an open letter.

Dear Coca-Cola Company,

Penguins and polar bears do not live in the same geographical area.

-Erin

p.s.: I have no problem with them drinking Coke. Your products are very, very good and I can believe that any animal would like some.

It's (T)Hank(sgiving)!

Well, it was recently Thanksgiving in the U.S., so here is my cliché list of things that I am thankful for.

1. My family, most of the time.
   
2. My friends, all of the time.
   
3. My boyfriend, always always always.
   
4. Health insurance (even if it's awful).
   
5. Motrin.
   
6. Chapstick.
   
7. Wireless Internet.
   
8. Professors that make being at school tolerable despite the fact that I am miserable at Emerson and never going to use my degree.
   
9. Clean, running water/food/electricity/other things I have because I don't live in a third world country and would probably die without.
   
10. Giraffes.

But the sugar-free ginger ale is not.

Jones sugar-free black cherry soda is very good.

You should leave blog comments for me.

That is all. Thank you.

Erin meets Captain Kangaroo from the Department of Defense.

So Wednesday morning I went to the JFK school of Government at Harvard to meet with this guy by the name of "Jim Walker" from the U.S. Department of Defense. It's not as scary of a situation as it sounds. See, my friend Tom is going to be working for a company that makes things that explode, and he needs a security clearance so he can, y'know, work.

I met with this guy at about 9:30. He sounded like DeepThroat and looked like Captain Kangaroo. When he left a message on my phone asking to interview me, he mentioned he had government credentials, and he mentioned them again when I spoke with him on the phone to set up the meeting. When I got there, he slid the little card wallet thing towards me, but didn't open it up, and I had to turn it around and peek at it, feeling very awkward the whole time. Also, I was wondering if he had a gun on him for some reason. Every time someone came in the room or made a loud-ish non-ambient noise, his head jerked up and he looked around. I am not kidding here.

I was asked questions like, "does Thomas leave the country often?" and "what are Thomas's hobbies and interests?" The latter confused the hell out of me. Wait, my friends do things besides watching movies, laughing at the same five inside jokes and occasionally drinking? Luckily, I remembered that he plays guitar.

The entire time, my palms started getting sweaty, and I was freaking out because I was paranoid that he'd want to shake my hand again when we got up to leave, and he'd realize I was nervous and equate that with me lying for my friend. Also, I was paranoid that I was being too enthusiastic. "Does Thomas have any considerable problems with debt?" "Not to my knowledge!" Oh man that sounded way too perky; he totally thinks I'm making this up.

Anyway, Tom hasn't overnighted me anything that would burst into flames, so I think I did okay at the interview thing. Though it could be too soon to tell.


God, I love Jill Scott so much it hurts. My boyfriend too, but in a totally different way.
Also, I don't think it needs to be said, but I obviously didn't win the lottery. A tax on the poor, I say!

How I'm spending my last undergrad semester.

I registered for classes. Spring semester I'm taking:
The Brain and Human Communication
Islam in the World
Contemporary American Novel
and my creative thesis.

Creative thesis being my only non-elective.

I'm using Camino right now, but it's not as pretty as Safari. Unlike Safari, however, Camino doesn't crash and burn every time I try to check the weather. Also, I like that the preferences dialog box dealie has a section called "Annoyance Blocking."

The lottery.

I just went out about 10 minutes ago to buy a couple of "quick pic"s for the lottery drawing tomorrow night. The jackpot is a cool $310 million. So, about 2 of those minutes consisted of me walking down the street, paying the cashier and getting back to my apartment. The other eight were me being locked out of the building because the lock on the goddamn front door sucks, and my key being caught in the aforementioned shitty lock once I finally did get the door open.

All I'm saying is, I better win this goddamn lottery.

The good news is, black cherry Fresca is not disappointing.

I gotta be strong, but it's hard to exist.

So, I went to my parents' place this weekend and I went through all my old cassettes and found the ultimate treasure: Pocket Full of Kryptonite by the Spin Doctors, which originally came out in 1991, which is when I bought it. So I listened, and it was good. It was damn good.

I have so many memories attached to this album. Summers down the cape in the rented cottage in Dennis staying in one of the bedrooms upstairs that had a tapestry that looked like it dated back to the 1970's instead of a door. Also, I had this snappy little dance number for a talent show in 1994 (I think?) to the tune of "What Time Is it?" that ended in a split where I touched my foot to the back of my head.

It's kind of sad that "Two Princes" got as much airplay as it did, because it really took away from the fact that Spin Doctors was this really great jam band. "Shinbone Alley/Hard to Exist" is such a stand-out track.

So, of course, the moment I got home, I downloaded it. I figure, I shouldn't feel guilty downloading, because I do own a copy of the album. It just happens to be in cassette form which I can't easily put onto my computer.

Site updates: put up "The Mourners" in my portfolio.

I miss 1997

First, some site-upkeep junk:
If you're nostalgic for a time when frames were the cutting edge in HTML, then you're going to love my portfolio page.
Or, if you like melodramatic stories that should've been screenplays, you're going to love the one story I've put up so far.
There's also something for people who like justified text! Everyone wins!

So, I was watching the New Year's special for The Adventures of Pete & Pete, and Frank the crossing guard smokes at least two cigarettes in the episode. Granted, he's sort of scarred for life because he left his post for a few seconds to light a cigarette, and by the end of the episode he vows to at least cut back, but.. This is definitely something you cannot show on TV for kids anymore!

I'm happy I grew up in the late '80's and early '90's when people weren't quite as neurotic.

Whoever created half vanilla soy(ice)cream half mango sorbet is a golden god.

I always get really mad at Comcast, but then they send out really nice repair guys, so I feel bad being irate that I'm being ripped off for cable/Internet. I have a similar relationship with Cingular: I would like to stab this one guy at the franchise store near my parents' house, but their service has nothing but good to me, and they sent me a $50 check when I wrote them an angry letter.

Updates and the nature of this blog.

I updated some things around the site:
"'folio" link now goes to something other than a 404 page.
...as does "so long..." I actually added some links to the page, too.
New "right now" page.

As said previously, I am going to talk a bit about things that happen to me in my daily life and blah blah blah.. but due to the extremely public nature of the Internet clashing with my moderately private personality, most of the "important" stuff is going in my livejournal. I probably won't try to scare you off if you add me as a friend. Leave a comment and 90% of the time I'll add you back.

I like it when...:
I know who you are.
You have a well-established journal.
You are interesting.
You update more than once a month.

Things that won't help your case:
Your journal is brand new.
You only have a few entries.
You cannot type/spell/write like a normal person.
You don't know when it's appropriate to use an LJ cut.
You're a jerk.
You're my (biological) mother.

Earlier this evening I felt really tired and crappy, so I took a nap from 9:30 to 11. It's 2am now and I don't feel sleepy at all. D'oh. Tomorrow someone from the cable company is supposed to come by and swap my cable box for one that works. I hope I can get some Christmas shopping done tomorrow and obtain a copy of Naked Lunch for my modern American novel class.

I have a decently sized fishbowl full of change. I kind of want to find some homeless guy and give it all to him, but I don't actually want to carry the damn thing around. I should just get some roll dealies from the bank and actually do something productive when I'm sucked into the next VH1 I Love the 80's marathon.

I miss my boyfriend a lot.

Hello.

Hi everyone. After living a semi-private life on the Internet for awhile, I've decided that the entire world needs to know what flavor of toothpaste I'm brushing with. Hence, this blog. I suppose I'll be posting site updates here too.