Kovixen

I want to download a song, but I don't know anything about it really. It's a woman singing, she has a nice pure voice. The chorus is like "Breath, just breath" and that's all I remember. I can't find it anywhere. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

I saw tulips when I was crossing Broadway in Somerville this week. It really got me thinking about spring and how I used to hate it but think I now like it. The weather has been warm and sunny, and I find myself wanting to be outside for the first time in years. Peter always wants to go on walks, maybe I should do that sometime. We're going to RI this weekend, too bad it'll be raining though. I like to walk by the wall when I'm there. I hate going to the beach, but I like the water a lot. The wall is one of the prettiest places I know. Work is also so much more fun when it's not freezing. I actually look forward to our shipment coming when we have the doors open for 30+ minutes. And suddenly I'm happy to take the trash out again.

Tony Pierce's blog has gotten really interesting to me. I actually think he's in charge of a porn magazine or something like that (he talks about Lick a lot, I think that's the name), but he has some interesting posts. I found him through Peter, who found his how to blog post that has gotten a lot of attention. He posts like 5 times a day or more, so if there is something not too interesting (like Motley Crue right now), I just move on to the next entry. Of all the blogs I have on Bloglines, his is the most interesting and thought out I think. And I am trying to follow his laws of how to blog, at least some of the time. It's hard to post every day when all you do is go to work, come home and watch tv, then sleep. No one wants to hear my opinions on AI4, like how Nikko totally ROCKED this week. Man I love him.

So Peter and I lasted half the day. We're now off to Wild Oats to get cheese and ingredients for Mexican Casserole for tonight's dinner. So much for cleansing ourselves.

I suck. I thought it'd be good to do a fasting like Christi said we should. She is a holistic health counselor. BAC had an event with her last month (she's also an Alpha Phi from Villanova), and while I was totally skeptical going in, I left really excited about women's health and learning about my body. So I thought I'd do the cleansing. Now it isn't even noon, and I'm starving and want cheese. Like so bad I can't stand it. All I can have is fruit and veggies all day. Peter's telling me to have a piece of fruit, but I don't think we have any in the house that tastes like cheese. I'm probably going to settle for a pear. I am sure I'll be happy tomorrow that I did this, but it's 10 times harder than I thought it'd be.

To celebrate the holiday, why not make a flower?

Two people at work commented on my South Korea's Got Seoul t-shirt, and a waiter at the Cambridge Common laughed at my Nobody Likes a Vegearian t-shirt last night. I love these new shirts, I feel special when people notice what I wear. I still need to get my Your Retarded shirt altered, that one is classic.

Check out this website I just found. Cool cheap jewelry. Not that I ever buy things like this, but I always want to. If anyone ever does, let me know and I'll tack some things onto your order. :)

I'm such a loser. I told two people at work to check out my blog. And I said this in front of other people too. "Just search under Laura Kovacs, I'm the first entry." So if anyone from work is here, please ignore all work posts that you may find in the archives. I wrote them all when I was upset over something. I try not to treat my blog like a diary, but that doesn't always occur when I'm pissed off about work. I love it there, if I didn't I would have left. Seriously. No, I really mean it. Really.

Eric, Busted T's is the name of the place I got my t-shirt. You can see the ads. I don't know why I couldn't think of that. It's a great place, I recommend them. Buy from my site so I get some money for it. :)

Deanne, you are my favorite manager. I forgot why I told you to come here, but I want you to know that. We need to get together and do something fun, I hate that I don't see you anymore.

I just had a college moment. I went to put on deoderant, and Hark! I'm all out! So I used Peters. There were Peter arm pit hairs on the bar. I had to pick them off before I used it. I guess it serves me right for running out.

Do you think it's pH balanced for a woman? How far off do you think the pH balances are? Will it not work at all and I'll smell and sweat all through poker? I hope I don't have any stressful hands tonight so I won't have to test this out. Full houses on every flop I hope!

Edited to add: Yeah, just got a whif of myself when I lifted up my arm to let Fat Tony on my lap. I smell like a perfumed man. Good luck to whomever sits next to me tonight.

