A Beautiful Way to Spend an Afternoon

So last Saturday Kelly and I went to Shenandoah National Park 'cause the leaves had turned the weekend before. It was very beautiful, but so cold!! And apparently once leaves turn there's a short window before they fall off. So a lot of the trees were bare but there was still enough beautifulness that made the trip worth it despite the nearly 2 hour drive and very cold temperatures. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

The Stars Come Out in Society Style

So Monday, I went to work and expected a ho-hum day, when little did I know, I was in for a virtual red-carpet event! The Metropolitan AME church is right across the street from the NEA building, and Monday was the day they held the Rosa Parks memorial. I knew about it beforehand, but I didn't think it was going to be a big deal. So I went about my morning as usual and then at about 11:30 am I went down to get a snack. Well, I decided to see what was going on with the memorial. I walked outside and saw the hearse right outside the M street exits. So I stepped out the sidewalk and just fell into the crowd. I then spent literally 2 1/2 hours outside watching the DC elite file into the church. Let's take a gander through the memorial's attendees, shall we:

1) Mayor Anthony Williams: Looking dignified as ever, but not engaging the rabble. No posing for photos for Tony.

2) Former Mayor Marion Barry: Looking slightly high and of course hobnobbing with the rabble. Posing for pictures and shaking hands. Shameless.

3) Bill Frist: The crowd made an audible "oh, that sucks" sound when he got out of the car, obviously referring to his legal troubles. He then proceeded to trip up the church steps.

4) Many leaders in the African-American community. I regret that other than the Mayor, I don't know who they were. White girl's guilt, I guess.

5) Senate minority leader Harry(?) Reid: just kinda hurried in with no "campaigning" style hand-shaking.

At this point I have to interject this list and explain that there was a man standing in front of me on the sidewalk who claimed to have worked for Teddy Kennedy a while back, as an urban affairs specialist. I think he had a martini lunch 'cause he was totally obnoxious, yelling at cops to have the church turn up the volume on the speakers broadcasting the service. It was embarrassing by proxy 'cause I didn't want anyone to think I was with him. What a freak!

Okay back to the list of local celebrities.

6) Donald Rumsfeld: I'm particularly excited about this because I got to boo him!! I totally started booing him and other people in the crowd followed suit. You might say, hey Sarah, that's tasteless at a funeral. Well I say not only would Rosa Parks not be excited that the warmongerer came to her memorial service but the Iraq war that Rummy has been in charge of has caused over 2,000 funerals. Tit for tat is all I can say. I think the defense secretary can handle a little booing.

7) Ted Kennedy: He kinda had to squirm out of the car 'cause he's a little, um, plump. Yeah, Teddy, lay off the sauce and you might drop a few pounds. But I applauded anyways.

8) Cicely Tyson: She came in a wheelchair and she looked really frail. But I've always liked her as an actress. She was there because she's got a school for the performing arts and they did a performance. Also, I think she was friend of Rosa Parks.

9) OPRAH friggin' WINFREY!!!! She looked so good, rockin' a Chanel suit and bringing Gayle. I didn't see Stedman, but he may have been sequestered in the trunk, or in her handbag. I was freaking out as were all the women in the crowd. She did this bow with her hands pressed together in front of her, like she's the Dalai Lama or the pope or some shit. She's fabulous, but crazy. She thinks she Jesus.

So that was my Monday. I did about 2 hours worth of work in total. But pretty much everyone at the NEA was watching the attendees pile in and then pile out. Very cool, probably the coolest day I've had while in Washington. Sad but true!

That's all for me. Bye y'all!

LOVE this artist!

I got this new album on iTunes called "Wikked Lil' Grrls" by Esthero and it friggin' ROCKS!! It's repeat on my ipod all day at work. It's kinda a dance/jazz album, really soulful but dirty! Just like I like it! I hope you like it, Sheila!

So UNFAIR!!!!!

So, these guys were in town last week playing two shows at the MCI Center. I didn't get to go, a) because I didn't have the $200 to shell out for each ticket and b) because I am not special enough to know someone with a ticket I could buy off them even if I had the money because the shows were sold out. BOOOOO!!!!! Now, I absolutely idolize U2, passionately so, and so when I heard that people were going I tried to be happy for them and not let my ridiculous jealousy ooze out all over them and spoil their happiness. Along those same lines when people go and hate on them or are drunk at the show, I feel pissed off 'cause it's like their not appreciating something I would completely cherish. I might be putting a U2 concert slightly on a pedastal, but hey I need something to feel passionate about right now, considering my life sucks a fat man's ass right now. So, my roommate and her boyfriend came home from the show and they were trashed....BOOOOO!!!! Seriously I like my roommate despite the fact that she's a trust-fund baby, but her boyfriend's a dud. Not a jerk or anything just a dime a dozen, pretty banal and I feel he's sucking out my personality when he's around. I'm trying really hard to stop being a first class boyfriend hater, and I don't hate this guy, I'm just not impressed. Whatever, I'll be over it....soon, I promise.

