cindy's world

Before I logged onto the computer, I spent more than half an hour wiping the mini-blinds in my upstairs restroom. It was an amazingly pain-in-the-arse job, but I really wanted each blade clean. So I see my horoscope after I log on and it says for today:

Today’s Forecast
Taking care of your prized possessions will be foremost on your mind now. That goes for your car, your clothes and gifts you’ve received. Just don’t forget about the people in your life who may also feel ‘broken.’

In Detail
You’ll end up washing, waxing and buffing out your vehicle in the driveway now — and doing it for a good long time, too. You may also spend hours replacing buttons or meticulously wielding Krazy Glue to repair a broken ceramic wing or tail. No matter what it is, you’ll put all your attention into it. Just be sure to save a teeny bit of time for the one who loves you — who might also feel the need for a bit of your attention.

All right — who needs me?

I went to Drug Emporium to pick up some fabric detergent earlier after dinner. As I was wandering the aisles perusing random objects, I noticed a boy who always seemed just out of my direct line of vision, but who was always around. No matter where I walked, he was within 10 feet or just around the corner of the aisle. I deliberately walked to the makeup aisle and looked at foundation. He followed me there, too, and there is no 12 year old boy who needs anything in the makeup aisle. This is not the 80s. He walked by me down the aisle, then turned and watched me from the end of the aisle, partially hidden behind some bath products hanging at the end of the shelf. I walked thru 2 more aisles. Same thing. What the hell. I walked up to my friend and muttered, “The kid’s following me.”
“I know,” he said, “He’s been doing that awhile.” I got uncomfortable and left the store.
“Do boys even have hormones at that age?” I wondered aloud.
“Oh, yeah,” my friend informed me.
“Why’s he looking at someone my age? It’s not like he’s gonna come up and hit on me. When I was his age, I would’ve thought someone my age is totally old.”
“Boys are different,” I was told. “He’s gonna go to his friends later and say, ‘Hey, I saw this hot Asian chick at Drug Emporium, she had really long hair and she was wearing this tight tanktop and you can see her blue bra straps that matched her jeans…’ He’ll be thinking about you when he’s alone later tonight, too.”
Ew. Now I was uncomfortable in more ways than one.

My b-day flowers are beautiful, blossoming, and fragrant. These photos (taken with my dinky cameraphone) really don’t do the bouquet justice, because from where I’m looking at the actual thing it’s clear there are 25 roses 2 feet tall. It’s hard to believe that when they came, they were this little scrunched up pile of buds in a tight rectangular box. I remember Grace’s wedding florist, Ernie, telling me “When roses are given in love, they’ll bloom. When they’re not, they’ll stay budded and wilt as buds.” I used to have all my roses wilt in buds. I guess Vicky and Peter really love me.

‘ , ‘ , ‘ , —-‘—,—{@ Cindora @}—,—‘—- , ‘ , ‘ , ‘

If I knew how to do colored text on here to make the above roses yellow, this would be a TOTAL flashback to summer, 1993. Ah, the good ol’ days, right, Medea/Antigone and Scarlett? (Delusion/Euthanasia/Bella Starr/X-to-C/Photi…was I anything else?)

364 more days in which I can still claim to be in my 20s. Thanks to everyone who called and sang or otherwise wished me a happy 29th. Vicky and Peter, thanks for the 25 yellow roses! Yes, they are still my favorite flowers. Any morning spent trimming and arranging flowers is a good morning at work. They’re on display on the left corner of the “wall” part of my desk, as close to the center of the courtroom as they can be without being unprofessional. =D What a nice 70th entry to blog.

Upon my return to the courtroom after lunch today, my bailiff sauntered up to my desk and said, “So this is the last day you’re 28.” ACK!

I pick up my mail once every 4-5 days because my annoying neighbors like to sit in their open garage and sometimes their kids’ creepy friends are over and they smoke (sometimes weed) in the garage and stare at me or are rather rude, and I have to walk by all of them to get to the collection of mail boxes. So after a hard day at work, the last thing I want to do is feel self-conscious or fake being social to get mail. So I tell myself I’ll wait till everyone’s back in their house and I’ll pick up mail later on in the evening. Usually I forget.

