As I was cleaning out a desk drawer today, I came across an entire folder full of random scribblings. Some time this week I'll try to get some of them put up here.

T - 2 days and counting. . .

I am SOOOO nervous about this election. I've voted in lots of elections, but this is the first time I've felt that the election is fraught with peril. There's just no denying that millions of people's lives are at stake in this one.

I don't know if anyone reads this weblog, but if your eyes are crossing this page. . . VOTE!

I repeat: VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!!!

I'm really afraid that people who think their state always goes one way or another won't bother to go to the polls. For example, New York usually goes democratic, but there could be an ENORMOUS imbalance between the popular vote and the electoral college in this election.

(In case you'd like to brush up on how the electoral college works, this is a great site: U.S. Electoral College)

Did you know?
Here's the deal. In the 2000 presidential election, Bush lost the popular vote by 540,520 votes!!! But because of how the electoral system works, he squeeked out more electoral college votes than Gore.

The final figures were:

Popular Vote.....(Electoral Vote)
Bush... 50,456,062.....(271)
Gore... 50,996,582.....(266)
Other.. 3,910,654........(1)
Total. 105,363,298.....(538)

U.S. Population: 290,809,777
That's right, only 36% of the total U.S. population voted!

So, on Tuesday, get out to the polls! Let's show the world that the American people are not apathetic and we will not tolerate having a leader that does not represent our values.

Thank you.

#end.of.rant.#

Went down to the Village last night to see a friend's band, Mikanic. It was absolutely fabulous. The piano player that opened for him was totally amazing. I must must must get a copy of his album.

It was a great little place and we all got to hangout for a bit. We were quite the eclectic group: Me the token American, Marsharika from Nicaragua, Mike and Thomas from South Africa, Alberto from the Dominican Republic, Nicole from Venezula, Shirzad from India, Sasaki and Tomo from Japan.

One of the things I was looking forward to most about going to school here was school "study" trips. And so far I've been totally bummed because there's been so much demand that I've only been able to get on the waiting lists for the trips I wanted to go on.

Last year it was South Africa and China.
This year it's India and Patagonia.

Now I'm trying to get on a 10-day trip to Guatemala. There's only space for 12 people though, which is half the size of the ones that I couldn't get on in the first place. But I'm holding out hope.

We would be going to Guatemala to build houses with Habitat for Humanity. It's something I've always wanted to do, so I hope hope hope I get to go.

Is it time for the electoral college to be eliminated?

Have you ever noticed the enormous number of "coincidences" that connect you and I?

I realized yesterday that your high school prom date and mine are getting married.

Crazy. It's like a made-for-tv movie, I swear.

Not only have I finished both my jobs, I had a half-semester class that is now over! (The end of last week and the beginning of this week were midterms.) For the rest of the semester, I'll only have 5 classes instead of 6.

Even better, because of midterm exams there were no classes scheduled so we basically had five days off. Some people travelled, others caught up on schoolwork. I slept.

And slept.

And slept some more.

In fact over the course of the five days, I spent just over 3 days worth asleep. The other two days were spent on the futon watching crappy cable movies and eating takeout. Ahh, good stuff. Nothing like 75 hours of zzz's to make you feel human again.

Jump up and down, wiggle, or do whatever it is you do when you're happy, relieved and downright thankful.

I FINALLY finished both of my jobs!!! (and I'm quitting the third one) Even better, I'm gonna get paid. Whohoo!

After I get all the checks deposited, I can almost pay off all my credit card debt. Thank God!

Bustin' ass pays off.

Well, the maintenance guy FINALLY came and plugged up the holes in my kitchen wall and ceiling. He did a horrible job of taping and mudding the seams around the new sheetrock. It's all uneven and has already cracked along every edge. I may have to go to the hardware store and get myself some sandpaper and spackle.

More fun question... Now that Jaime and I have an excuse to paint the kitchen, what color should we choose???

Here's the deal. The kitchen cabinets are light oak, the appliances are white, and the countertops are dark granite colored formica. And since the kitchen is open to the living room, I should mention that the living room is white with light oak hardwood floors. Black is the accent color in the living room.

Suggestions?

. . .adorned in misery and cloaked in avarice. . .

Do other people find themselves spelling incorrectly ALL the time? Lately I've been writing down the wrong words and misspelling everything. When (if) I catch it later, it drives me nuts. Have I always done this, or is it new? When I realize I've spelled stuff wrong on Savoring, I fix whatever I've found, but then I wonder how many other typos are out there making me look like a yutz.

Tell me, sir.

Are your metaphors
properly mixed?

Is your innuendo subtle
but unmistakable?

I'd hate to see
someone proper
be offended by
your hapless
stanzas.

If we were to count
all the doors
standing between
you and me
how many
would there be?

If they were all open,
would you walk through?

Would there be haunting music?
or words?
Or not a sound at all?

Have you ever wanted
to come to me?

Would there be
a symphony of joy?
And would the neighbors
be jealous?

A broken man
stood begging for coins
beneath the street lamp
in the rain.

He was shaking -
cold, exhausted and ashamed.

A group of teenagers
walked by
jeering and scornful

but it wasn't their
taunts that devasted him.

It was the action of
a boy in the middle
of the pack.

Split seconds all

From his jacket pocket
he clutched
a fistful of coins.

And with spite
in his eyes,
spiked them
on the sidewalk,

smacked high fives
with his friends
and surrounded them
in a cloud of evil laughter.

