let's be honest here...

...not that i ever lie on this thing, but sometimes i just use that phrase... so here we go, honesty at its best: do not say you're going to call if you aren't going to call. bottom line. i hate boys who do that.

working retail is not good for the soul. no more purchases for me until my cc is paid off.

please send me your christmas/holiday cards. it is always fun to receive the updated photo of the fam. 301 lyon.

this semester at the house is coming to a close; i really am quite sad. it will be nice to have a break, but so weird to come back to an empty house after a long day of work. i will literally lock myself in my room and wait for morning to go downstairs. it's not that i'm scared of the dark, but 4 stories and 15 bedrooms can make creepy noises.
visitors welcome!

what i'm reading: god's politics (wallis), the alchemist (coelho), fears of your life (loggins)*

what i'm listening to: if songs could be held (rosie thomas), continuum (john mayer), the freaking nordstrom christmas album that plays non-stop (various obnoxious artists)

what i'm watching: not much, since i don't have tv. but, i do manage to spend 43 minutes a week watching my downloaded episode of grey's anatomy. can't get enough of derek and meredith.

*fears of your life is brilliant. written by an artist with a developmental disability, loggins writes: "98. people are fearful of me which i wonder is they think that i'm all that terrible or i'm thinking that they think i'm not human at all because when they sit next to me than they get back up and move away from me i maybe a stranger but that doesn't make me a created monster or something like that. people aren't humans they act like ignorance dogs with their tail in back of their legs or in between their middle bodies their legs. they don't think who's feelings they hurt at all they just do it no consideration for whatever." i have so much to learn from loggins.

starting in january, i will be volunteering at martindeporres.org. gotta love dorothy day. "eating is a right, not a privilege. feeding the hungry is a matter of justice, not of charity."

bobby.

the movie. have you seen it yet? why not? go. stop reading this. go see bobby. it was worth my eight dollars and fifty cents. perhaps one of the greatest politicians to ever live. (do great and politician belong in the same sentence?)

here is a speech that bobby gave... it just reminds me of how much history repeats itself. i wonder, will there ever be someone like bobby again? perhaps it is barak?

notice how this speech could be read for today, replacing not just the violence within america, but also the war in iraq.

"This is a time of shame and sorrow. It is not a day for politics. I have saved this one opportunity, my only event of today, to speak briefly to you about the mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives.

It is not the concern of any one race. The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one - no matter where he lives or what he does - can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on and on in this country of ours.

Why? What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr's cause has ever been stilled by an assassin's bullet.

No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of reason.

Whenever any American's life is taken by another American unnecessarily - whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of the law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence - whenever we tear at the fabric of the life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded.

"Among free men," said Abraham Lincoln, "there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and those who take such appeal are sure to lose their cause and pay the costs."

Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far-off lands. We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire whatever weapons and ammunition they desire.

Too often we honor swagger and bluster and wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach non-violence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them.

Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.

For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is the slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter.

This is the breaking of a man's spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all.

I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we know what must be done. When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies, to be met not with cooperation but with conquest; to be subjugated and mastered.

We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community; men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear, only a common desire to retreat from each other, only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all this, there are no final answers.

Yet we know what we must do. It is to achieve true justice among our fellow citizens. The question is not what programs we should seek to enact. The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of humane purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence.

We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of others. We must admit in ourselves that our own children's future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge.

Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanquish it with a program, nor with a resolution.

But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.

Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men, and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again."

[free] good music.

go to freederekwebb.com and there you will enjoy the creative lyrics of derek webb. for free. you can read about why at relevantmagazine.com

if you're wondering where i'll be the day after thanksgiving... i'll tell you: celebrating black friday at nordstrom. that means i'll be working from 6:30am to 3:30pm with all the crazies who shop at those hours. oh, that's you? sorry if i offended you... but, you still are crazy.

red cups. not the kind at raging parties.

what a pleasant surprise: i made dinner for dan and dillon and right before we sat down, a knock at the door revealed kevin and micah!

i have a problem: haircutters love to chop off so much of my damn hair and charge 1/6 of my monthly income. but, it is just hair. it will grow back.

i encountered someone who just didn't want to talk much or expand on the current election results. i thought he was boring. maybe he feels threatened by my new friend, nancy?

sometimes i realize that i have friends that i need way more than they need me. sad realization, but in the end, i think it's worth it to pursue. totally selfish, i know.

i am becoming desensitized. for example, when i first came to san francisco, my heart ached when i saw the homeless man digging through the trashcan. now, being here for 3 months has made me... numb. i don't feel that ache anymore. i just... go on with my day, helping to create a consuming environment. damn me. where is the in-between? i am going to start volunteering in january.

there is this woman who i often see on market street, she carries a sign that reads "defend your rights" i want to talk to her, but she is always walking the opposite way that my bus is going. did someone take away my rights? am i on the offense? does she have a job? where does she live? does she think that she is effective? is she?

secret confession: i thought i was going to die on the bus the other day. a real death. not some over dramatic "i thought i was going to die!" line from a story. i thought there was a suicide bomber on the #21. i am alive, obviously. but i still was scared. why, i'm not sure. but i definitely am contributing my fear of dying on the bus to the media and my own horrible judgments. damn me, again.

the red cups are here at starbucks. what a brilliant marketing campaign that allows me to associate paper cups that aren't recyclable to jesus' birth.

damn you, california.

