clear night and the stars were delightful, making up for it a bit. A daytime picture will be taken sometime in the next three months. Deal. So, what is it, number 8 now?
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Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't be Stupid

Dear Congressman Mica/Senator Nelson/Senator LeMieux:

I am writing to you to let you know that I support the Veteran's Lobby Day that occurred yesterday, May 11th, in support of repealing the discriminatory and dehumanizing Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy of the United States military.

In addition to being hurtful to the gay men and lesbian women who choose to serve our nation in the armed forces, DADT has the opposite of its intended effect: instead of increasing unit cohesion, DADT damages the esprit de corps by forcing these patriots to lie to the other members of their unit about who they are from the first day of basic training.

This explicitly privileges heterosexual service members, particularly men, who feel they have the tacit approval of the entire institution when they commit acts of verbal or physical abuse against those they suspect of being homosexual. Women can be called into separation hearings on no basis more reliable than the word of a single male accuser - a man the woman has simply turned down for a date, in many cases. These hearings are a tremendous waste of everyone's time and money, and the loss of the skills and training of each of the more than 1,200 people who have been discharged since 1993 are an even greater travesty.

Gays and lesbians are willing to give their lives in service to this country. Why won't America give them the dignity they deserve in return? Please vote to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell as soon as possible and allow these true patriots to serve openly.

Sincerely,
Caroline Leonard



(DA, DT, DBS was the working title of a massive paper I wrote on the subject a year ago. Don't be stupid - it don't work.)

(Also an update summing up the last month is shortly forthcoming, I swears. I've completed another goal!)
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Hahahahahha

Ooops. Got of schedule again... so I'm going to do a really quick summary of things to get back on track.

1) Finished reading The Enchantress of Florence last week. It was delightful to read solely in terms of language, but I take issue with some significant anti-feminist elements of the story... I intend to write a short essay on this sometime very soon. But we all know how well I actually do the things I intend to do, so... we'll see.

2) Started reading Atlas Shrugged; I'm now 125 pages in and... wow, I thought Rushdie was antifeminist. Otherwise, I'm still really confused about the book's philosophy. I've read about objectivism and I feel like I know what Ayn Rand thinks, but... to me it doesn't really seem to be advocating any particular viewpoint at all - except that indifference is plaguing the modern world and, like, destroying EVERYTHING. More forthcoming on this as well.

3) In order to better facilitate drabble-writing, I started a scraps file in notepad so that I'm not looking at a blank page every time I try to write anything. Writer's block has not wholly been defeated, but it is slightly mitigated. It's something. I'm stuck on this one image and I'm trying to figure out how to make a whole decent story out of it. I'll get there.

4) This has absolutely nothing at all to do with knitting, but it is creativity and therefore is marginally pertinent: I've sewn my first throw pillow with piping! I put in for 15 yards of saree fabric (in three patterns of five yards each) on ebay, and I won, and I paid, and according to the seller in India, they've shipped... and it's been ten days. Four more and I'm filing a complaint. This is getting absurd... I'm trying to start an Etsy shop here! No, really, apparently there's a large market for throw pillow covers, and I like sewing and I spend a lot of time watching TV - I figure I can at least try and capitalize on that a little bit. My camera battery's low so it's taking really crap pictures indoors right now, all grainy and stuff, so I'm not going to post one of the pillow just this second - but it's beautiful and you have to look really closely to see where I messed up, and I'm really proud of it. So take my word for it. You have to. It's my blog.

5) Speaking of pictures, I'm putting up four SPTs to cover from... I guess February 16th was the last time I posted? Oh well. See below the cut. I'll take one tomorrow for this week. (Hint: most of the SPTs are actually taken on the weekend.)

6) Music rerating is going well. I took a cue from my dad and decided to play my whole library in reverse alphabetical order, from $$$$ to A.O.K. This helps songs stand out a bit more since I'm ripping them out of the context of their albums, but has the major drawback in that I sometimes hear up to four versions of the same song in a row. (I'm lookin' at you, 405.) The one thing I can tell you I've discovered is that I really don't care at all about 98% of the Smashing Pumpkins' discography. Don't ask why I have it, I won't for very much longer.

7) Speaking of music, I have a couple new artists that I like that I plan on reviewing shortly. Preview: Yeasayer; Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros; and MGMT. Yeah, I know I'm late to the party on that last one, but I was purposefully avoiding them because of all the hype and I feel it's now sufficiently passed that it's once again uncool (and therefore legitimate) to listen and be into them.

8) Speaking of MGMT, I updated my resume this week to start preparing for a northward move. This has nothing to do whatsoever with my goal list, but moving to New York has been my number one goal since before graduation, so it merits an update.

9) Daily Show! April 5th, 2010 - Chelsea and I were the first to show up at 1:15, but the third, fourth, and fifth people arrived within the next twenty minutes - so I feel it was completely justified. Um, yeah... they start don't even set up the lines until 2:30, and they don't open the doors till after 4, seat you till after 5, or start filming until 6. But SO WORTH IT. Picture proof below the cut.

10) Ten is a lot. I'm done for tonight. To the pictures!

March 11, 2010 - Absolutely nothing remarkable about this. It is already well-documented that I'm infatuated with my Christmas lights and amateurishly adjusting the aperture settings on my camera.

March 18, 2010 - Yeah, nothing exciting here, either. I... I bought this shirt while Ali was visiting that week? ...Woo.

April 1, 2010 - On the first night of my trip, my friend Katy happened to be in town as well from Chicago, and our friend Mollie was about to be going out of town on Spring Break, so we threw a party. This picture was probably taken shortly after midnight... because I had woken up at 5:30 that morning to catch my flight. Yeah, I was in New York by lunch time. I RULE. Things I missed while passed out: chat roulette, Mollie's ever-entertaining rendition of Soulja Boy, and a 1:30am run to Best Buy. Yeah. That tired.

April 8 - So, basically, the Kate Spade store down in Soho was doing this window display with pinwheels, and since many of them were within reach of street level, and the pinwheels were on the exterior of the windows instead of the interior, people had swiped them - which was probably what they were supposed to do anyway. So Chelsea wanted one, and I wanted to steal one, so I climbed up on the ledge and tried to push it up out of its holder inconspicuously. Surprisingly, they didn't just pop out, they literally had to be lifted up and out, and in this shot, you can sort of see that I've got the green one up to the very bottom of the stick... I couldn't reach any higher while sitting. Clearly, this was hilarious, and Chelsea took my picture. Shortly thereafter, I just stood up and pulled it out, and we lived happily ever after with our lime green pinwheel yay.

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for...

FIRST IN LINE!

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! 25%!

With the uploading of these postcards, I am officially one-quarter of the way done with goal 78! A few weekends ago, I went to visit Katelyn in Tampa and we trekked down to the Dali Museum in St Pete. There was some sort of special event going on that night and they were closing early to set up for it, so we only had about two hours to wander around. Luckily(?), the building is way too small for the museum's collection, and we were able to see just about everything without feel terribly rushed. And, of course, they weren't about to kick us out of the giftshop! I bought two postcards, one real card, and a poster - because it was two dollars cheaper than an 8x10 print of the same painting. So! Clicky clicky for the pretty!