So I guess there's a poker tournament at Tufts University April 7-10. I wonder if any other big names are going to be there. Has anyone heard anything about this? I'm very intrigued. If it's only Dutch and a bunch of nobodies, I'll be disappointed. I think he's a whiny punk, and I won't comment on the whole failed poker site and taking lots of peoples' money thing. I hate people who think they are so much better than they are, I'm glad he's been sucking at poker lately. I'd rather see someone cool come, like Gus Hanson or Phil Ivey, or someone who at least will play good poker.

I finished Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld today. It's a pretty good book overall, but the beginning was better than the end. I found it really interesting because this girl totally reminded me of myself during her freshman year, except she's wittier than me. But I think that's how I would have reacted if I had gone to boarding school, I would have freaked out back then being by myself and not knowing anyone. By the end of the book, I felt everything was sort of pathetic, though that didn't stop the book from being a good read. I was reading in exclamations, laughing out loud or saying "Wow" or other things like that which must have annoyed Peter immensely. Since everyone else is reading Prep right now, you should also just so you can sound like you are on top of the newest things. Everyone reading this blog was probably one of the last people to read The Da Vinci Code, do you really want to be the last one to read this book too?

Mini-celebrity siting yesterday. Gary Cherone, lead singer of Extreme ("More than Words"), lives around here and comes into Barnes and Noble all the time. Beth our magazine lead came into receiving as I was eating pizza (Wilson's birthday so Jack got it for us), and she told us that he was by the octagon. Never actually having seen him, I freaked and ran over and hid behind the escalator looking at him, just like I did when Ralph Nadar stopped by. But it was busier than that time, he had no idea I was staring at him. So I walked over to the new fiction table, picked up a book and pretended to flip through as I stared. He looks so different with short hair, much better looking. He really is a good looking man. My friend Dawn from college was obsessed with him back then, she'd talk all about him all the time as we worked together in Reserves. I wrote her this morning to tell her, I'm sure she's very impressed. I wish I could have found the courage to go up to him, but I don't know what I would have said. That I like one song and don't know anything else about them? He left pretty quickly this time, so I didn't really have a chance anyway. He's my third celebrity siting at the store though, the first being the captain of the Celtics, forgot his name. If only I had gone to the Alton Brown signing, that would have been my highest celebrity yet.

I watched Harold and Kumar go to White Castle last night. What a funny movie! It is the typical American Pie type, but it was about two guys a little closer to my age. And it had someone of Indian decent on it, so of course I started out liking it before I saw it. I definitely recommend this movie to anyone who wants to see that type of movie. It certainly isn't an Oscar contender, but it's a great easy movie, when you don't want to think about anything.

After I see any movie, I go to IMDB and look it up, look at the people who played the characters, how much money the movie has made so far, the trivia, etc. Looking up Kal Penn who played Kumar, I noticed that he will be playing Gogal from The Namesake. This book was a bestseller last year, written by Jhumpa Lahiri, who won the Pulitzer in 2000 and is from my hometown. Her first book Interpreter of Maladies was excellent, one of my favorites, and I'm currently about a third of the way through The Namesake. It's also very good so far, I don't know why I put off reading it for so long. I really like Kal, and I'm so excited that he will be playing the lead, I can really see that.

What does one do when a good friendship starts to fade? How do you deal with it? I don't mean trying to save the friendship, but emotionally how does one let go? I'm guessing I'm not the first person this has happened to, so advice would be nice. I find it weird that someone who used to care so much about my life suddenly doesn't. That hurts. How can someone who used to know everything about me and be totally intimate with me (in a non-physical sort of way) stop caring slowly? If we got into a fight, that would make more sense, or if it happened suddenly. Then I could assume that something happened, that there was a reason. I guess I'm just looking for someone to agree that it can suck, but that I will have more best friends throughout my life. I don't want to never again call someone a best friend.

This is Duckie. Don't get him confused with this Duckie though. Don't you love how my Duckie looks like he's drinking. What do you think is in his cup? I was thinking whisky, but we don't have any, so he must have gone out and bought it himself. With what money I wonder???