election outcome...
--prop. 83: do you know what this means in a city like san francisco? sex offenders won't have a place to live because pretty much every thing is within 2000 feet of a school/park/playground. ousting them to the edge of town (or out of town) might not stop them. and now, are they really going to register? i need to talk to a registered sex offender, i would like to hear how they feel. maybe we should just give them a big S to iron on to their shirt.
--prop. 85: i'm not even going there.
--prop. 86: i am shocked that this wasn't passed.
--prop. 87: amen! i love public transportation! higher gas prices = bummer for you.

now let's see what changes are made when the dems take over. interesting.

half yearly sale at nordstrom = hurting feet

bus riding etiquette.

don't get me wrong, i love public transportation. i only have to fill up my gas tank once a month and it only costs $45 for a monthly bus pass. love it. however, some men on the bus think that they don't need to close their legs when someone sits next to them. for example, this morning, i moved all the way to the back of the bus just like the young and people with out disabilities are supposed to. i sat next to a more mature gentleman who was sitting close to the window with one seat next to him. but really, he only had one half of a seat next to him. you'd think that when someone else sits down, the other person would close their sprawled out legs. nope. i rode the whole trip in half a seat because he thinks that his body (parts) is/are more important than me. i mean maybe they are, but what the heck. show a little respect to the girl in high heels. and of course, the high school girl talked on her phone so loud that i couldn't hear my music.

all this to say: if you ever ride the bus, only take up one seat, close your legs, and don't talk on the phone.

no good title.

today i watched my sister-in-law run a marathon. well, she is like my sister-in-law, she's been around for eight years now. anyway, she finished and i am so proud of her. i kept getting real teary-eyed watching people run past mile 16 and also at mile 26 (the two places we watched). i was overwhelmed with these people who dedicated the last 4-6 months to fight leukemia/lymphoma by raising money and running for 3-6 hours. i was overwhelmed that God designed our bodies in such a beautiful way. i was overwhelmed with the people who were running that are cancer survivors. i was overwhelmed by the grandma, holding a poster-sized picture of her grandson who had cancer but has passed away. iwasoverwhelmed.

work is getting better and better. i'm learning a lot more about the business of nordstrom, and i really appreciate that. i function better when i know the "whys" and history of a company/institution. i am also making connections with customers, which is great because it is real, not just a fake connection so they come back and i get their sale. for example, i met a woman who is a nurse and my mom is a nurse and i watch grey's anatomy, so we were able to chat while her daughter picked out the perfect bag. haha, isn't that great that i talked to her about grey's anatomy. i'm a dork. anyway, saturday was great... two marc jacobs handbags + lots of other bags = a happy boss.

i'm going to be an aunt next june. crazy! i love love love being near my family.

memorial-work-red

the memorial was hard, but being with family was good...
i didn't realize how incredible of a doctor my uncle was... damn, what a waste.

work is getting easier, so that's good.

[product] red is now available for shoes, watches, shirts, ipods, credit cards, and phones.

my questions/thoughts:
is it just a way for bono and bobby (or me and you) to "buy pills and distribute them"?
what about education?
is it sad that we have to consume more in order to help the pandemic of aids and poverty?
(good thing this isn't the only way to help)
i'm not into "handouts," i thought. but then i read this:
"give a person a fish and they will eat for a day, teach them how to fish and they will eat for a lifetime... if they have the skills to access or own the pond."
i guess i'm more about empowerment.
"instead of giving people hand outs and focusing on trying to make people's lives 'better', empowerment focuses on creating opportunities for the poor to break out of poverty and dependence, so that they can provide their own needs and the needs of their families."
is [product] red more about aids or poverty or both?

check out joinred.com

i want to know your thoughts?
[ekatz@westmont.edu]

3 times in 16 days

"emily.... i have bad news."

i have heard that too many times in the last sixteen days. three times to be exact. three times too many.

my friend's dad committed suicide. will from westmont died in a car accident. my great uncle committed suicide (friday). a long family story with lots of drama, but in the end, he couldn't go on with his life with out his wife. she is dying of cancer and doctors have given her three months to live. a real tragedy.

my brother called and said something so obvious, but it hit hard: uncle jim is real evidence that you can have everything in the world... money, a successful business, brains, etc. and you still might not get it. money and iq scores aren't everything.

i am flying down (orange county) for the memorial saturday. i think i am doing a good job of sitting in the pain at the appropriate time, though i'm still trying to figure out what that looks like. i'll let you know.

smooth like a steam roller

my friend described his relationship with this girl as "smooth like a steam roller". i chuckled. thought it was funny.

right now i am doing smooth. can you do smooth? cause i'm doing that. you know, somewhere between good and just goin along. smooth. yeah, smooth.

i got a job. come buy your prada handbag from me.

i just arrived home from a concert. live music feeds my soul. truth: sometimes i feel closer to God when i experience live music than any other thing i do. teitur (pronounced: tie-tour or tight-er or ty-trrrrr) blew me away. umm, weird phrase, "blew me away." what i should say is that he wowed me with his skills and flawless voice. support him by looking into his new work: stay under the stars or his old work: poetry & aeroplanes.

things coming up: lindsay's wedding 4pm sat. vanessa's wedding 5pm sat. pillow talk with carissa at 1am, laughing because it was just ten years earlier that our friendship began as we snuck out of her house to go tp-ing and make out with boys, then got midnight snacks like kraft singles and taquitos in those yellow silky pajamas (why did i wear those?)

sad about will from westmont. a reminder to not make plans.

looking forward to seeing chelsea, jacob, and carissa.