diesel

dragon tattoo: 3/4 finished & two days old

that really hurts

well, getting a tattoo really hurts but the result is awesome.

it took 2 1/2 hours to finish 3/4 of my dragon. it's black and grey and fills up the space between my bra straps (in other words it's BIG). i have to go back in two weeks to get the right wing finished up. i haven't had a chance to get a good look at it, since it's in a kind of awkward place, but everyone who's seen it has said it's gorgeous. the tattoo artist said it was "diesel" and "bad ass". that sounds good to me!

the outlining hurt like razor blades. right now it feels sort of warm and sore, like sunburn.

i honestly will put up pictures of the tattoo and the pincer very soon. really.

tattoo you

in approximately two hours and 42 minutes i'm going to get a tattoo.

oh my.

hooray!

i'm not unemployed!

philly, how do i love thee?

yesterday we went to the franklin institute to see the newly refurbished giant walk-through heart, and then we went to south street to hang out with our favorite tattoo artist. we were dumb at arrived at the museum at 4pm, not realizing that it closed at 5pm, so we did the superduperquickie tour of the electricity, airplanes, trains, and outer space exibits after we walked through the heart. i was slightly disappointed by the heart, actually, because it's kind of...small. sure, a human being can walk through the arteries... but it's just not as impressive when you're no longer 4 ft tall.

we walked most of the way from south street to the museum and back, and my grrl's cousin was wearing very notsensible shoes and so ended up in excruciating pain... but otherwise fun was had. and we didn't get our heads bashed in outside the whole foods, either.

today i have my guitar lesson with my new teacher, and hopefully i will learn more blues riffs. i got to jam a little at my last lesson even though i was *gasp* five minutes late... i think i will buy a shoulder strap for my acoustic because i'm beginning to have terrible fantasies of it crashing to the floor while i'm trying to play.

also, in other music news, we got tix to the green day show in philly in september! seats, alas, but i don't really relish the idea of being crushed by giddy fifteen-year-olds anyway. so i will not have to unleash the wrath unless somebody spills beer on me.

i will be joining the ranks of tattooed librarians on thursday of next week. back, meet big dragon with butterfly wings. rock.

next week i should have an update on the employment situation. let me just say that if i didn't have a huge frothing ulcer before this week, i do now.

pope

cardinal ratzinger is now pope benedict XVI. i know nothing about catholic politics, but i've heard that's not a good thing for the progressive among us (catholic or otherwise).

run away!

today i need one of these: http://nomoresocks.newscientist.com/products/product/655/PanicButton.htm

May you live in interesting times

I have often considered myself to be afflicted with the ill effects of this "old Chinese curse": "May you live in interesting times." Today I started wondering where in the heck that phrase comes from.

I searched the googlebeast and found this most illuminating description of one man's research into the origins of the phrase: http://hawk.fab2.albany.edu/sidebar/sidebar.htm

Hm!

Anybody know anything about Jung?

the beginning of the end

Adobe Buys Macromedia for $3.4B
http://slashdot.org/articles/05/04/18/1355233.shtml?tid=98

This is horrible news. Adobe Acrobat Reader is the most bloated software I have ever had the unfortunate experience of attempting to use. It CONSTANTLY crashes our public computers, not to mention the staff computers... Argh. And I'm rather fond of Dreamweaver, even if it's not the most user-friendly software in the world.

Run away, Macromedia! Adobe is a bad influence!

nose

i got a notched 12 gauge septum tusk/pincer yesterday. i have it my pocket right now. at exactly 4:01 it is going in my nose.

i'll link to a picture sometime later so youseguys can see what the heck i'm talking about. it's basically a pointy crescent-moon type thing with a flat part in the middle so it'll stay in my nose. purty.

An article reflecting on the pope and his legacy

by Matthew Fox, ph.d.

"Matthew Fox is a spiritual theologian who has been an
ordained priest since 1967. He holds Masters degrees
in philosophy and theology from Aquinas Institute and
a Doctorate in spirituality, summa cum laude, from the
Institut Catholiques de Paris. A liberation theologian
and progressive visionary, he was silenced by the
Vatican and later dismissed from the Dominican order.
After dismissal he was received as an Episcopal priest
by Bishop William Swing of the Diocese of California."

http://www.matthewfox.org/sys-tmpl/htmlpage8/

RIP Andrea Dworkin

Andrea Dworkin died yesterday. I can't make much comment because I only know what other people have said about her. I haven't read her work and formed my own opinions, so I'm not going to parrot the stereotypes and assumptions. However, Susie Bright wrote an interesting post about her life and death: http://susiebright.blogs.com/susie_brights_journal_/2005/04/andrea_dworkin_.html

more information here:
http://xxblog.com/index.php/archives/2005/04/11/andrea-dworkin-1946-2005/

poetry festival in liverpool

damn it we went to liverpool at the wrong time! now i'm going to miss this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/4411991.stm

pictures of the flood

if anybody is interested in seeing what lambertville nj looked like yesterday afternoon, here are some pictures i took while walking the dog:

http://www.hpphoto.com/servlet/com.hp.HPGuestLogin?username=grretchen&password=75037179

and some interesting data from noaa (thanks to soapbox):

http://www.erh.noaa.gov/er/phi/storms/2005/04032005PNSPHI.txt