Tres Picos - 1955

I think my favorite part of this sketch is something it might take a few seconds to notice... so take it all in for a second. I don't want to spoil anything. Go ahead, I'll wait.

...Yeah, that orchid is definitely blooming out of his crotch. It's a delightfully feminine representation of the phallus. Coming in a distant second is the leaf-hat-morphing-into-caterpillar. I just love Dali's playfulness, how he blends realities and unrealities and creates a game out of masking the lines.

The Lion Sketch - 1956

ZOMG LIONFACE. This one was not on display this time around, but when I saw it on the wall amidst all the other postcards, I knew I had to have it. He's probably the most adorable ferocious lion of all time, and I love him. These simple pencil drawings, that must have taken a quarter teaspoon of Dali's creative talents, make me intensely jealous of people who have both imaginative vision and the ability to execute that vision in a seemingly effortless manner. Intensely jealous. On Monday I'm going to draw another snail.

Girl with Curl - 1926

According to legend, Dali grew up fantasizing about a Russian peasant girl... three years after completing this painting, he met Gala, a Russian bourgeois girl (close enough) who left her husband to become Dali's muse, wife, object of candaulistic pleasure (fitting for a visual artist). Some say that makes this painting "prophetic" and read a lot into the odd perspective that cuts out the middle ground between the girl and the background landscape. I just like the sensuous curves, the sliver of a crescent moon mimicking the drapery over her backside, and the hints of myfavoritecolorblue in the upper reaches of the sky.

Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea which at 20 Meters Becomes the Portrait of Abraham Lincoln - 1976

Painted for the bicentennial of America, a nation he only lived in for eight years decades before, this 448-pixel-wide version doesn't really capture the true power of this painting. Proportionally, I think you have to be about seven inches from the screen the first time you see it for the Gala part to be more powerful than the Lincoln part - the actual painting is one of those jumbo, wall-sized things, fifteen feet tall at least. I love how it's sorta pixely (before pixels were really a thing), and the little squares on the bottom that separate Gala and Lincoln into separate pieces. I especially love the bloodorange in the sky, textured like water, and how it reminds me of flying down the east coast at sunset.

In sum: Dali = awesome, and far more than the Persistence of Memory (iconic and awesome work though it is), and after they open the new space next January, I want to go back and see the whole collection.

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True Patriotism

I feel like such an awesome liberal today! I did my taxes AND wrote a VERY angry letter to Congressman John Mica about how he's going to vote on Sunday. VERY angry.

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Dear Congressman Mica,

This morning, I awoke to the most disturbing sound my clock radio has ever produced: you and a conservative radio host lambasting the pending health care bill as something that would create too much "bureaucracy" and "ration" Medicare for seniors, and repeating over and over again - without offering any specific alternatives of your own - "there is a better way to do this."

As you can imagine, this was not the way I had hoped to begin my day.

You may be unaware that the average American, whether or not she or he is insured, already experiences an overly bureaucratic health care system that rations care, and, moreover, is in favor of the better way set forth in the Democrats' bill, once informed of the specific provisions it contains. I understand that you, as a member of Congress, are furnished with a very good insurance plan as a matter of course, being an Important Government Figure, and generally have aides and assistants who navigate the paperwork for you. I also understand that as a member of the Republican party, you may be under the impression that the things Mitch McConnell and other prominent opponents to the bill say about it, such as, "Americans don’t want this bill. They’re telling us to start over. The only people who don’t seem to be getting the message are Democrat leaders in Washington," are true. But for you to claim all these positions and then on top of it all, not even offer a reform plan of your own, is ludicrous hypocrisy.

You, sir, are the one out of touch if you truly believe that legislation regulating the criminally negligent behavior of the insurance and pharmaceutical companies is anything less than urgently necessary for the future of our nation. Let's set aside the fact that this bill does not propose an actual government-run health care system (and that you and I both know it). A government system will ration care in an effort to cut costs? A government program will create too much bureaucracy to be efficient? Today's insurance giants deny care to millions of INSURED customers on the slimmest of bases, let alone all those they refuse to cover. Insurance companies, like ALL companies in a free market, are interested first and foremost in maximizing their profits. Please, for the love of democracy, explain to me how a company like Blue Cross or MetLife has less interest in cutting costs (and raising prices) than the United States government. Please explain to me why you believe that delivering platinum care to a few thousand Americans is more important than declaring that ALL our citizens are entitled to a gold standard that is within reach?

You and I agree on one point. There is a better way to reform health care than this. The manner of that reform is where we diverge, in more ways than one: I know what my picture of reform looks like. Congressman Mica, I plead you to recognize the true state of American health care today - see beyond your own friends, family, and campaign supporters to the other Americans who are hurting, physically and fiscally, because affordable health insurance is simply out of reach. You and I both know that each time Congress starts over on health care, Americans suffer - some even perish for lack of treatment. A for-profit health care system is no health care system at all - it is simply another self-interested, for-profit business, one that has no placed in a civilized nation that claims all its citizens are created equal.

The time is now. Please vote in favor of the health care bill on Sunday, for your conscience, for your constituents, and for your country.

Sincerely,

Caroline Leonard
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And you may ask yourself, how did I get here?

Dear Senator Nelson,

My letter today serves as a reminder that there are, in fact, people in our great state who urgently desire health care reform at the national level. I am sure you have received thousands of calls and letters in the last year on this issue, and I imagine a majority of them may have expressed concerns (to put it politely) about the bills proposed by both chambers of Congress and that laid out by the President. Please know that, despite being less well-organized than the tea partiers, we are no less passionate about this issue - and almost certainly more well-intentioned. And, most importantly, we are not as outnumbered as the ratio of letters and calls might suggest. Therefore, I plead that you not only continue to vote in support of health care reforms, but also aid in whatever ways you can to ensure that your reluctant collegues on both sides of the aisle do the same.

Florida is a state long caught between the divisive rhetoric of the two major parties, and myself and others respect and admire you for persevering in the face of persistent pressure to moderate your positions. With health care especially, any concessions to the Senate Republicans are tenfold concessions to the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. Too long has the true backbone of this country, the working middle class, been held hostage by false dichotomies spewed forth by industry lobbyists and the Congressional representatives who profit from preserving the entrenched system.

You must ensure that Senators from other closely contested states realize that the political capital that will result from the passage of a strong reform bill will compound in years to come - just as failure to reform the system now will compound against those who vote against it when the iniquities of the current system grow unchecked, as they inevitably will. This opportunity must not be permitted to slip away.

Sincerely,
Caroline Leonard
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Artful things

Last night, I was cleaning out my dropbox and realized I never posted the two Jesus postcards I bought two years ago at St Paul's in London, two of the founding members of my collection. For shame!

