Monday, August 13, 2012

Music themes

I mentioned last time that Leah's friend Allie is over this weekend.  Somehow, while we talked late at night, we got on the topic of "theme songs" not for like TV or movies, but for our own lives.It was a fun topic to talk about, but it was decided that my original choices for my personal themes were sad and I needed to add some better songs.
Being short of things that I'm ready to talk about at the moment (and believe me, I'm holding some stuff in that I want to share, but I'm going to dwell/overthink on it for awhile yet), I decided that I could post some music videos here. 

So here's my first choice of personal theme...

In case you can't watch video, that's from Les Miserables called On My Own.  I think of that song as one of my themes because I do this thing in my head where I imagine whole scenarios where the guy I like also likes me, but even while it makes me happy in the short term, I always know that it's not true and that the guy in question doesn't really feel think of me that way.  Usually it's a guy who knows me, who I would count as a friend, or close to one anyway, but I know in my heart that he's never once thought of me in "that" way.  Speaking of this, I can promise you that guys and girls can be friends without it being secretly about sex. 

My other choice is...

That's Kasey Chambers "Not Pretty Enough" which I think of for myself not because of the title, or thinking I'm not pretty, but because of the over all feeling she's singing about that she's basically invisible/unnoticeable.

I'll try to post a few of Leah's suggestions in the next couple of days, but in the meantime, if you have a suggestion feel free to leave me a comment!

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Pretty!

Have you ever looked around at the people you're about to go out with and decided not even try to look nice because no one in their right mind is going to spare you a second glance no matter what?  Tonight I went out with Leah (who if you don't know her, is tall, and gorgeous) and her friend from out of town, Allie.  Allie is even taller.  And gorgeous-er.  Like she looks like a model.  Like clearly the most beautiful woman I will ever meet in real life.  They put on cute tops and make-up.  I looked at them in the kitchen before we left and decided to go with a comfortable t-shirt and skip make-up altogether.  That's not meant to be saying anything bad about myself.  That lead in is to get to my point.  I was talking about Allie with a coworker today and mentioned how pretty she is.  My coworker said to me that it sounded like the coworker would hate Allie.  Because she's so pretty.  So my point is, why the devil do we do that?  Why do we, as women, decide to "hate" other women because they're pretty?  Why can't we all just support and love each other?  This is why men have always rule the world, because when men were busy making rules and establishing their dominance, women were busy arguing over who's the prettiest and hating each other for being "better" in some way. 

Monday, August 6, 2012

African Wild Dogs

Recently I wrote a post about the okapi at Brookfield Zoo, and the moment I first fell in love with an animal most people had never even heard of.  The okapi is not the only endangered animal at the zoo that I am in love with.  Another delightful animal is the African Wild Dog.  It wasn’t the first time I had watched the African Wild Dogs, but they were still a new animal for me, not high on the average zoo-goers list of animals to see, when I realized what a delight they are. 

On the day I remember, there was a group of young pups in the enclosure, and a docent standing outside.  She explained to me that the pups were the young of the two dominant dogs and that the beta male, the pup’s uncle, was actually submissive to them.  She was there to feed the dogs and as I watched the fully grown uncle stood aside and allowed the pups to eat before he did.  The docent also mentioned that the dominant dogs would leave the uncle to pup-sit while they were away hunting, and in that way he earned his food.

There remain in the wild somewhere between 3,000 and 5,500 African Wild Dogs where once there were 500,000.  The dogs are threatened by habitat loss and by the need of farmers to protect their flocks.

Please help the CZS Conservation Fund with their efforts to protect these and other endangered animals by clicking the link to my fundraising page- http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/tinazastrow/brookfield-zoorunrun-2012