For real.

It’s more about your support than it is about the win. I have no idea if I did win, since voting is through today, I just want you to know that I genuinely appreciate your efforts.

Life is good when good friends and family surround me. :)

That’s how long you get to watch me in that video. I’m not sure why that wouldn’t be appealing to you.

And I consider this further evidence why you should vote for me for January/February Hot Blogger. But, that’s my opinion.

Anyway, I had briefly considered telling the world DON’T VOTE FOR ME but I figured that would just backfire and you all would vote FOR me and then I’d look like some sort of an ungrateful bastard if I was voted in, so.

VOTE FOR POPPY!

Because, um:

I live in NYC.

I am awesome.

I am cute.

I smell nice.
Not that you’d be able to get close enough to know because…
NO TOUCHING THE POPPY!!!!!!

I am a kitty mama to four beautiful girls.

I am smart.

I am funny.

I love Star Wars.

I love beer.

I love cheese.

(that’s the cottage variety)

I love wrestling. (The fake kind.)

I am a geek. With credentials.

I have a zombie attack plan.

I think you look very pretty/handsome today.

I am hot.
I am a blogger.
I love calendars.

Also, I have a lot of pairs of boots. Like, 22 pairs of them.

Not all pictured here, but you start to get the point.

And I’m sure boots would factor into my photo shoot if you pick me.
Not that this should sway you in any way. Except,

BOOTS!

VOTE VOTE VOTE!!!

Ok, bye.

Thank you, JJ Daddy-O, for the link!

We love her. :) The other girls? Verdict is not in quite yet. ;)

More photos of her on flickr.

Digression, it’s what’s for dinner.

I graduated in 1997. In 2002 I returned to my alma mater as an employee. For the six years I worked there I participated at a highly involved level on a committee that attracted, accepted, oriented, and welcomed new students to the campus. I was privy to the university’s concern that Vermont is a very homogeneous state where diversity of culture and life experience does not come naturally. Diversity became a manic mission of the administration, and all departments were called upon to integrate diversity plans into their business models. At some point some one or group came up with the idea that placing two faces together of people from different backgrounds somehow equated to an attractive physical representation for people who normally would have disregarded the school as Just Another Rich White Kid Party School.

It’s now a full 8 years since the split faces were added to the orientation print materials for first year students. And here I sit in New York City, casually checking the news of Vermont, and reading that UVM will air commercials to attract prospective students and their families on ESPNU, and felt so hopeful when I saw that “an award winning creative team” helped produce the commercials, but felt that familiar disappointment as I watched each 30-second spot show split-screened faces of what UVM thinks diversity means.

Diversity doesn’t mean trying too hard to say that the population isn’t all just rich white kids. Diversity is organic. And diversity happens because the people within the community foster acceptance in their hearts, in their lives, in their everyday actions. My friends back in Vermont who moved there from Brooklyn struggle daily with Vermont’s passive-aggressive intolerance of non-natives. The state’s unofficial motto truly is “welcome to Vermont, now go home”. And it was always rumored that if you live in Vermont ALLLLL your life except you leave for even a little tiny bit (which I did for 6 months when I was 10, turning 11) that you become a Flatlander, no longer accepted as a Vermonter.

Dude. That’s just fucked up. Why WOULD people from other cultures, backgrounds, ways of thinking, ways of living even WANT to live there?

I think a better ad campaign would be photos and videos of students interacting, working together, doing together, producing together, having a campfire sing-along on the shore of Lake Champlain or a snowball fight on the green, or hanging out previewing a student-made film in the chapel, NOT two students separated in their filming who are glommed together through (not actually so) creative editing. Showing students working, playing, living harmoniously together is what fosters diversity.

And… whoever edited the faces together should be fired, because everyone looks scary together.

My 2 cents. I welcome your thoughts on the matter.

PS – hi. :)

Back then I had a very different life, knew of DJ as Puppy Monster, and loved him bunches through my computer screen.

It’s impossible for me to tell the world what it’s like to be in his life now, the whole time without him in it. It hurts, let’s just put it that way.

I know this feeling of missing him is real even though he never knew I existed, and it makes me sad to never get to hug him because I’m absolutely certain he gave really great hugs down here and gives even better ones Up There.

I probably won’t be writing much here anymore. My priorities have necessarily shifted. I’m still Here, though, reminiscing about the good stuff, learning from the bad, and finding my path forward in this new life for me where Puppy will always be in my heart.

Life is too short. Please choose to be happy.

Thank you. <3