Another Version of Hell...

So, last weekend Kelly, Shayna, Melissa and I drove for about half an hour to Cox Farms in Centreville to get some pumpkins and go on a hayride, etc. Um, it was like Chuckie Cheese meets the Great Pumpkin Patch. We literally were the only people there without children and not pregnant; and I'm being completely serious. It was fun but we were totally out of place. I felt bad because Shayna did not see the humor in the situation. Frankly I thought it was pretty funny! But despite the surreal, twilight-zone experience, we got nice pumpkins for pretty cheap and I got some nice blackberry jam. So not all bad, and it's a good story. I'm just gonna let the pictures speak for themselves.

This Really is My Personal Hell

The Economist this week reports that Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan will be retiring at the end of the year. The article then goes on to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of each of the most likely candidates to replace him. Right....guess who gets to nominate his successor? That's right, our very own Dubya!! Here's where this situation turns into a nightmare. The very fact that our president, who has always been an idiot but is now less affective at covering it, gets to choose not one but two Supreme Court justices but the new Fed chairman to boot is literally giving me nightmares!! Yeah, if you need to find me I'll be in Europe...or the Jan Brady of expat locations, Canada. Seriously, I think this is really bad. I mean, I know Republicans want to make money, but I Dubya is just plain incompetent, so you know he's gonna f*** this up, too. He ran all his businesses into the ground, so apparently not only is he a sucky president, he's not even a good Republican!! AARRGGHH!! Some economic commentators don't think that Greenspan is good at his job, but at least he's consistently been independent of the Oval office and stood up to those in charge that are hell-bent on driving this country into the ground. Dubya is so entrenched in the ways of cronyism that I don't think he even knows how to choose a qualified candidate. He just looks across the table and points at whoever's closest to him and says, "hey you, you're gonna be the new Fed chairman!" Meanwhile, Skippy the intern is shitting himself 'cause he's forgotten his intro Econ lecture notes back in Iowa. I'm gonna have a heart attack soon, I can just feel it coming on!

Speaking of Dubya, I found this HI-larious video clip on-line. Check it out.






Classic!!! I friggin' love this! Nuff for tonight, this clip says it all.

The Hurricane's hit DC!

So my job at the NEA is going well...but I feel like these hurricanes hit me square in the face. I'm never going to get caught up. It's pretty ironic that I leave a job that's boring me to tears and take a job that's got so much work for me I barely take the time for lunch! All for $1 more and hour. Gotta love the DC job market.

Speaking of the DC job market, my roommate told me she's gonna start looking for jobs in NYC and Columbus, where she's got family and friends. It made me think that I'm just not ready to give up on finding a job in this town. I know it's supposed to be hard, and man they weren't kidding. The amount of experience you need is crazy for the pay rate most places offer. I mean, if only I were a friend of some big mucky-muck I could get a job without any experience doing the job. Look at Harriet Miers, she got nominated for the Supreme Court with no experience on the bench let alone in Constitutional Law, which is weird because as I've come to realize you need 3-5 years experience to do anything in this town. Maybe I should become a born-again Christian and get quoted as saying the president's the most brilliant man I've ever met...I don't know if I'm interested in selling my soul for a job though.

But that's just me. Gotta get back to work!!!!! Till later.

Speaking of Whores...

Our little X-tina is getting married. The dirrrty girl is in fine form with this get-up for her bridal shower. I really like Christina but cannot relate to her at all. I mean, what's with the hair!! Let it be for a while and maybe it wouldn't fall out in clumps! I do have to say she looks much better, though, like she's lost some weight but not gone to crazy extremes like one Miss Richie. Oh well, I hope she's happy and stays married for more than one hot minute. But then I guess it wouldn't be Hollywood, now would it!

I hate this stupid whore!! She needs to give it up and stop wasting precious court time. I can't believe she's taken this appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, what a freaking joke. She's obviously got the worst attorney if she keeps losing her appeals...so wise up and get more competent representation. Oh wait, I said wise up in reference to Anna Nicole Smith...I think I might be over-estimating her abilities! What a waste of space.