I hate homophobia. I don't understand why it offends people so much, what does it matter to them? I have a friend that is homophobic. When talking to said friend, whom I will call George (to protect George and also because I like the name), he talked about how there were gays at the restaurant he liked, and how he thought it was a "family restaurant". I was like ??? but stayed quiet because I really like George, I don't see George as much as I'd like to, and I'd like to keep the friendship. Getting into a fight just didn't seem right, since I am pretty sure I have no chance of changing George's mind. But I don't get how being gay is against family. Why is it so threatening to people? Is it just that they don't understand it and lash out against what is weird and different? Or were they taught that everyone different is evil and bad?

I have a relative (not someone I'm close to thank god), who thinks that if we allow gay marriage, the next thing will be beastiality. I found this out in a group email, it was all I could do not to freak out on the person. I find this comment shocking and wrong. Where could one get such an idea? Where is the connection? That's like saying if I eat a piece of cake even though I've had three today (gotta love angel food), I'm going to next murder one of my cats. There's no connection. Apples and oranges here people! Since this person is a relative, I sort of feel the need to ignore the comment so that others in my family don't hate me. But this got me really upset. We've had gay marriage for over a year in MA and so far, I haven't heard of one person trying to marry their pet iguana.

When I was in high school (pre-Peter), I had a crush on a friend's brother. We were talking on the phone, the obvious first step of dating for those who were innocent in high school like me, and somehow the conversation took a turn. He said something homophobic, and I freaked. Not knowing what to do, I hung up on him. That ended the relationship pretty quickly. At this time, I knew of no one who was gay. The closest I could get was Pedro on The Real World. But I had enough brains not to like someone so discriminating. I feel like this is common sense. I just wish the rest of the world had more of it.

I just discovered The Killers. They are great, I really like all of their songs a lot. Their video to Mr. Brightside reminds me of a Nirvana video (In Bloom maybe?), probably because of the suits. I also discovered some other good music that my brother gave me to download, like Phantom Planet and Modest Mouse and Ryan Adams. Does anyone have any similar suggestions for me? It's hard to find good music when I only know of Top 40 radio stations and one 90s alternative station from Maine.

Wow, Mario on AI4 has left the show citing "personal reasons." I've heard speculation that it's because he's gay, or he got his girlfriend pregnant. But mostly I've heard that he's got a record contract offer. If he makes it to the final 12, the people behind AI will take a lot of his money, so this new contract will probably guarantee he makes more money in the long run. I'm sort of disappointed because he was my pick to make it all the way a few weeks back. The good news for me is that my favorite singer Nikko Smith (Ozzie Smith's son) has been brought back to replace Mario. I was so upset when Nikko left, I was unable to vote for him last week because I was traveling. Now I can vote up a storm to make sure he stays at least for the next few weeks.

Poker at Tufts
I know some of my poker buddies are not quite into poker as much as they used to be. I however, am as much interested in the game as I was last year or the year before. Here is a great example of how the image of the game is changing. Also yay for the Alpha Phis selling refreshments at the tournament to help our Foundation! I know all the advisors at this chapter, they are great women.

I'm sure anyone who has ever talked to me about the book Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities by Alexander Robbins knows what I think about it. The book is an awful account of what this woman thinks goes on in sororities. It was nothing like my experience at all, and she only looked at 4 women in two different sororities at one school, so it's not the best cross section of what is out there. She made many assumptions and threw in all the bad press she could find. Of course, a lot of the bad press came from non NPC Greek organizations (who are very different than us) and from a lot of bad research. For instance, she criticized one sorority chapter (of my mother-in-law's organization) because the sisters didn't like how one of them was a virgin so they had her raped by some guy. Ok, if this was true, it'd be awful. But the truth is that this didn't happen. The girl and her mother who claimed that it did were sued by the organization and LOST because they made the whole thing up. They were just trying to get money and in the process giving us a bad name.

Robbins continues to "out" as many of the sorority rituals as she can find. Thankfully, there wasn't much that she could find on my sorority, and what she did find was wrong. But I still think it's wrong. If you are not Greek, you may not be able to understand what it is like to have loyalty to an organization and over 100,000 women. But we have respect for our organizations, what they stand for and the reasons they were formed, and we love our organizations in ways that are not well understood from the outside. Our secrets are OURS, if someone is interested in knowing more, maybe she should join a Greek organization herself. I can't help but wonder if Robbins didn't get a bid to the sorority she wanted to join, and she wrote this book as revenge.