The mailman today left a note at my front door on which he’d handwritten “IF YOU DON’T START PICKING UP YOU MAIL ONCE A WEEK YOU WILL BE PICKING IT UP AT THE POST OFFICE”. I’m gonna avoid the obvious crack about the “you” and get to the meat of the matter: Can he even legally follow through w/that threat? I mean, don’t they have some sort of legal duty? And I DO pick up my mail at least once a week, but that’s aside from the point.

The Universe, or the Powers that Be, Azna, Jesus, Buddha, the Other Side, whomever you’d like to attribute to our superior forces, is talking to me again. It’s not thru music this time. It’s cuter. It’s through Dove Chocolates.

Yesterday, it was “You know what? You look good in red.” That’s been a sort of discovery within the last couple of years and every time I wear red, I get a ton of compliments from surprised people. Then, it was “Discover yourself.” Well, that’s what I’m trying to do. Just now, in the midst of overanalyzing myself, newly acquired information and how it applies to me, what it all means, how I should prepare or not prepare, and why, I unwrap “Don’t think about it so much.”

The Dove wrapper from years ago is still pinned up at my desk: “The heart has reasons which reason does not know.” It will be joined by “Don’t think about it so much.”

Gary, I apologize for the bloodbath you waded through briefly earlier tonight. We’re cool, right?

An article entitled “In China, Bloggers Have Limitations” in today’s Los Angeles Times paints the picture of China’s censorship and internet restrictions, which are in stark contrast to our own. Microsoft Corp. launched a new China-based Web portal on May 26, 2005 and this portal offers “MSN Spaces” which gives free blog space thru the China portal. There has already been 5 million blogs created in China since MSN Spaces launched. However, to do business with China, Microsoft has to of course taper its services and technology so that it fits within Communist confines. These confines are as follows, which I will quote in part from the article:

“Users of the MSN Spaces section of Microsoft Corp.’s new China-based Web portal get a scolding message each time they input words deemed taboo by the communist authorities – such as democracy, freedom and human rights.”
“Online tests found that apart from politically sensitive words, obscenities and sexual references are also banned.”
“The Chinese government encourages Internet use for business and education but tries to ban access to material that it deems to be subversive. Although details of the authorities’ efforts are kept secret, users of many China-based Web portals are prevented from gaining access to certain websites. For example, a search on Google’s China-based Web portal for such topics as Taiwan or Tibetan independence, the banned group Falun Gong, the Dalai Lama or the China Democracy Party inevitably leads to a ‘site cannot be found’ message.”
“The consequences of defying Chinese government limits can be severe: At least 54 people have been jailed for posting on the Web essays or other content deemed to be subversive.”

Ray Bradbury’s novel “Fahrenheit 451” lives on in the technology age. I am grateful the United States is generally against censorship, but I would hope that the educational system or good parenting instills enough common sense such that we can trust ourselves to apply discretion and good judgment in our evaluation of the myriad material out there. Maybe this is wishful thinking. Can parents and society be trusted these days to teach our children good sense and moral judgment? Or must we hang our failures like white flags and stand silently with bowed heads as the government takes over to rectify our shortcomings? I really don’t like extremes, but how do you keep things perfectly aligned in the middle, across the board, across different cultures, backgrounds, realities? If left alone, does society balance itself out in a sort of socio-economic colloidal suspension?

I would not want to rule the world.

I think I’m okay with plans changing on me, as long as I’m given courtesy notice. No guarantee I won’t be disappointed, but at least I won’t be mad. The reasons tonite’s plans changed (at least, the part that concerns me) were good ones, and ones that had occurred to me, too. Instead I had a nice nap at home and then went to visit a friend and had a Tea Station barley milk tea w/him. I didn’t get home until a bit past 2am, but I did get a nice nap in at his place, too. (No, nothing happened.) After I got home, I took a shower and am now wide awake. I’m becoming a serial napper. Sleeping thru the nite no longer exists for me. I need to get my sleeping patterns adjusted back to normal, tho. I failed so miserably to exercise discretion yesterday in the elevator that my friend Andrae forbade me to speak to anyone else until I got a nap in. “And no blogging, either,” he said. (No, I didn’t screw someone in the elevator. May as well have, tho. But just verbally.)