Resource Allocation

So, a space shuttle was supposed to take off today. It didn't. Anybody surprised? I didn't think so. And, despite it being hurricane season & the mere 10 minute window allotted for take off, the weather wasn't to blame. Nope, some mechanical problem...I admit that I haven't completely investigated the issue.

It appears that NASA can't get anything right. I mean, do they ever get good publicity? No wonder people think the moon landing was faked! So, I was wondering, as I lay here tonight on my Tempurpedic Pillow, if maybe NASA Engineers should not spend quite so much time perfecting matress material??? Just a suggestion.

Tuesday

I got my teapot back today! I love it! It isn't perfect, but what is?? I think I'm gonna go back and paint something else! It is so satisfying!

I went to a cooking class tonight with my firm. I snuck out at half-time. The food was not very impressive & the second round didn't look much better. I have to say Atlanta is just ridiculous about Asian food!! At 1st it was interesting, but now I am so sick of it! If I never ate Thai food again I would die happy!

I don't have anything meaningful to say tonight in case you haven't noticed. I have had a very tough couple of weeks. I really have not been eating or sleeping much, except on Sunday when I took a Xanax at 2pm and slept all day! Some crappy stuff went down at work that I can't really blog about right now, hopefully things will be better by next week! I will try to scrounge up some inspiration and intelligent thoughts before my next entry!

Oh! And by the way, Adam took on the 3 things challenge too! Yay! Although, he doesn't know himself as well as I thought he would! LOL

Three Things For Tiffany

Three names I go by: Mandi, CJ, Sexy Bitch
Three screen names I’ve had: cierrajo13, mandi313, CJ
Three physical things I like about myself: my right boob, my left boob, my rapper's girlfriend's ass
Three physical things I don’t like about myself:Really, I have gotten over all my physical preoccupations, since I don't care about attraction anymore, but when I did care it was: my nose, my nails, & sometimes my belly
Three parts of my heritage: Polish, German, Native American
Three things I am wearing right now: big night shirt, gray danskin pants, bright green underwear
Three favorite bands/musical artists: Ani Difranco, Alanis Morrisette, Tom Petty (unless I am in a silly mood, then Vanilla Ice, NKOTB, and the Bloodhound Gang!)
Three favorite songs: Shameless by Ani; Shy by Ani; Not the Doctor by Alanis
Three things I want in a relationship: Me, Myself, & I
Two truths and a lie: I used to work at Disney World; My parents are Republicans; I flunked out of college
Three physical things about the preferred sex that appeal to you: preferred sex?? I don't know what that means....
Three favorite hobbies: Well, I haven't had much time for hobbies in a very long time, but if I could really choose things I love to do: Walking with a friend; pottery; and riding rollercoasters!
Three things I want to do badly right now: scream at my father until one of us loses conciousness; give my sister $1 million; move back to florida
Three things that scare me: Drunk people; food poisoning; the current POTUS
Three of my everyday essentials: My sister, My friends; Nemo
Three Careers you have considered or are considering : Attorney; Criminologist; Teacher
Three places you want to go on vacation: Florida (altho I would rather live there!); Connecticut to see Megan; and San Diego to see Lana (okay, everyone, don't get all jealous...those are the people I haven't seen in the longest!!)
Three kids’ names you like: Madeline; Jane; Alice
Three things you want to do before you die: Give my sister & Rita everything they ever wanted; See High Acre Farms completed and running well; Argue before the Supreme Court
Three ways I am stereotypically a boy: I smell my clothes to decide if they are dirty; I take about 30 seconds to get ready to go out; I like to take up space just because I can
Three ways I am stereotypically a girl: I like to wear skirts, I dye my hair on a regular basis; I can take care of myself
Three celeb crushes : Will Smith is my Negro Sex God; Corey Feldman is my soul mate from a past life; and Alanis is damn sexy (she would give me butterflies!!)
Three people I am tagging with this list : Yeah, I'm not gonna do that! Take it upon yourselves!!

Post Mortem

As most of you know, I spend a lot of time investigating death. I also watch a lot of TV, mostly shows with a similar theme. So, the other day I was watching a repeat of Law & Order SVU, it was a murder invgestigation and the suspect was a teenage boy, who looked a lot like Leonardo DiCaprio in his Growing Pains days. The boy showed classic signs of sociopathy, mostly because he tortured & killed animals, so he was a prime suspect. When the cops went to his house and searched his room they were particularly disturbed by his reading collection, all were books about serial killers, true crime, and police investigation. I have every one of the books he did, and thensome. And everytime I watch that episode, I think about that. What my things would say about me to a stranger going thru my stuff. My mother wonders the same thing.