A new book was just released by Viking that is written in a much better voice and is not nearly as scandalous. This book is Smashed by Koren Zailckas. I read it during my vacation (Barnes and Noble employees can borrow hard cover books for free, a great program), as I had heard a few mutterings on Greek Chat about the book and its portrayal of sororities and felt I should educate myself. Overall, it wasn't too bad. She started drinking when she was 14, and when she rushed, she knowingly joined the sorority that was notorious for their drinking, a fact they promoted. Therefore, when she blames the sorority for her drinking problems (which she only does once or twice), I find it hard to feel sorry for her. She knew what she was getting herself into. Regardless of what her sorority was doing, I feel she still could have gotten control over herself and stopped at any time. I think she just needed some self discipline.

However, I was very surprised at some of the actions of the sorority. They hazed pretty badly, although I wasn't terribly surprised since the NE region of the country is the worst at hazing. But her initiation included her sitting in a shower with her head between her knees, blindfold, for over an hour, heavy metal playing in the background. I have no idea which sorority she joined, but I promise you it was one that was started a hundred years ago or more, and I doubt her founders had that in mind when they wrote their initiation ceremony. I wonder if she was ever even officially initiated. The sorority also had an awful, potentially nonexistent watch care program. Where were the other sisters who should have noticed Koren's problem and helped out? More importantly, where the hell were the advisors to the sorority? Did they even have any? I've been an advisor to one or more chapters of my own sorority since I graduated, and I know that we would never allow a girl to go through what she did, nor would I allow a chapter to talk about alcohol during rush, conduct such a weird initiation, haze, and focus all their energy on alcohol. It is the responsibility of the Chapter Advisor and other advisors to make sure the rules are followed and that no one does anything stupid to hurt themselves or others. We are responsible for making sure our sisters are well taken care of, that they are safe. Overall, I'm shocked over this section of the book. It is obvious that Koren is not a member of my organization because I know enough about Syracuse University and our chapter there to know better, and I am extremely happy she isn't. And thank god she had the good sense to change the name of her sorority for her book so that other members of her organization nationwide and beyond are not hurt by her portrayal, however honest it was.

I'm looking for a new job, preferably part time. If anyone knows of anything or has any brilliant suggestions, please let me know!

Everyone knows I love food, it's no secret. I decided on my vacation to truly enjoy food (tons of sweet tea, smoked cheddar crackers, chips and homemade salsa, ice cream every night), and now that I'm home, it's sort of cost me. I am starting to get a little chubby. It's awful. I don't know where the fat came from, but it's starting to burrow into my sides. I need to do something about it, but it's so hard. All I think about is food. But I'm going to try hard to lose some weight and go to the gym more. Now that I'm working part time again, going to the gym should be easy enough. I can start watching Ellen there, with Price is Right to back me up during the commercials. I need motivation though. So please, only bad snacks at poker like mini hot dogs and beef jerky. No more cookies and pringles and combos (my favorite). And at work, no more birthday cakes 3 times a week. And no more cookies on Thursdays from Ed. With the help that you all give me, I may be able to return to a normal size again!

I was planning on not posting while I am on vacation, but I had to write about
Be Cool, the new movie that just came out today starring John Travolta. I just got home from the theatre, and during the movie, if I'm being honest, I was bored. But after I left and started talking to Peter and Terry, I realized that it was much better than my original reaction. Like many of the reviewers have said, Travolta wasn't very good. Uma didn't really do it for me either (and wow over those crows feet, she's getting old). But some of the other actors were great. Cedric the Entertainer was amusing, as was Andre 3000 and his gun. The man who took the cake, though, was the Rock. Wow. He lit up the screen every time he was on it. I wanted more scenes with him in them. Those red boots and the baby blue suit, that was precious. Maybe he should start taking more roles where he isn't playing the strong guy who kicks everyone's ass because my opinion of him has certainly changed.

Overall, the movie was pretty good, but if you want to wait for Netflix, it's no big loss.