July 25, 2000

One year ago: I save you the trouble of having to buy Details by reprinting the only funny part of it.

I hate this month's design so much that I thought maybe I could get by without doing another entry. But here I am. Too lazy to change the design, and yet unable to stay away.

That picture is my dad and my brother's dog, sitting in front of my brother's new house. I liked the effect of the sidewalk disappearing into the background. I wish I could say that I planned it that way, but I didn't. Here are the interesting things I did since last we met:

Friday night: Jim's Aunt Pinky came into town from Michigan. We went over to Jim's parents' house to visit her. Her husband couldn't come with her, so she brought her friend Geri (sp?). Somehow, we got into this huge political debate about governmental involvement in people's personal lives. It was probably the first time in my life that I've had a serious political discussion with people who are pretty much the exact opposite of me in terms of political beliefs. I'm a bleeding-heart liberal, for the most part. Geri was a big-time Libertarian, and Pinky is pretty much Republican. Also, given that it was not my family, I didn't want to piss anyone off. We still managed to have a pretty interesting conversation, although I had to bite my tongue more than a few times. Afterwards, Jim's mom told me that Pinky really liked me. So I guess that was a success. Basically, the whole argument boiled down to personal responsibility vs. governmental intervention. I just thought it was really easy for the group of us, a bunch of white, mostly middle-class, suburban-living people, to say that everyone should get jobs and make their own living. While I do think that as a country, we have swerved way too far into "It's not my fault" territory, especially with regards to litigation, I think it's a reality that I have had opportunities that others will never have by dint of my skin color, and where and to whom I was born. So I don't think it's entirely fair for me to judge others because they don't choose or aren't able to live their lives in the fashion I would want them to. It was a really interesting topic, and it really got me thinking, especially about generational differences in attitudes towards the government. We talked about Lyndon Johnson and his Great Society movement, but to me that's all a history lesson while the people I was with lived through that time period. Something to think about.

Saturday afternoon: Jim and I went to see X-Men. Jim actually already saw it last weekend, but he liked it so much that he convinced me to go see it, even though I'm not a big X-Men or comics fan. I really liked it. I thought the writers and director did a great job in making it a movie that was accessible even if you don't know the whole backstory, while appealing to the fanboys (and fangirls). It wasn't super deep (despite the whole mutants in American/Jews in Nazi Germany parallel), but it was about what I want and expect from a summer action movie.

Saturday evening: I went over to Mary and Terry's for a pizza dinner, and then Mary and I went to Staples to buy paper so that I could do invitations for her next bridal shower on my computer. After that, we went to Michael's (the craft store) because Mary is trying to find an alternative to flowers for centerpieces at her wedding reception. The prices the florists gave her were really high, and we couldn't help but think that we could come up with something attractive that wouldn't break the bank. We wandered around for about an hour, and came up with some ideas. Now Mary just has to decide what she wants to do.

Then Sunday night, I got sick, and it carried over into Monday, which sucked. But I did manage to confirm that I'm going to New York City in a few weeks with Mary and Molly, and I'm going to Las Vegas at the end of August! So that's exciting. This really is the summer of travel for me. Although I'm not sure how I'm going to afford it, I figure I should take advantage of the opportunities while I have them, because I won't always have the flexibility to say, "Yeah, I can go away for five days."