You know You're in Norway when...

- women are shown eating real food (like pizza! not yogurt!) in TV ads!
- four different kinds of fish are served at breakfast
- there are breakfast danishes too, but they are the smallest cutest (deliciousest) danishes You've ever seen (portion control!)
- I'm the person in the room wearing the MOST make-up (and I'm not the only woman!)
- the stairs are more visible than the elevators
- they're all wearing skinny jeans -- oh, no, wait, that could be anywhere
- the men are all so TALL AND BLOND AND GORGEOUS
- breathing is noticeably pleasant
- You are weaving along a rocky path in Your 5th hour of an uphill climb and are passed by a cheerful jogger
- oh yeah, I had forgotten about this: they're all overdressed for running, no one seems to wear shorts

This thing happened today, that made me feel all achy, and horrible inside, and it's just all senseless, and, additionally, it makes no sense. Emotions, they just suck. Suck suck suck.

I do not cease to be amazed at how bad at conversation men on Polish dating sites are. They will just keep sending messages to which there is no natural follow-up or response, and I have to sit here considering whether it is worth my time to think up some supernatural follow-up or response to keep the interaction going or just let it go. Because I want to prove to myself that I'm making an effort, I often choose the former path, which gives me the opportunity to be repeatedly amazed by this phenomenon. Basically, they write to me with a compliment and then *I* have to woo *THEM* if we are going to get past how pretty my smile is.

Reasons I don’t love my new laptop as much as I love my old laptop

1. backlit keyboard. hate this. have changed setting in preferences, now have to wait till dusk to see if it worked. but I think it did. thank god. why do people want this. TOUCH-TYPING PEOPLE. IT'S THE PRESENT. as in, not the future. acquire this ability NOW.

2. black non-matte surface surrounding screen. as well as the non-matte screen itself. this means that more of my reflection is seen when I am doing something at night. or anytime. like now (almost 9am!). So I'm constantly having to filter out my own reflection from what I am looking at on the screen. this is the reason I hate the backlit keyboard too. the (newly shiny) screen reflects it very very very well. and the black stuff surrounding the screen ALWAYS reflects because it's never producing any light of its own. GIVE ME BACK THE MATTE SURFACES OF YORE.

3. no button on trackpad. ugh. i keep unintentionally making things bigger because I have my thumb on the trackpad. You'd think I'd learn not to relax my thumb against the trackpad, but a) 5 years of ingrained thumb-placement is tough to unlearn b) why should I have to expend energy on having my thumb immobile just above the goddamned trackpad?

4. less resistance to closing. what is the point of this? so that it clunks shut more often when I shift it around? grrrrr.

5. the two (2! only! 2!) USB ports are so close to one another that it is in practice impossible to use two USB anythings that have slightly wider than the narrowest possible USB entries. this is also just really really stupid. I imagine that they did this for how it looks, but seriously, it would have been so much practicaller to place them even a touch further apart.

So yeah. I wish I had taken more note of point #2 before I bought this computer. It might have prompted me to buy a used older model that doesn't have this shiny reflective shit going on. The rest of it I will adapt to with time. But #2 I think is just terrible design. #5 is too, but I will probably adapt to it by buying a USB fork thingy. hub. ggrrrrrrrrr.

These are my new glasses.

These ones are sort of gentle.

These ones underscore my intellectualism.

Also, I totally broke my New Year's resolution while in New York.

If I knew how to put a table here I'd assemble a little set of pros vs. cons of moving back to New York.

I just realized that I haven't named my computer yet. My old laptop was called Mourning, until it got a new hard drive and then I renamed it GiveMeNoGrief. But I have no real ideas for the new one. Man. Where in blazes am I supposed to find the inspiration for this? I feel very much at a loss. Gah. Eek. Argh.

Ways my brother is different from me

1. He is not desperately autonomous.

2. He apologizes with (apparent) ease.

3. He cares about his audience.

My favourite part of the musical "In The Heights", from the song "96,000":

Yo with 96 thousand: i'd finally fix housing
give the barrio computers with wireless web browsing
the kids are living without a good edumacation
change the station teach them about gentrification

the rent is escalating
the rich are penetrating
we pay the corporations when we should be demonstrating

what about immigration
politicians be hating
racism in this nation's gone from latent to blatant

i'll cash my ticket and picket, invest in protest
never lose my focus 'til the city takes notice
and you know this man: I never sleep
cuz the ghetto has a million promises for me to keep

I realize I haven't written about much lately. I have had some thoughts, though, rest assured.