Paradise Revisited

Here is the view from Manuel Antonio National Park in Costa Rica. I just really need a vacay so I thought I share this with y'all. God, I need to get outta this town, find me a hot island man 'cause you know I don't have luck here! Maybe Leland from Dog the Bounty Hunter is single...probably not. Plus, he seems kinda little, which doesn't bother me, but I bet he likes his ladies petite and shit. I guess being horny makes the psycho-analysis mechanism go into overdrive!! Send help!

Natalie Portman channels Joan Jet

So I hate Natalie Portman...she's so stupid. She's not literally stupid but she reeks of a stuck-up bitch. So this photo is all the more fabulous simply because she's totally rockin' a wig. One blogger noted that this picture may have been taken before she shaved her head, or rocked the mohawk, but I think it's totally a wig. Plus, girl ain't got no titties...HA HA HA!!! Sucks to be her. Rock 'n Roll Hollywood, my ass! I think she's just trying to be like Angelina Jolie with the dark, brooding thing. Poseur!! Next she'll have visible tattoos and all that freaky shit! She's almost as stupid as Britney!

Two Skinny bitches...

Okay, can I just say, this is hysterically funny!! It's kinda like they modeled the main male character after Johnny Depp and the Corpse Bride after Kate Moss...and the two actors used to date. Hollywood is so incestuous!! (Thanks Defamer for the photo).

I feel bad for Kate Moss that she's losing all her endorsements...I mean hello, how much would it suck to lose a Dior campaign! My world would end as I knew it, but I guess it wouldn't be life as I knew it if I HAD a Dior campaign. Using coke is so common even in normal life let alone fashion that they're just making an example of her, how do you think she stays up and thin and the like? Oh well, in the end I don't feel bad for addicts, so I guess I shouldn't feel bad for her!!

Friday's Bush-bash

Kate Moss is a coke-whore!!!! That's the shock of the century! Not really. How do you think she stays so thin? That's how all rich party girls stay thin, 'cause it sure ain't from drinkin' and staying up till all hours of the night. Coke keeps them up, alert, and thin, so of friggin' course a top model dating a junkie is gonna do lines. Duh!! This is not news, she just got caught.

Okay, so yesterday's attemted Bush-bash got deleted (!) because of some formatting snafu...what an injustice. So I'm gonna wrap up the week with another attempt to slam the idiot, barely-trained monkey we've got in the White House. What's spurred this rant, you ask? Well, so many things about this president have made my blood boil over the past few years, but lately it's the whole Katrina hurricane disaster and the response by the government, both local and federal. The Washington Post ran a headline today entitled, "In Speech, a Bid to Repair Presidency". Interesting that it had to take this catastrophe to spur this reaction from the press. Why not mention that Bush's egregious errors to date (read: Iraq war, soaring federal trade deficit) have only been compounded by this final blow to the American people. Bush, in his campaign, expounded that he is a uniter not a divider. He must have a different idea of what uniting is than the commonly accepted English definition because his policies have done nothing but divided. Divide terrorists and evil-doers from "good, hard-working Americans", rich from poor, black from white (as if that needed any more division). It's about time that Bush's ratings actually catch-up with his actions and that the American people voice discontent with the mess he's making of our once stable and prosperous country.

Hurricane Katrina was a horrible catastrophe, and the after-effects (flooding, wide-scale loss of life) should not have happened. Those that suffered most disproportionately were poor, urban minorities that already have the most difficult existence here in America. Now what little they had has been destroyed and the federal government can offer them little hope for just compensation. It blows my mind that the response to images of people looting was, "this is unacceptable." What's unacceptable is not that people are looting stores to get food and water, but that that kind of abject poverty exists at that level in a major U.S. city. Unacceptable and criminally negligent on the part of the local, state, and federal government. That being said, what will hopefully come from this disaster is a greater awareness of what the sadly performing economy has been doing to poor people all over the country and not just New Orleans.

Living in DC helps underscore the realities of the existence of urban poor minorities; there are so many homeless people of working age here it blows the mind. There are definitely a good percentage of those who are mentally ill, but that is not the whole picture. The saddest part of it for me is that it's based on race...the people in power don't care about the poor minorities. Not only do they not care about the poor minorities but their policies work against them and make their situations worse over the long haul. Their housing never gets better, their jobs get outsourced, their kids receive a terrible education, and all within the shadows of the White House and the Congress. It's an awful injustice, one that saddens me everyday because of the apparent lack of concerns for large groups of people that could make a valuable contribution to society is the were armed with the skills and opportunities afforded their suburban, white cohorts.