Also below the cut - an ad for an exhibition on now at the Met. It's about time I kick off goal number 84, and I absolutely adore simple sketch drawings like this. Something about them seems more... personal, more individual... closer to the artist, and therefore more remarkable that they have survived through the centuries. I suppose they're the visual arts equivalent of acoustic songs. Anyway, I'm going to be in New York in less than a month for Spring Break (Daily Show should be completed then, too!) and I am really excited about loading up my ipod with quiet music and going to go absorb the pretty :)



These are apparently part of a larger series called "The Way: The Truth: The Life," by Sergei Chepik, and were completed in 2005. They are the second and third pieces, "The Public Ministry" and "The Crucifixion," respectively. I love how forlorn they are, especially when compared with the rest of the St Paul's decor, which is much brighter and more traditionally "wondrous." (For reference, see #6 and #8 on this post.) It's good to be reminded by these darker works that St Paul's is one of the largest public mausoleums in the world, in addition to a place of worship.

And! Here's the exhibition's ad:

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But trust me, on the sunscreen.

It occurs to me that I have another goal in progress that I have not yet addressed explicitly. One of the most enduring favorite things in my life is "Everybody's Free (to wear sunscreen)," the Baz Luhrmann "graduation song," and, as such, it is the basis for goal 77. The true intention behind this goal is to "try ten different ways to be a Good Human Being." This goes above and beyond simply being nice or pleasant to be around or ambiguously believing that there are Serious Global Problems that Someone Somewhere Should Address - this song tells you how to live, how to be humble and embrace your flaws without getting mired in them. Anyway. Here goes:

1) I'm wearing sunscreen. Really. My moisturizer is SPF 15, and I'm about to put a bottle of sunblock in my car as the serious beaching is about to commence. No lines and wrinkles and skin cancer for me, thanks.

2) Dance - even if you have nowhere else to do than in your own living room. Aside from dance recitals in my youth, I tried very very hard to avoid dancing in public all my life. Despite years of training, I'm moderately ungraceful and - perhaps because of those years of training - I really don't know how to dance, like, at all, without choreography and a few weeks of practice. Luckily, the world contains this magical substance, "al-co-hol," which enables those such as myself to set aside all feelings of shame and uncoordinatedness and get down with our bad selves. I have therefore now danced TWICE in front of other human beings, and, let me tell you, it is very liberating. I greatly desire to try it again very very soon.

3) Don't be reckless with other people's hearts; don't put up with people who are reckless with yours. I'm... trying. And generally succeeding. Take my word for it. These are goals in progress, right? Right.

4) Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few, you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, for as the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young. Enough said.

So that's four bits in progress. Arguably, I am also doing well with another, Don't mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're forty, it will look eighty-five. It's hard for me to judge... I mean, I feel like I abuse the crap out of it, but the reality is that I only dye it every two or three months, my straightener is still wrapped up in its cord from moving this summer, and I don't even own a blowdryer. We'll see in twenty years, I guess. Also, technically, I am also following a sixth piece of advice, but... I never read Cosmo in the first place and even when I do glance at the ladies' mags, they certainly don't make me feel ugly. Like, maybe I could lose three pounds and tone my upper arms, but. Definitely by no means ugly. Gosh. Anyway. Progress.

Side note: Angels in America is coming to New York's Signature Theatre for the 2010-2011 season, along with a whole mess of other Tony Kushner plays, and I am so so so excited about it. I swore I posted about it already, because I found out about it at least two months ago, but... apparently not, according to the search I just ran. The Signature says it will be the first large-scale revival of both parts EVER in New York City - I have full faith that it will be the most magical experience of my life.
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101 is a lot to remember...

So, oops, I totally forgot that one of my actual goals (#9) was to knit a sweater. For some reason, in my head it got folded into #40, Create an entire outfit by hand. This is actually really beneficial that I just remembered, because it means I am on the verge of completing another goal just as one got shot down. Yep, that's right, it's the end of January, and you know what that means, folks - the Foreign Service finally emailed and of course it was a no, because I just graduated and I really don't know anything about anything yet and.

It's still disappointing. It's the only thing that I very clearly know that I want to do as a career, that I can see myself doing for the next 20 or 30 or 40 years. Insofar as I can see myself doing any one thing for approximately the same amount of time I've been a self-aware human being, anyway.

But anyway so as I mentioned in yesterday's post, I'm looking at grad school options, and my top two choices are this program at Columbia, a Masters in International Affairs with a concentration in Social Policy, and this program at NYU, which gives an MA in International Relations and Journalism. I have yet to discern the distinct merits of being a "Master of Field X" versus being a "Master of Arts of Field X," so that is my next task. It looks like they both start accepting applications in August - which for some reason reminds me that I need to sign up IMMEDIATELY for the GRE. Okay, that is my real next task. Stream of consciousness what?

tl;dr: Foreign Service = not this year. Grad school = life plan for 2011. Goal #9 = remembered, almost completed.

Next up: St Paul's Patrick's, Habitat, SPT x2.
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Three Hopeful Thoughts

1. As you might have noticed, that goal countdown up in my header now reads "99" instead of "100." That's right, folks, on Tuesday evening, in a magnificent confluence of cosmic factors, the room shook and trembled, and in a sudden rush, the rain beat down upon us. I, properly attired in a rain-frolicking-approved sundress and already downstairs, threw open the door, rushed out across the yard, and finally, finally danced in the downpour I'd been waiting so very long for. The rain was thick and heavy, and the lightening frequent, extended, and close. I would say the whole experience was rapturous, but I feel like you have to be aware of rapture while it's happening for that to be possible. It just felt overwhelmingly and ambiguously good to be out in it. Goal #90 is complete, but it was something I've done before and it will certainly be something I do many times again.

2. Yesterday afternoon, exactly three weeks to the hour after the Foreign Service test, I received a letter (a pdf which I had to download, after being given the link to the site with the pdf via email. Unnecessarily convoluted? I think yes.) informing me that my performance has qualified me for the next round of the application process. Five personal narrative responses, in which I have 1300 characters each to describe variously that time I was a leader, that time I lived with a foreign kid in college, and so forth. They also gave me the fax number for ACT, tantalizing me with the promise that I could get a breakdown! of my results by post in just four to six weeks, but two attempts to do so have returned a failed transmission. I'll try again on Monday. I. Need. That. Breakdown.

3. Letters to Washington, goal number 73, has officially been moved to the "In progress" column. I sent my first letter to my brand-new placeholder senator, George LeMieux, in response to this article in today's New York Times. Sure, there's a war on, and a health care reform debacle, and stuff, but obviously some idiot from Louisiana needs the spotlight to stump against immigrants for next year's election. And obviously the proposal in question is so obscenely ludicrous that I simply had to voice my opinion and make sure LeMieux, GOP loyalist extraordinaire (seriously, he's holding Mel Martinez' seat for less than two years under the tacit condition that he not seek reelection so Charlie Crist, our great governor, can run instead), doesn't fall in with this fringe crowd. The grimy flipside of having a solid Democratic majority in both houses is the ability of Republicans to pick up on whatever insignificant issue they think will help their odds with their constituents - not taking into account that such petty issues could hurt real people if passed. Anyway, it's a fairly lengthy letter, so I've put it down below the cut.