I had a similar thought the other day after the London bombings. Witnesses reported seeing a young man who appeared anxious and was fiddling with a backpack. I can't tell you how many times I've been on a subway behaving anxiously and fiddling with my backpack....at least 4 times a week for 3 months last summer. But that is what made people suspicious after a bombing. Surely, if there had been no bomb, none of those people would have even commented about an anxious young man with a backpack. They wouldn't have told the police, or even their friends or family over dinner. But looking back, they are trying to find someone to blame, and the kid with the backpack gets it. So, I wonder, if the train I was on one morning had been bombed, would anyone in my car have pointed the finger at me? And after inspecting my politics, journal entries, and even my blog, there suspicions would likely be fed.

I always think, when watching shows like Law & Order, CSI, or Homicide, about the interviews they do of the victims families. The families always say things like "Everyone loved her" or "Why would anyone do this to her?" And I wonder, if it were me would my family say that? If they did, it would be a lie. There is a list about 10 miles long of people who hate me, and there is no shortage out their of motives to kill me. Any number of people could think something up, plus there are all the people I piss off in the heat of the moment. The possibilities are endless. (Honestly, I like it that way, it's how I know I'm making an impact.) And I know it's only TV, and in real life bad people get killed more often than good people. But I wonder, if in grief, even the bad people are described as good by those that are left behind. I wonder how many people out there can honestly be described as someone everybody loved. Truthfully, I know a couple of people that I could say that about...but even they have probably pissed people off in their jobs or on the road, they probably have neighbors who are annoyed by them, someone who doesn't "love" them. And on TV, usually it's simply that the family was in the dark, that good little Cathy was a whore on the weekends, or sold ecstasy at parties. I guess just once I'd like to here a mother say "Well, she was a raging bitch...where shall I begin??" If my mom was being honest, that would be her line.

For those of you who are a bit lost, today's theme was retrospection, if that's even a word.

Intuitionally,
CJ

Angels

The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels tonight.

~President Jed Bartlett, The West Wing

It's rare that I do this, but Tiffany's last blog entry, inspired me to write something, so here I go! Tiffany wrote about a friend of hers who has cystic fibrosis, he is 20 and can't get a lung transplant because he has a high-risk infection which makes the operation too risky. It is strange that a person with a fatal illness would be told that anything is too risky, a point which he makes as well.

Two years ago, the summer before I started law school, my friend Katie Ozog died from cystic fibrosis. She was 22. Katie already had a lung transplant, almost a year earlier, but her body rejected her new lungs while she slept, and Katie never woke up. It was heartbreaking for everyone who knew her, especially because the transplant was supposed to save her. I couldn't believe her body could reject the transplant so long after the operation. The worst part about cystic fibrosis is that the disease attacks the new lungs as well. So nobody expected her to live past 28 with the new lungs, but we expected she would at least make it to 25.

So, when I read about Tiffany's friend I googled Katie's name. I was SURE I would find tons about her because she was so well known in Western New York, and among the CF community. But alas, I found next to nothing. One was a blog of someone who knew Katie in high school & had a memorial to her, then there were expired pages advertising a concert & a rummage sale held in her honor in 2003, then, worst of all, is a page by the WNY CF Foundation advertising a walk in 2002, and Katie's name is on there because she worked for the foundation and helped plan the walk. This was from before she died.

Apparently, all the articles about her are now archived and so they don't pop-up on google, and so, Katie is lost. That is even more heartbreaking. So, I will tell you about her, as much as I can, because she was an amazing person....not amazing for a person with CF, amazing for a human being.

I only met Katie in high school, so I dont know much about her before the age of 14, except that her mother's brother also died of CF, at a much younger age, and that Katie had a brother who was CF free. In high school she was a cheerleader (and an amazing one) and an officer in Student Council, I think all 4 years. She was a tiny girl, and just so sweet and kind. She was popular but not full of herself. I never knew she was sick. Then, about 2 years after high school I saw her again. She came into the salon where I was working, wearing this strange looking bag that had tubes coming out of it & going to her nose. I said "Katie! What's wrong?" "It's my cystic fibrosis." she said. I was stunned "Your what?????" And that's when she told me.

A few months later Katie had a pager. That was so the Drs could page her when they found a lung for her (I actually don't know if she got 1 lung or 2 lungs in the transplant...I'm not sure if it's like kidneys or something). Anyway, her pager number happened to be one number off from some crack dealer in downtown buffalo so she got like 300 false alarms in the 1st week! When the Dr finally paged her, she almost ignored it!