Back the specifics of the Bush-bash. Bush finally took responsibility for something bad that happened under his watch!!!! Oh, but that was only after the initial finger-pointing that led to the FEMA chief's resignation...does this sound familiar to anyone? Namely George Tenet, CIA chief. Yeah, Tenet f-ed up the Iraq-war-weapons-of-mass-destruction debacle. Mhm, right. Even Colin Powell admitted it was a mistake, and he was the poor bastard that had to go in front of the U.N. and make a fool of himself with those satellite photos "proving" the Iraqis had the capabilities to cultivate nuclear weapons. N-U-C-L-E-A-R weapons, say it with me, nuclear; it's not nucular, you friggin' moron!!! I just don't trust that fool as far as I can throw him. I for one am glad to see the chink in the armor reveal and the press emboldened to call it out. Finally, the press got their balls outta the Bush administrations vice grip. But I'm tired of this bash already. On to more pressing matters.

I have not yet found a job and I'm losing my will to live. I may be one of those homeless people you see roaming the Mall soon...thanks a lot, Ireland's F-ing Four Courts; also affectionately known as the Irish prison by so many of the lifers that work there. I hope that place gets bombed, a literal Irish Car Bomb would be so fitting. Just kidding, of course. My new restaurant job is good, but I won't be able to make as much money there, so it's kind of bittersweet. Now I'm relying on temp assignments and the restaurant gig to make ends meet. No stress there! I guess it's just gonna be like this for a while and I should get used to it, which isn't a very comforting thought. Oh well, I can always turn to the drink to help smooth out the wrinkles. But wait, that's expensive. I guess I'll have to do it on the cheap...now if only I knew how to "do it on the cheap"...I guess you learn something new everyday!

I'll keep y'all posted.

Paris' Sack

Okay, so courtesy of Vanity Fair, Paris Hilton has been captured is still more artsy-fartsy photos. Check this one out
She's got some pretty huge meat curtains one her!! Maybe she needs to get check for and rare STD that makes her appear to have a penis. Maybe a rare Greek strain of genital warts. Gross!

The Label Whore speaks!

Welcome everyone!! This is the inaugural post to my blog, aptly named "The Life and Times of a Label Whore". A self-professed label whore, I ironically refuse to pay for anything full price...odd, I know. Nonetheless, I know my labels and feel no shame in calling out my fellow fashionista wannabes as to the origins of their fashion purchases. Did you get that at Target? Fabulous. Banana Republic? Fabulous. Wal-Mart? Uh, you should be ashamed of yourself!! I do draw the line when it comes to cheap fashion, I must confess. Wal-Mart will never be chic, no matter what the commercials filled with "trendy" young girls tell you. I guess those same commercials should be the first indication, however. Sucks to be you if you live in a town where the best clothes shopping is Wal-Mart. I guess just learn to sew and buy some fashion magazines.

Enough of the fashion rant. I continue to languish, rather, rot answering phones at the law firm. Ugh, I went back to school and acquired $30,000 more in student loans so I wouldn't have to be a receptionist! Oh the horrible irony. I told my temp agency that the job was slowly killing me and this would be absolute last week I could handle this assignment. So I'm once again off is search of work, hopefully this time it will be something interesting and that pays more. How is it possible that someone with the experiences and education I've had can't even get an interview at organizations specializing in her field of study? I guess I missed the boat in college and should've done IT or accounting. But that type of work would've probably not just slowly killed me but quickly done so. I can just see it now, dead, splattered on the front a city bus moving at full speed. Or maybe under the train. Those Metro employees don't give two shits about the passengers anyways. I bet if I talked loudly enough on my cellphone in the tunnel some irritated Hill staffer would shove me in front of the train, ending my misery for me and clearing one more Hill position from a vapid sorority girl who's daddy not only got her the job but is subsidizing her adventure as a "Capitol Hill legislative assistant" when all she really does is drink endlessly and suck off her bosses, sometime for extra cash once daddy's cut off her credit cards. It's good to see that I'm less bitter since leaving the bar! Oh, I'm sorry, I mean since I got fired from the bar.

So today I'm nursing the lingering headache I got yesterday while doing my daily (!) 10K run on the treadmill in the gym. I know something was up when I couldn't see the TV clearly. I think I got a mild migraine, which totally sucks since I haven't had to deal with one of these in a long while. Wah! I blame it on the job, really it's killing me.

S that's enough for today. Watch out for further job-hunt updates and other random discussion. Washingtonians beware!!