Dear Senator LeMieux,

The New York Times published an article today about the push of your fellow senator, David Vitter, to forbid the census from counting non-citizens as residents of the several states and, by extension, our nation. This is not only an outrageous proposition because of the social, economic, and political ramifications such a census would cause, but also thoroughly unconstitutional. I sincerely hope that, as my representative, you will not support Senator Vitter's proposal.

As I'm sure you know, Article 2 of the Constitution empowers the Congress to count every ten years "the whole number of persons in each state" in order to properly apportion representatives. This particular passage has already been amended once in our history, with the idea that government should include more people, not fewer. Originally, the census formula was taken from the whole number of "free persons" plus three-fifths of "all others," i.e. slaves, further diminished the status of certain Americans. With the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, the three-fifths clause was removed, rightfully establishing non-whites as full citizens worthy of equal representation.

As a representative democracy, America was the eighteenth-century beacon for Europe’s feudal monarchies. Oppressed for centuries by the noble classes, the hard-working serfs rose up and wrenched political power out of their silk-gloved hands. The story of democracy is the story of power continually spiraling downwards and outwards, into the hands of the people. This is where Senator Vitter’s proposal becomes truly farcical.

The Times writes:

“Appealing to his colleagues in states with fewer noncitizens, the Republican senator, David Vitter of Louisiana, warned this month that a vote against his proposal would ‘strip these states of their proper representation in Congress,’ while including noncitizens would ‘artificially increase the population count’ in other states.”

His proposal would strip states of their proper representation – those that are the major entry points for immigrants into our country, like our own Florida. As for “artificially increasing the population count,” I would have to say that people who work, reside, and raise families in our communities are, in fact, part of the American population. They may not have yet acquired citizenship, but we can rest assured that the children they bear and bring here have or will. Not only would this proposal be unfair to today’s immigrants, it would create an unquantifiable backlash with the next generation, as they witness their parents treated unfairly. Worse, measures like this can be used to justify the xenophobic behavior of Americans towards immigrants, both legal and illegal. (Those who would condone or commit violence or hateful speech towards immigrants likely don’t care to see the difference.)

The census began as a device for apportioning government representation– and that remains its primary purpose today. Yet it also serves another important function when it counts residents, and not just citizens: it is one of the most important historical records of who lived where when. My own great-grandparents would not have been counted under such an exclusionary census during their first decade in this country, despite the fact that they worked hard to contribute to America all the same and build a nation their children would proudly call their own. The exponential growth of illegal immigration in the past few decades is certainly an issue that needs to be addressed, but discriminating against all immigrants by excluding non-citizens from the census is neither the right way, nor an effective way, to do so.

Sincerely,

Caroline Leonard


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Toward a Red

Two weeks ago, I went back to Mandala with my friend Michelle so she could sell some books, and while I was there, I, as I do, found another postcard to add to my collection. The reason for its extreme delay is that I have found, amazingly, something that is not on the internet. Anywhere. For real. I have searched high and low, working with the artist's name and the title of the painting given on the back of the postcard, to figure out if this abstract piece is meant to be viewed vertically or horizontally. I have googled his name, its name, both of their names; combed wikipedia for any reference to it, and even gone to the website of the museum that printed the postcard to see if they had a picture - nothing. So, I present, with a 1/3 chance of correct orientation, Sam Gilliam's Toward a Red.

If you know think you have a good eye for aesthetic sensibilities, let me know which way you think is up. You should be able to click the picture and be taken to a much larger version, if you'd like to study it more in-depth.

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Oddly refreshing...

Today I woke up at 7:30 and left for work a little after 8. I spent the next four hours as tense as a pregnant cheerleader's boyfriend at the father/daughter purity ball, trying to review everything I'd ever learned about international politics in my head while making copies of rich people's tax forms. The only thing that got me through it - and only just, at that - was cranking up Ben Folds' Rockin' the Suburbs and dancing the Charleston to "The Secret Life of Morgan Baker." Seriously, ask my dad. It was one of the more raucous one-girl dance parties an Ormond office building has ever seen. So I left just before noon, stopping only to get gas (um, also discovering that my gas cap is missing? I feel like that's something I would have noticed last month when I bought gas. (Oh yeah, that's right, I bought one tank of gas in September. 320 miles was all I drove, bitches.)), and pushing Bea for the first time above 70mph to get to the Foreign Service test in Orlando.

She handled it well enough, though I guess four years of not driving very often made me forget that just under 4000rpm at 80mph is normal for a stick - that worried me for a while. The test itself was alright, and by law I'm not allowed to tell you ANYTHING that was on it, but I think I'm allowed to say that I was not asked to write either an awesome essay nor an articulate tirade about corporate greed responsibility (winkwinknudgenudge). I'm slightly less confident about the biographical section, insofar as it really comes down to whether they're looking for entry-level people or those with more practical experience for higher-level positions. I'm betting the recession made them slow down on their new hires, so in the next year, when I'm hoping to be placed, all the old entry-level kids will be promoted, leaving lots of openings for me!

Anyway so that was my FSOT adventure in a smallish nutshell. Now that it's over, I need to make a new deadline for a big project to keep my motivation up. I work so much more efficiently under pressure than without. Stupid college.
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Limeades for Learning

During September, Sonic was running a (heavily advertised) promotion for one of my favorite charities, Donors Choose. As you may recall, goal 16 is to donate at least $500.50 to classrooms in need through the site. Two weekends ago, when my family went golfing, we stopped at Sonic for breakfast, and everyone graciously gave me their Limeades for Learning codes. I thought it was a matching thing, so I wanted to wait until pay day to use them, but it turned out you use the codes to vote for your favorite projects and Sonic will choose the projects with the most votes that total half a million dollars and, you know, fund them. Still pretty cool.

So I used my four codes on projects that were lower down in the running, just to make the teachers feel like someone was actually paying attention to their proposals and thought they had good ideas. Then, while I was looking at a map of Yugoslavia on wikipedia to make sure I have the order of the countries down for the one-week-away-FSOT (Slovenia Croatia Bos/Hertz Serbia Montenegro Macedonia boom. Got it.), I remembered reading about the war in Bosnia (capital Sarajevo) and the genocide in Rwanda (capital Kigali) in Scholastic News. Weighty subjects for second-graders, to be sure, but those were the stories that stuck. All the rest have faded into a nebulous feeling of "Oh, I enjoyed reading Scholastic News," but Rwanda and Bosnia have stayed because they were powerful. I'm sure the magazine wouldn't have detailed the exact techniques being used, but I remembered feeling like I wasn't being talked down to about it; it felt really empowering that my teacher trusted me to be mature enough to read about a real-life war happening now, at a time when I was still supposed to want to play with my Barbies when I got home from school.

