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"I think it's time we had a national conversation about the economic downturn. We need to get past all the disease and recognize that we are our own best hope for overcoming man-eating tigers. We need unicorns, not unemployment. Unicorns are our change we can believe it. And we need to have change in the economic downturn."

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Did I mention I plan on going to the inauguration this Tuesday?

But I want ALL the figs

I just finished reading The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath after ordering it off of Amazon earlier this week! I loved it. One of my new faves. Tracing the psychological journey of young girl coming of age in the mid-twentieth century, The Bell Jar is rich in colorful descriptions and capturing prose. Esther, the protagonist, struggles to make life decisions that ultimately cripple her and send her into a downward spiral of psychosis.

Ahhh, the beauty of a well-crafted metaphor:

"...I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."

Plath's insights into life are disturbingly real.

You have no idea how many times I have considered the same concept in choosing a life-path. If choose to be professor, how can I be an artist? If I choose to be a writer, how can I be a international peace worker? If I choose to be a designer, how can I be a translator? Sigh. We have to choose. We have to be specialists. We can't let the figs plop off the tree.

Fortunately, most are able to grapple with this reality a little better than Plath and her fictional counterpart. Ultimately, I think we find that the figs we do select tend to be quite appealing in their own right. Thank goodness for that.

Those New Yorkers

I think I heard about this website, Overheard in New York, on an episode of Six Degrees that was on ABC last year, but that was canceled mid-season. I actually liked it too--or at least the idea that everybody is interconnected by at least 6 completely random links.
But anyway, the website is an interesting idea. People living in New York City send in snippets of conversations that they have overheard from strangers during their day. I think the only conclusion is that there are many New Yorkers who are mean, weird, don't believe in privacy, and lack intelligence. See for yourself my random sampling (of ones that have PG content).

Coworker #1: Is it just me, or are the rats in New York getting smaller? Seriously!

Coworker #2: Maybe you're just getting bigger.

Tourist man: Pardon me, officer, can you tell us where Orchard Street is?

Cop: See that naked Chinese guy?

Tourist man: Ummm...Yeah.

Cop: Walk down to him and make a left.

Tourist man: Um, thanks.

Cop: No problem.

Drunk girl: Kool-Aid is my most favorite drink in the whole world. When she moved in, it was like great, because it was like, "You love Kool-Aid, too? Awesome, we're going to get along great." But then it ended up, she tried to kill me with a steak knife.

Man: How much for two double-A batteries?

Bodega worker: The good ones or the one-dollar ones?

Man: The dollar ones.

Bodega worker: One dollar.

Man: I'll take two.

Bodega worker: That will be two dollars.

Man: Two dollars?!

Pilot: Ladies and gentlemen, I'm just going to power off the plane for a minute and restart it. Kind of like control-alt-delete on your computer.

Girl #1: As Shakespeare once said: "Thou shall not kill."

Girl #2: No, that would be God.