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"Last week, a rider lost control of a Segway PT at the 24th Street BART station in San Francisco, sending the two-wheeled scooter onto the train tracks. The scooter was struck by a BART train, which halted train service for more than half an hour, causing passengers to miss their flights at San Francisco International Airport, according to BART spokesman Linton Johnson."http://www.examiner.com/a-1457718~Segways_booted_from_BART.htmlI hate Segways so hard. Why can't these people just get scooters or, better yet, bicycles? Would it kill them to get a little goddamn exercise? Riding your Segway to BART, then riding it to work. Unbelievable.
Making serious progress on this front and feel better than I have in a loooong time. I love that I have the ability to make myself feel so great, just by thinking and doing and having conversations with people I care about.
I almost feel sad that I didn't realize it earlier. I was always looking for external sources of happiness: from drugs, from booze, from men. Turn off the brain and force myself to forget, force myself to be happy on false pretenses. Now that I have naturally begun to feel happiness without these things (for literally the first time since I was a child) I am seeing how easy it is to keep it up and stop being scared. Stop the self-medicating and start the healing process (yes I am turning into a new-age hippie).
So here is the plan. Stop being scared of honest conversation, or of going to a party without drinking, or of what people think or say about me. It's all inconsequential in the end. I think what matters most is the people you hurt and the people you love. It is so obvious and cliche but I never learned. I am the great master of avoidance -- avoiding confrontation, difficult conversations, my own thoughts. I'm ready to apologize to those I've hurt, forgive everyone that's hurt me and love the people I love with my whole mushy and bruised heart. Sounds like I'm ready to graduate AA.
Sometimes I want to legally change my last name to Lea to prevent confusion, since roughly 48% of friends and acquaintances know me as "Amandalea" anyway. Then I think about the fact that I will have to spell my last name for the rest of my life. Then I think about changing my last name to Lee. Then I think about the fact that my (Irish) coworker's last name is Lee and she may wonder if I am secretly in love with her and am getting ready to propose that we (legally!) get married. But, all of this would be offset by the fact that I will have a great last name that may or may not create small amounts of racial confusion and broaden others' horizons. Who knows?I feel like riding my scooter really fast (which means 45 mph) and listening to Guitar Wolf in skintight black jeans. I need to befriend more delinquents and make this happen.
"Obama has a plan to immediately begin withdrawing our troops engaged in combat operations at a pace of one or two brigades every month, to be completed by the end of next year. He would call for a new constitutional convention in Iraq, convened with the United Nations, which would not adjourn until Iraq's leaders reach a new accord on reconciliation. He would use presidential leadership to surge our diplomacy with all of the nations of the region on behalf of a new regional security compact. And he would take immediate steps to confront the ongoing humanitarian disaster in Iraq."Anyone who is in the military, or anyone who knows anyone in the military, should be disgusted with themselves if they do not vote for this man. Do it for your third cousins, your high school acquaintances, the kids who "just wanted money for college" or a way to support their families. Do it for the career military men who want to retire in one piece or the punk kid who chose the military over a jail sentence. No one deserves what is happening right now. I'm doing it for a cousin from Texas I never knew. He was 21.I know I just poisoned the well there, but goddamn is it justified. This atheist is on the verge of praying for our collective futures.