I'm hoping the magazine has maintained that integrity, because I donated to one proposal to bring Scholastic News into another second grade classroom today. JP Morgan Chase had already donated the first $400 of the project's needed $457.94, and as much as I would have liked to put in the whole last bit, I really need to take care of my credit bill first. I donated $25, figuring the remaining $33 would be an easy enough donation for someone else to make. Turns out, JPMC came back to finish funding the project (which also was for a school-year subscription to Time Kids)! I think it's interesting that everyone's all on about the taxpayer's bail-out money going to outrageous corporate bonuses - and I'm aware that donations like this are probably made in the interest of being a combination tax write-off/PR scheme - but the fact remains that some kids somewhere are being helped by this act. And hey, they could be keeping all the money for themselves.

Scholastic News being my pet project, I didn't actually donate to the ones I voted for Sonic to fund - yet. I'll reevaluate my finances in a week or two. In the meantime, here are the links:

Learning in a flash! asks for 30 2GB flashdrives to help students transport their work from the school computer lab to the classroom to home. As we all know, the price of memory has come down A LOT since I was in school (and paid $50 for my quarter-gig drive and another $50 for the eighth-of-a-gig SD card for my camera), so this whole project costs just $240 plus the site fees.

Meanwhile, this school newspaper needs new supplies. Journalism is a new elective in this New York City school, one that, like No Child Left Behind before it, is drastically underfunded. While I think that three laptops is maybe more than the bare minimum necessary for this project, I respect the teacher who wrote this proposal for choosing devices that are actually really economical and journalism textbooks to help enrich the kids' experience. At $70 a pop, it's no wonder the school couldn't afford to buy these! The whole cost to fund an entire journalism course - with materials that can surely be used for at least a few years to come - is only $2320... someone remind me why we're in Iraq again?

Everything I know about India, I learned by reading Salman Rushdie. Okay. Maybe that's an overstatement... but I definitely learned everything I know about Antigua from Jamaica Kincaid. Point is, books that introduce you to foreign cultures, historic landmarks, and inspire you to love reading for its own sake are awesome. Thus, my most-likely next donation candidate is "Solve a Mystery, Learn some History," which is asking for 31 titles of an acclaimed 5th-grade-level series of mystery books that introduce their readers to things and places as varied as the US Constitution and the Acropolis in Athens. The best part? Most of the books cost less than $7.50 each, so the entire proposal can be filled with $312, $125 of which has already been contributed.

Finally, I chose this bookshelf proposal, because. I mean. The kids don't have a BOOKSHELF in their classroom. Enough said.
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Tallies

I realized this weekend that I have a lot of goals that have cumulative totals - donate this much money, swing on this many swingsets, you know - and that, rather than cluttering up the Master List with all of their progress tallies, I should create a separate post where they can all aspire to be completed together, as one big happy family. I have been updating the "Charity" post every night this week after I finish with my Free Rice learnin', and I will continue to do that in addition to this new post. This post, however, has the advantage of being privileged enough to get a coveted spot in the prestigious and exclusive Quick Links sidebar.

And remember! This is not a complete list of goals in progress, just those that have specific tallies associated with them. You can always see all of the officially In Progress goals by viewing the master list and seeking out the terra cotta colored goals, or get more detailed progress reports by clicking the "In Progress" tag on the sidebar.



4. Discover AND LIKE 101 new bands or solo artists.

New artists approved of: 7

12. Rosetta Stone: Spanish

Lessons completed through: Level 2, Unit 1, Lesson 3

16. Donate at least $500.50 on Donors Choose.

Amount donated: $100.00

23. Visit at least 25 cathedrals.

Cathedrals admired: 1

24. Swing on 101 unique swingsets.

Swingsets swung: 8

38. Volunteer at least 101 hours with Habitat for Humanity.

Hours completed: 4

44. Raise $500.50 by doing Walks for the Cure.

Amount donated: $23.00

54. Finish the Discworld series.

Books read: 5

55. (re)Read the complete works of Tennessee Williams.

Plays read: 0.66

58. Read the complete works of Salman Rushdie.

Rushdies read: 1

59. Read every book on the shelf that has not yet been so.

Backlog finished: 3

68. Loan $101 on Kiva; recycle all repayments.

Loaned out: $25 Recycled: $0

70. Achieve 500,000 grains of rice on Free Rice for Spanish vocabulary.

Grains donated: 2500

71. Achieve 500,000 grains of rice in all other subjects.

Grains donated: 14790

73. Write 101 letters to Washington.

Complaints lodged: 4

78. Accumulate 101 postcards.

Postcards owned: 25

84. Go to ten special exhibitions at museums.

Exhibitions visited: 1

85. Read ten books that are recommended to me.

Recommended reading completed: 2

86. Watch 25 of the Greatest Movies of All Time Ever that I've never before seen.

Movies Consumed: 2

93. Learn to identify at least ten things under the hood of a car and how you can tell when they break.

Car Parts Understood: 0.2 (Yeah zero point two, I know an engine when I see it.)
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Postcards - the beginning.

(Sort of) as promised, here are 15 of my original 17 postcards.

1. Edgar Degas, "Two Dancers on a Stage," The Courtauld Gallery, London.

2. James A. M. Whistler, "Girl with Almond Blossom," The Courtauld Gallery, London.

3. Henri Reignault, "Salome," The Met, New York.

4. John Singer Sargent, "Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose," Tate Britain, London.

5. Paul Delaroche, Detail from "The Execution of Lady Jane Grey," National Gallery, London.

6. Detail of Mosaic, St Paul's Cathedral, London.

7. Camille Pissarro, "The Boulevard Montmarte on a Winter Morning," The Met, New York.

8. Detail of Mosaic, St Paul's Cathedral, London.

9. Pierre-August Renoir, "Madame Marguerite-Louise Lemonnier and Her Children," The Met, New York.

10. Pablo Picasso, "Girl with Mandolin," Museum of Modern Art, New York.

11. Georges Seurat, Study for "Le Chahut," Courtauld Gallery, London.

12. Pierre-August Renoir, "At the Theatre (La Première Sortie)," National Gallery, London.

13. Edgar Degas, "After the Bath, Woman Drying Herself," National Gallery, London.

14. Georges Seurat, "Young Woman Powdering Herself," Courtauld Gallery, London.

15. Francisco de Goya, "Doña Isabel de Porcel," National Gallery, London.

The other two are not on the wall (for symmetry reasons) and I don't have any pictures of them yet. They're really awesome, post-apocalyptic paintings commissioned for St. Paul's Cathedral in London earlier this decade. They were first hung, I think, right after the mosaics were given their first thorough cleaning in at least a century, and although I don't normally enjoy paintings that depict Christ, I find this pair to be fascinating, especially their very-intentional juxtaposition with the brightly gilded mosaics. I plan on scanning them at work tomorrow so I can show them off, too :)
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On a Streetcar Named Getting-My-Ass-In-Gear

For the first time, I feel really good looking back at the progress I've made in the last week. It might be because I got paid and so everything just looks a little cheerier, but it just seems like I've gotten over some kind of hump (or maybe just my plague) and am better equipped to listen when I tell myself to turn off the TV and do something else. In fact, on Thursday night I was too good at that and missed half of the Bill Clinton interview on The Daily Show - even though I had set up a reminder and the cable box had switched itself over to the channel. But the reason I missed it was that I was so engrossed in my Adaptation project, and the interview is online, so I don't feel horrible about it. I think this week I am actually going to write a scene, instead of just taking endless notes. Three or four possible ideas for an opening scene have been fighting to claw their way out onto the pixel-page, so I might just do all of them and see where it goes.