But, they took her to Pittsburgh on a plane and she got the transplant. She did really well. They wrote a huge feature in the newspaper about her, and put her beautiful picture in it. It was great. About a year later, she went to a planning meeting at WNY CF about a CF race in Disney World. Katie was planning on participating, as much as she could. That night, she went to bed and never woke up. Nobody had a clue it was her last day. Her passing was a feature story on the local news in Buffalo, and I went to her wake the first night.

My sister and I took her roses. Katie used to tell the story about the little boy who said "sixty-five roses" rather than "cystic fibrosis" so, since bringing 65 roses to a wake is a bit absurd, we settled for 2. We left them in her casket. It was awful. I had never seen her silent before. She was always chatting, or giggling, or making a presentation, or raising money, she was never silent, never still. They buried her in her college cheerleading jogging suit. There were tons of pictures everywhere of her and all her friends. Her mother and best friends were beyond shaken. And there was a line of people out the door. A line of people just beginning their adult lives. Just graduating from college. Some getting married, some starting careers, some going to grad school. And there was Katie. Those high school years that we were all trying to escape, were literally the prime years of her life.

So, that is Katie Ozog. The world is a better place because of her, and now the web is a better place too.

Singin' In The Rain

Wow! What a day!! I got to paint my own teapot!! It was soooo much fun! My firm went to a place called "Wired & Fired" tonight and I had a GREAT time! As I was painting I was singing "I'm a little teapot, short & stout!" It was fantabulous! My teapot is light blue with a deep blue top. And I painted a purple "M" on one side & a teal heart on the other. Then I covered it with purple & teal polka-dots!! (pretty appropriate for the polak, huh??)

So, anyway, after the pottery-painting adventure, it was time to head home. And all I can say about that is: Thank goodness my car is a fish!!! Holy Tornado! I drove thru the craziest puddles...or should I say lakes! This was the worst weather I have EVER driven thru, and that includes snowstorms in Buffalo and rainstorms in Orlando! It was unbelievable. I kept saying "Nemo you are doing such a good job!" to help urge her along! It worked fabulously. Nemo did do a fantastic job! There were so many times when I almost stalled out or when I lost my brakes...but I made it!

The funniest thing is that when I got in my car I was so confused because a typically empty radio station, that I usually play my iPod through, was playing Kelly Clarkson, but the reception was still bad, so I changed the station. Then a little while later, I found a station playing "Hallelujiah" by Jeff Buckley which I have NEVER heard on the radio before. I was so excited! Until I realized that my iPod was in my purse, and it was on! LOL Kelly, Jeff, it had been my iPod all along!! Yep, I'm certainly not the sharpest crayon in the box!!

Okay, time for bed! Goodnight!!

Used Postcards

Well, this has been a great weekend...although completely unproductive! Yesterday Tiffany & I went on an adventure to a small town, about 45 minutes from home, that I had never been to! We went just to wander about and explore. We found beautiful houses and great shops, and chocolate & ice cream! (yes, I said chocolate AND ice cream) LOL

We went into one shop that I can only describe as a "junk store." It had the feel of a VERY small flea market (and smelled like one too). It was a very bizarre shop. They had really old postcards (from as far back as the early 1900s) that had already been written on & mailed! I thought "Who does that? Who buys used postcards?" Well, I did. I found one that was sent from Germany to Buffalo (my home town). The message was written in German & the front of the postcard was written in French! We think the date on the postmark says 1941....but it's a little hard to read over the stamp. That sounds about right though, because that was WWII time. Anyway, it was very cool!

They also had really old photo albums, and most of the postcards were to a woman named Clara in Iowa. I thought it was sad that these people's things ended up in a junk store, that nobody in the family wanted them...maybe there was no family left, but still it is sad.

They also had a lot of artifacts from the civil war era, including slave trade documents & shackles. It was so bizarre. Definitely a place to remember when I have more money!

On a lighter note, I found a purse made out of duct tape!!! It was so cool! I really wanted it, but it was 30 bucks! So, I restrained myself, but I probably should just have bought it. If I'm still regretting it in a week I may go back...

After shopping we walked around and looked at cool old Southern Mansions. One was for sale, and they had these pamphlets out, telling about the house. It was $800,000 and had 5 bedrooms, 3 1/2 bathrooms, and 8 fireplaces!!! Who in the world uses 8 fireplaces?? Especially in the south! I've never heard of such a thing. Tiffany says we can tour those houses at Christmas time, so we are definitely gonna do that!

This morning we did our weekly 6 mile walk at 7am. I really need to get back into shape, this job is making me into a fat blob! I was sweating like it was my job! And my pinky toe blisters have been reactivated! Ouch! When I am done with law school & get a real place of my own, my 1st big purchase will be a treadmill! (My secret anti-fat-blob weapon!) Well, that's all for now!

Intuitionally,
CJ