The soft, subtle sound
of the rain
embraced her –

set her free –

afloat in the
myriad
of contradiction,

swimming against the tide
of mediocre love affairs

that dawn unraveled
with its glance.

Of little consequence,
she bled -

true of heart -

directed by
the clouded mind

and fell at the feet
of manufactured gods.

Got home from work (no note on the door) and was in my bedroom changing clothes when I heard water running.

This. Is. Not. Good.

Go to the kitchen. The towels beneath the wound in the wall were soaked. There was water running down the side of the cabinet splattering all over the counter and down the back of the wall behind the oven. The burners on the stove were marinating in brown water.

I was pissed. I cleaned up all that and climbed up to address the wall. There was a steady stream of water coming out.

I ripped off the paint and layers of sheetrock that came with it. More brown ooze and soggy, smelly sheetrock.

I called the building manager. "Marc, this is Amanda. I have water, lots of water, coming from what is now a hole in the wall." Rrgh. That's not what a landlord wants to hear at 6:30 on a Friday night. "I'll be over in like ten minutes."

When he arrives, he takes one look and says, "Ohhh shit."

He climbs up and feels the wall, then proceeds to make a fist and punch it clear through the wall. Huge chunks of soggy wall come glopping down. "Are you going to be here tonight?" he asks. "This is going to take a while."

Oi vay. Did it ever.

Poor bastard, it was his birthday too.

Thank goodness Bill was home because it took several trips back and forth to identify where the leak was coming from. At one point, John (the building manager's friend) and I were standing in the kitchen holding trash cans beneath a waterfall coming out of my ceiling.

Marc (the building manager called his plumber pal Jonnie to rescue us). So John took off and we waited for Jonnie to arrive.

I learned all about Marc and his wife Jill, the buildings he manages, and how he and Jonnie once spent three hours trying to find a leak in some woman's radiator. It wasn't until after they got stoned and sat down to stare at the radiator pipes that they found it.

Interestingly, he lived in Whitefish Bay for a while, his sister attended the U of M, and his aunt and uncle live in Duluth. Jill was kind of pissed that he missed his 36th birthday dinner, but she'll get over it.

Luckily, between Jonnie and Marc, they found the leak. There was a hole in a pipe beneath the floorboards under Bill's kitchen sink.

So, now I have a big, smelly three foot hole in my kitchen ceiling and wall. And sometime this week Nick, the contractor, (who that morning diagnosed I had a leak) will come to fix it.

Meanwhile, I wish I had a DeWalt sawsall that I could use to cut back the soggy sheetrock. That stuff doesn't dry out, and I know that Nick will just cover it up and let the wet stuff rot and grow moldy inside the wall.

Sawsalls are mighty expensive, but maybe I could go to the hardware store (where they know me by name) and get a sturdy utility knife. It reminds me of Cheers, only I'm Norm and the bar is the hardware store. "Hey! Amanda!" and instead of raising a glass, they greet me by raising the pencil behind their ear.

Thankfully, the next morning there was once again hot water.

The contractor that was supposed to show up at 8am, promptly arrived around 9:30. He walked in and looked up at the wall.

"Uhh, you've got some kind of leak. I'll check it out upstairs. If I find it, I'll take care of it for you. Bill probably just had a spill upstairs. I'll leave a note on your door to let you know what we find." And he left.

My roommate was on her way out the door, extremely late for work, and we had a good laugh. I mocked a yell after him, "Thank you so much for your expert opinion!" I was 2 hours late for work for this?

Stumblefuck, we already knew that. You have to have a mighty big fuckin' spill for the water to seep through a slat board wall, saturate 1" sheetrock, and cause the paint to fill up like a water balloon.

Nothing more I could do, I was extremely late for work.

Two nights ago, when I got home from class, I made dinner and was cleaning up when I noticed a giant bulge in the paint above my kitchen cabinets. My roommate and I looked at one another and went, "Ohhh, nooo."

I got out the step stool and climbed on top of the counter to feel the wall. Wet. Very wet. Bulging with water wet. So I got down, grabbed some paper towels and a t-pin. My roommate climbed up and handed down the baking dishes that we keep on top of the cabinet.

When she handed down the first set, I thought I'd croak. The glass pie plate was FULL of water. Unbelievable. The wall was bulging, there was no water on top of the cabinet or down behind it. Somehow, the water had come straight out of the wall and into the pie plate.

We put garbage bags on top of the cabinet and covered them with towels. Then she punctured the paint bulge. Ooze, brown oozie water. We soaked it up and soaked it up and soaked it up... and then I went upstairs to see if our neighbor, Bill, had had a spill. Nope. He asked whether we knew why there was no hot water. Nope again.

Argh. I called the maintenance man and got voicemail. I left a message which he promptedly returned 36 hours later.

I called the building manager. He groaned and told me that his contractor would be in the building the next day and he'd have him look at it first thing.

With no alternatives remaining, we sat down and watched tv. About half an hour later I heard a sound like plastic tearing. I turned around and saw that the paint on the wall had split open and was once again oozing water.

Super.

The soft, subtle sound
of the rain
embraced her –

Set her free –

Afloat in the
myriad
of contradiction,

Swimming against the tide
of mediocre love affairs
that dawn unraveled
with her glance.

Of little consequence,
she bled -
true of heart,

Directed by
a clouded mind,
and fell at the feet
of manufactured gods.

Her eyes rested on him
as if soaking in
his essence,
his soul.

The soft, subtle features
of his face,
his expression,
the nuances of his movement.