I read almost all the articles I meant to, which can be read about in the post below this one, and I finished Sourcery, the first next Discworld novel on the list. I also began Streetcar on Saturday morning and got about halfway through it. If you've never read the introduction that Tennessee Williams wrote himself for it, you can download it from me here. I would pull out one of my favorite quotes, but 1) I don't have just one, and 2) I can't bear to rip any of them out of context. They're all better together. Suffice it to say that reading it, and then lovingly transcribing it because it seems not to exist ANYWHERE ELSE on the internet, I was reinvigorated about both this project and the general direction I want to take my life.

Speaking of which, the Foreign Service test is just a little over two weeks away. It's intimidating. There's this huge, seemingly-singular event in my too-near future and it. It seems like applying to Vassar all over again. I have my sights set on this one thing, to the point of totally blocking out any other potentiality, and I'm not sure how many more times this is going to work for me. To that end, I've begun to think about how else I might leave Daytona in next spring or summer. It's actually not as hard as I thought it would be to do this... I imagined that planning alternatives might feel like a concession of defeat before I'd even given myself a chance to see what I could do. Instead, although I'm still dealing with those feelings, I also feel more confident in myself, and sort of feel resourceful for the first time in my life.

Besides wanting to be a career diplomat, one of my other long-standing career dreams has been to be an editor at a publishing company. I don't just love grammar, I have a sort of unnatural eagle-eye for spotting errors and typos (think an extra space between words) at a glance. Unfortunately for this particular dream - though greatly to my credit for the State Department, obviously - I majored in Political Science, not English, so I'm not immediately qualified, on paper, to get a job in publishing. I do, however, have a bit of practical experience editing manuscripts, papers, and, recently, business reports.

Enough experience, I think, to post a craiglist ad in the major cities advertising my availability for freelance editing services. This idea is still in its infancy, but hopefully, if I can get this venture up and running by the beginning of November, and people are into it, I'll be able to have at least six months of experience to put on my resume and a list of references to vouch for my abilities. If it doesn't work out with the State Department, I can still move back up north (or west, or somewhere completely off my radar right now) and apply for real editing gigs and do something (else) that I love with my life.

So there's that. Another thing I love is books. (Yeah, completely and unartfully changing gears here). On Friday afternoon, my brother and his girlfriend flew into town and I left work early to hang out with them, and discovered that Kristen really likes books, too, and that, furthermore, my brother had never heard of Mandala, my very favorite used bookstore... possibly ever. So we turned right back around after we got home and headed down once more to "Daytona proper" and spent a good two hours rummaging through the overcrowded shelves and floor-stacks and old National Geographics and Playboys. I ended up with three new Philip Roth books; The Satanic Verses; a book called Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz, one of the fathers of the modern Arabic novel; Zadie Smith's The Autograph Man; and a National Geographic from 1975 revealing the amazing future of wind power (including a really excellent artist's rendering of a futuristic, multiturbine, exceptionally top-heavy oceanic device, which, thanks to the power of the interweben, I need not scan because some kindly person has already done it for me. The picture will be below the cut, along with my final purchases, four new postcards! I'm really excited about them and I can't really remember this second if I made any more good goal progress this week - rode the bike to work on two days last week? Stretching regularly every night? - so I'm just going to skip right to the pictures :)



First, the windpower of the future!, as envisioned by National Geographic in, once again, 1975.

I know, right? Craaaazy hippies. What were they thinking?

Now, postcards. Tomorrow I plan on sharing the 17 postcards I already have, but first up tonight is Gustav Klimt's "Cartoon for the Stoclet Palace: Expectation." Secret: I really love the Klimt aesthetic but my inner indie snob has always prevented me from buying a poster of "The Kiss," because everyone else has it. What I enjoy most about "Expectation" is the way the woman's body is facing left, but her head is turned back. What is she looking at? A man? A mirror? A squirrel? The world may never know.

Next, the Monets.

This "Japanese Bridge" lives in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, according to the back of the postcard, and is the much warmer, more vibrant brother of the painting I've seen a few times at the National Gallery in London, and I like it more, I think. I'm a huge sucker for the interplay of the full spectrum of colors.

The second Monet is "Venice, Palazzo Dario," which feels cool and refreshing to look at, with all that bright-blue water. I don't really remember seeing any Venice paintings by Monet before, but the fuzzy detailing in the water really drew me into it. If I have to pick only one city in Europe to go to to satisfy my travel goal for the list, I think it has to be Venice. What with the whole sinking thing (even though that may not be true anymore), it seems rather urgent that I get there as soon as possible. Maybe I'm just in the mood for delicately ornate architecture right now. Who knows.

And the parting shot is Renoir's "La Déjeuner des canotiers," or, "The Luncheon of the Boating Party," for the more English-inclined. Not going to lie, I am a bigger fan of Renoir's ballerinas (second only to those by Degas), but I bought this postcard because of Amélie, one of my favorite movies of all-time-ever. If you've seen it, you know it features semi-prominently in the film, with Amélie playing a semi-metaphorical Girl-with-Drinking-Glass. It's one of those beautifully complex paintings of people that I love, where every person is their own character, and you can tell just by the way Renoir has painted their faces that they all have a unique backstory and set of motivations that make them more enduring than just the luncheon scene itself.

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Sicko.

It's been a long, hard week. I've had trouble sleeping, I've gotten a sore throat, I've gotten a non-fever fever, and a cough of painfully epic proportions. I didn't go to work until noon on Tuesday, and I left at 1:30 on Friday. I have been on the couch or in bed almost all of the rest of the time. Blah.

I did do SPT, and make a little progress on various goals, and I will be posting links to and short blurbs about the articles I've been reading below. I cut because I care :)


First, the picture:

This was taken outside my office building after work, and that redness about the face is the fever. It's definitely not the best picture out there of me, but it's probably not the worst, either.

Next, I checked out the next two Discworld novels from the library when I went to stock up on sicky TV to watch (Stargate SG-1 from the beginning and The Duchess, for those interested in such trivial details). I plan to finish Sourcery tomorrow and get started on Wyrd Sisters shortly thereafter. I want to keep a steady stream of these coming in; they're good bedtime stories.

