| Happy Birthday to me? Eeks! |
[Jun. 27th, 2007|09:59 am] |
If you're maybe noticing that you're older than you used to be, and are feeling sad/angry/confused/worried/frustrated that you haven't accomplished as much as you/other people in your present or past/annoyingly critical voices inside your head think you should have, and if you're maybe feeling something like "I'm not a real grownup like everyone else," and if you're maybe also feeling sad/angry/confused/worried/frustrated that your body isn't working the way it used to, and you're maybe thinking, "if that's true then how am I going to DO all those accomplishments that I/other people/voices in my head think I ought or want to do?", and maybe you're also wondering how are you going to dig out from under the accumulation of habit and procrastination and self-doubt to some sense of satisfaction in your life again, then post this same sentence in your journal.
(via ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) mswyrr, who is ancient.)
What an appropriate time for that to show up on my f-list. *g*
At least I get the nearly-full-moon shimmer at night for my birthday. That? Good timing.
Also appropriate cause just this past Monday I was reading about Tyson Gay breaking Michael Johnson's US Championship record in the 200, which was the same year Johnson set the world record, 1996. And I realized that record has stood over 10 years. Which means that 1996 was OVER TEN YEARS AGO. Yes, a little math should get me there through much less convoluted means, but this really brings it home. Sasha and I were just moving to DC for law school that summer. (my advice to people who don't love the preppy and aren't basically very pro-establishment types, regardless of liberal/conservative nature? Do not move from anywhere out west to DC. Seriously. Unless you get elected/appointed to something. Then remember the words from "Bring on the Dancing Horses.") There were hordes of tourists (beyond the DC norm, I mean) because part of the soccer or *something* from the Olympics was held there that year. Johnson scorched things in Atlanta. Saw a list of top 20 times in the 200 all time and was shocked that Johnson only had like 3 of the top 11, I think. People have been busy. Kudos to Carl Lewis for still having a couple of times in there from the 80's. And major kudos to Pietro what's-his-name from Italy, who is *still* up there w/his 1978 time. Was sad to see Calvin Smith no longer had any times there. That also made me feel old. He had graduated--or at least used up his eligibility--but still trained w/us sometimes during my two years running at U of Alabama (for the all of you who don't follow track that closely, he briefly took the 100 world record from Lewis in 84, then finished fourth in the Olympic trials that year, w/the weird result that the reigning and just-got-it world record holder failed to make the team in the 100, tho he did make it in the 4x100 and the 200).
We had a lot of really good people on the team then, most of them still in school, the most successful on the international stage being Lilly Leatherwood, who picked up gold in the 4x400 and won something in the 400 individual (can't for the life of me remember gold/silver/bronze, I keep thinking she won the gold and then thinking merely that I wanted her to but she didn't), Liz Lynch (later Liz McColgan), from Scotland, who had the world record in the 10k for a while and never had her best races at the Olympics but still won a silver medal one year, and Pauline Davis from the Bahamas. Pauline is amazing, in that she was still showing up in the Olympics as recently at least as 2000, maybe 2004, and still being competitive. I think she made either the finals or the semi-finals in the 200 even that last go-round. This is a sprinter we're talking about, here--they pass their peak first, usually. She ran everything from the 100 to the 400, but the 200 was probably her best race. She also contributed my best track/academic story ever --
In '88, they had the Olympics late that year for whatever reason, I think due to heat/raininess in South Korea, so we started school while they were still going on. Pauline and Flora Hyacinth, a triple jumper from the Virgin Islands, were in "Problems in Shakespeare" w/me. The following exchange ensued the first night of class:
Professor Winston, checking the sign-in sheet against the roll: "Does anyone know Pauline Davis"?
Flora: "She's at the Olympics."
Professor Winston: "Ah. Well, that should be fun. Would that I could afford to go to the Olympics. Do you know how many classes she'll be missing? I'm not sure even an Olympic vacation counts as an excused absence."
Flora: "She's not there to watch them. She's competing."
Prof Winston: "Oh." |
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| Okay, this is evil, In a Cheney/Bush way, not a good way. |
[Jun. 27th, 2007|02:25 pm] |
http://brigidsblest.livejournal.com/425350.html
For those wanting actual content information, the story of a fundie group in Maine trying to attack a woman on a democratic political committee because she is a pagan and runs a pagan bookstore, which woulda been bad enough, but when various people supportive of her began to write to their website, they began editing the comments to make positive comments seem negative, etc. And then began hunting up info on the pro-pagans -- many of them Christian, some even Southern Baptist -- and post these people's e-mails and comments from their websites and such.
If you are a Christian, might want to let these people know they are doing other Christians a disservice, and not actually making the world "safer for children" or whatever it is they're claiming.
If you are not a Christian, feel free to go to their site and stalk them right back. I have to get off the comp in about 30 minutes so I'm settling for simply outraged. |
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