I've written another Drabble that I'm not yet ready to share. Maybe tomorrow. We'll see.

Adaptation is going slowly, but steadily. Well, more slowly than steadily, to be honest, but I'm blaming the sick. Very soon I'm going to stop blaming, I swear, but I've been making very solid notes and cross-referencing and getting some ideas together about the best way to tell this very long and convoluted story.

I obviously haven't ridden the bike to work this week, since I don't want to go into cardiac arrest from lack of oxygen or anything. But, I did find the handweight that I'd stashed in my room a while back to use while I watch TV, and I started stretching a little bit and doing leg lifts and crunches more regularly. I haven't explicitly tried to do a split since the gym in Portland, but I'm sure I'll actually get to that fairly soon.

I scheduled the Foreign Service Officer Test! It's on Wednesday, October 7th, and I have to drive to Orlando for it but that's okay. Within three weeks of the test, I'll get scores back and find out if I've been invited to write the five "personal narratives" about my life experiences that I feel qualify me to do the work of the State Department. I believe that about three weeks after that, I will find out if I've been invited for an interview, which they call an All Day Oral Assessment. Intimidating, I know. If they decide they like me after that, between two and twenty-four months later I will be offered a position. So. That's the process in a nutshell. Please, please continue to keep your fingers crossed for me!

And, finally, the articles. You'd think that with all this downtime, I'd have done almost nothing else, but my sick is the sick of ache and muscle exhaustion. Half the time I've been watching TV, my computer has been closed. Closed. That is so incredibly weird for me, because usually TV is in no way stimulating enough to occupy my full attention. Anyway, the last two weeks' worth of articles that I have read are:

• "Kennedycare" is a really excellent summary of Ted Kennedy's decades-long fight for better health care and coverage for Americans, Reagan and Nixon's creation of the "socialist Trojan horse" defense, and how all of this history is affecting Obama and how the best legacy he (and Kennedy) can leave is to "shift the trajectory of American politics."



• "The Rubber Room" was another excellently informative article, though this one is about something I'm sure very few of us are aware of: the hundreds of teachers employed by the New York City Schools who are paid for years to sit in these holding tanks called "Rubber Rooms" because they've been accused of misconduct or incompetency in the classroom. The reason the city is forced to continue paying their salaries (including full benefits and pension contributions) is the contract with the Teachers Union - it mandates arbitration to resolve these charges, and it can take years for a particular teacher's turn to come because the hearings for one person can go on for months. The article is fairly long because it details three of these cases, but I really recommend you read it, especially if you're a New Yorker yourself.



• "The Fountain House"I'm reading three articles a week in The New Yorker. You knew one of them was going to be fiction. It had to happen. I can't really say anything about this story that won't give part of it away, but it was just really sweet and it made me smile to read it.



• "The Vote that Changed Japan" is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: a description of the recent election that saw the first solid defeat of the party that had controlled the country since the 60s and what that means for the country's future. If you have no idea what I just said, that's all the more reason for you to check this one out.



• "Pain-free animals?" will tell you everything you need to know about the next possible breakthrough in food production: animals genetically engineered to not feel pain, as such, so that killing them for food will be more humane. This article did more than Fastfood Nation could to make me seriously contemplate the ethics of my carnivorism. In the end, though, I reached the same conclusion I always do: chic-ken gooooood.



• "The Shrinking Archipelago" will remind you about the disproportionately devastating effects global weirding (bonus link yay!) has on developing nations. In the case of Indonesia, climate change will not only cause hundreds of smaller islands to be completely submerged in the next half-century; Indonesia is one of the leaders in deforestation (along with Brazil) because of Western demand for palm oil and other cash crops that Indonesians are increasingly opting to grow.



• "HIV's Weak Spot" summarizes the findings of a new study which shows that the HIV virus literally has a weak spot in its structure - a place where antibodies may actually be able to attach if they're taught to look for it, ie, through vaccination. Read, learn, love.



• After reading the previous article, I felt a little behind on the history of the search for an HIV vaccine. Luckily, New Scientist provided a convenient link in the last paragraph of that article, so if you're a clickaholic like me and have already read it, you can skip this one. If not, "Fears over HIV vaccines laid to rest" will tell you briefly about previous efforts to create a vaccine for HIV, why those efforts failed, and why the mere existence of an HIV vaccine was maligned!



• Finally, "Strife in Yemen" is a short piece about latest mid-East hotspot and the civil war currently being waged between the government and a wealthy tribal family and their supporters. Apparently Yemenis really miss monarchy.

For those keeping score, that works out to two in The Economist (first subscription issue should be arriving next week!), three in New Scientist (plus one science article in the Guardian about Alzheimer's and one in the NYT about the food industry battling the health care bill), and four in The New Yorker (subscription starting next week). Behind, yes. But these articles were a great start and I'm really excited to start reading the magazines all the way through. Next week, I hope to have this goal more complete by Friday, so it doesn't get folded into the Weekly Update again.

So that's where I stand right now. I'm still working on cleaning up my room and going through my boxed stuff, but mostly I'm just tired ALL THE TIME. Like now. So I'm going to bed. Goodnight!

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Picnic on the beach

In addition to getting an epic sunburn on my shins yesterday afternoon, I completed my first goal: number 82, Have a picnic in a park with at least one good friend and a bottle of wine. What I originally had in mind when I wrote this goal was a shady, grassy knoll in Central Park, with an actual picnic basket and wine glasses. But my friend Katelyn was home from school for the weekend, and asked if I wanted to picnic on the beach with her, and it was great.

We had sandwiches, oranges, and cupcakes, and, of course, wine (albeit in solo cups, because it's technically illegal to drink on the beach here). It was fabulous. The sun was slightly blistering, but there was a constant, cool(ish) breeze blowing in and - the best part - we were far enough north that our little segment of sand wasn't completely packed with holiday weekend tourists (or fellow townies, more likely). We stayed out for a good two hours or so, thus the sunburned shins, catching up and all that jazz.

I'm kind of glad something light and fun like this was the first goal I finished; it's a good precedent to set, a good tone for the whole 1001. Now, to get back to work on those notes for the screenplay...
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Her name is Bea Arthur.

As of today, I officially have nine goals in progress, but this is a lot harder than I thought it would be, what with all the working full time and the moving in and also, sometimes inertia is just inertia.

What has happened since the last weekly update:

• I got a car! It's an '03 Honda Civic EX with sunroof and power everything and I have named her Bea Arthur. Why, you ask? It's fairly simple. We're in Florida, the car is in her golden years, and, of course, she has silver hair paint. We've been together, oh, about a week, now, and we're very happy. I think we're going to be together for a looooong time :)



• I worked a 41 hour work week for the very first time! It's almost like I'm something vaguely resembling a real adult! Almost. Nothing very exciting to report about the office. It's an office, I file, enter data, and fill out forms and generally just learn things about pensions and 401(k)s and that - get this - they are different things. I'm getting paid; hooray.



• I started "training" for my ten minute real-world mile by riding my bike to work on Tuesday (and home on Friday - rain). It's not, you know, hugely excellent training, but it's a start. Hopefully once "autumn" sets in properly and it stops raining every afternoon, this will be a more regular thing and I'll be able to start jogging at night. I definitely want to head over to the middle school nearby and time myself on the track to set a baseline, so I know just how out of shape I am now and precisely how difficult it will be to get down to a ten minute mile. Let me remind you that I can already do this on a treadmill, but the actual physical forward movement of running in the real world makes me lose my breath and get a stitch in my side much more quickly. I hope to do this in the next few weeks, weather-permitting; I'll next update on this once I do get the baseline time.



• I wrote my first fiction drabble two nights ago but I don't think I'm going to post it. I don't think I'm there yet. It feels a little too melodramatic and I'm not completely sure it satisfies the "quality" aspect of that particular goal, but it's only the first week and I haven't done this in a while. I'm sparing you, I promise.



• I was a little sloppy on my article reading goal. I got three done in The New Yorker and two in the Economist (which I also put in a subscription for (signing bonus woo!)), but didn't, um, make it around to the New Scientist at all. Tomorrow I will finish the reading and post all the links and (a short) reaction to each article. Also of note: I plan on getting a subscription to the New Yorker, too, as soon as I get my first paycheck. It's only $70 for two years! I didn't realize it was so cheap! I will definitely read more as soon as I have the actual magazines, and I'm very much looking forward to that.



• Ashamed as I am to admit it, I was also sloppy on starting up Tennessee Williams, Salman Rushdie, and (I feel the worst about this one) the screenplay. With the books, it's partially because I realized around Tuesday or Wednesday that the books were still packed and I really have a lot more to clean up in my room before I get to unloading those six or seven boxes. With the screenplay, though, it's all me and my. Laziness. There, I said it. I have the post-its out, ready to color-code, ready to coordinate with a OneNote Notebook on my computer. I told myself I was waiting until I had the right mechanical pencils on hand, so I could make notes in the book itself, but I bought those on Thursday and still haven't done anything more than think about beginning to read. I honestly can't understand what happened. I was, and am, so excited at the prospect of this undertaking. Maybe that's the problem - I like the idea of starting remaining on the horizon.
  
  Well. No more. I'm running out of excuses (i.e., things to watch on On Demand that aren't Apocalypse Now, by the way) and tomorrow I have An Agenda. I am going to lunch at noonish with an old friend, and when I get home, I am doing a LOT of laundry, and while I am doing laundry, I am going to keep the TV off and the classical/soundtrack music on and start in on this book. I am going to tackle it head on and I am pretty sure that after it gets rolling, the other half of that law of motion (the part about when objects are in motion) will kick right in and it won't seem quite so possibly impossible anymore.



• Attentive readers may have noticed that in the previous post, Sundries - Part 3, one goal had been moved into the "In Progress" category: number 90, Intentionally go out in the pouring rain and soak through. Seems a bit of a one-time thing, doesn't it? Either you've stood out and soaked or you haven't. Not so. Twice in the last two days (that is, last night and this morning) it sounded, in the house, like it was a torrential downpour outside. This morning, it was actually loud enough that it woke me up, and I checked out the window before changing into rain-appropriate attire (that is, not my velvet pajama pants) to ensure that this time, it really was a good solid rain. Literally by the time I was out the door, it still sounded slightly ferocious, kind of like a lion cub on the verge of lion puberty trying out an intimidating roar, and by the time I was across the yard and into the street, the rain felt nice, but I could tell it was definitely not of the "soak through" sort. By the time I was back inside, changing back into my cozy pjs, the rain had slowed to a trickle. The real measure? My shirt was completely dry within five minutes.
  
  Therefore, goal number 90 is in progress because I continue to be vigilant in my search for a proper hard rain and. Seriously. The next time there is one, rain-appropriate attire be damned. I will own that rain, even if it means I have to be ridiculously uncomfortable doing it.
  
  Probably.



• I hit submit. I sort of have a phobia about that, finalizing things that I sometimes don't have complete control over: airplane reservations online, intrawebal submissions of papers, and hitting "send" on just about anything that isn't a casual email. I have a tremendous fear about not being able to take things back. One day I might tell you about the realization of this fear in a funny little story I like to call "Half an hour of tears and screeching with the Virgin Atlantic call center in India." Yeah. It's a good one.
  
  So, what did I submit? The registration packet for the Foreign Service Officer Test. I'm pretty sure it wasn't the entire application, though it did ask for basic resume stuff. I feel like the real application should have essay questions about why I want to be a part of the Foreign Service. I should probably work on preparing those answers, anyway. Yeah. Anyway. The test window is sometime in October, so I should be receiving my invitation to register for a seat sometime in the next week. I'm hoping. Fingers crossed. You should, too.



• Finally, Selfportrait Thursday, goal 37, is underway. You can see it three posts back from here; I will not be mentioning that I have done SPT again in the weekly update unless I'm feeling particularly down about my goal progress that week. It'll sort of be our secret code; you'll know I'm really mad at myself for not getting anything done because I'll bring it up. Know that I am chastising myself quite enough even now, for this grave, underperforming transgression.

So, there it is, the week in review. Now that all the goal detail posts are done, I won't have them as an excuse to delay doing actual goal-related activities, and the posts in the coming week will be far more substantive. I'm going to really get started, I swear!
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Sundries - Part 3

81. Buy something from a local artist.
82. Have a picnic in a park with a bottle of wine and at least one good friend.
87. Complete my 1000 piece Kandinsky puzzle and frame it.
88. Throw a dinner party for at least six people (myself included).
90. Intentionally go out in the pouring rain and soak through.
91. Write down dreams first thing in the morning for two weeks.
96. Go to bed before midnight for one full week.
98. Have at least five indoor plants alive for at least three months all at once.
101. Accumulate $5005 in the Imaginary Fund.

I'm not trying to crap out of finishing the detail posts, but all of these (except for number 101) are legitimately self-explanatory and to write a blurb explaining each of them seems a little ridiculous to me.

Instead, here's the reasoning behind number 101: The Imaginary Fund is something I've thought about creating periodically in the last four years. It's a combination emergency savings account/travel fund/off-limits-until-I'm-grown-up-place-to-stash-some-money. It's called "The Imaginary Fund" because obviously, I don't want to count it in my head with all my other bank accounts. I don't want the money in it to be totaled in, basically; I want to pretend it isn't there at all. When these 1001 days are over, I'll be 25, and I like the idea of giving myself a financial foundation for the future. I would imagine this would go without saying, but I don't plan on exhausting those other accounts to meet this goal - unlike the state of Florida's education/lottery scheme, this money is on top of, not in lieu of, financial security in my checking, savings, and credit accounts.
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