Oh, ok. Now I understand. St. Patrick's Day is about drinking! Cheers!

I am not feeling beneficent, so be warned.
1. What's the deal with St. Patrick's day? Although Jewish, I can understand Christmas as an ecumenical, present-swapping occasion; I can even understand Easter as a celebration of spring and fertility. But St. Patrick's? It's a goddamned saint's day! I, too, love the Irish, but why should I care about their patron saint? I don't want my MSN homepage to put up a green background and a four-leaved clover next to the date in honor of St. Patrick's! Does anybody in Ireland celebrate the 4th of July? I mean, come on!
2. The Atkins diet strikes me as one of the most unbelievably ridiculous fads ever. Even worse than mullets, for, while sporting a mullet could only have harmed you in the event of coming upon somebody with a sense of style and a violent behavior problem, eating lots of meat and no fiber is a guaranteed way to screw up your GI tract. Because the Atkins diet pisses me off, I have decided to perform a futilely heroic gesture: I pledge to eat one big, delicious, carb-and-sugar packed chocolate biscuit every day until I stop noticing Atkins products in the supermarket. I shall set up a guestbook for anybody who wishes to do the same and desires to share their experience.

Terrorist attack in Spain. Wowza. Amusing about an otherwise grim situation is the claim of newspaper Al-Quds al-Arabi that an al-Quaida-related organization was behind the attack. This makes me entertain interesting thoughts as to the crucial role of the media in the proliferation of terrorism. Would there have been an Osama bin Laden as we know him today without al-Jazeera? It is debatable.

By the way, this is a missive I sent to a stringer lady.
Here is the original request:
"For our May Body Image story, we are seeking a real
woman age 20-35 who does not live in New York State
who can talk about how the increasing availability of
porn -- who hasn't heard of the Paris Hilton sex
video?- has made her feel worse about her own body
image. Maybe she would say something like "I feel
like guys look at perfect breasts all day long and
then expect me to have perfect breasts."
We need just one or two quotes for this one, but we
need them desperately and we need them today!"
And this is my reply:
"How about a woman for whom the increasing availability of porn has had a positive effect as far as her body image is concerned?
Female porn stars are far from perfect. In professional porn, the great majority of women are short (their being tiny makes the penis of the male co-stars look bigger), with surgically-enhanced parts of the body that, even if they do titillate on screen, would most likely repel the man on the street if he were in their presence. Nobody who watches porn expects or desires their women to look like Jenna Jameson (although she does have a pretty face). The excitement of porn lies in the nasty things that the people on screen do.
As for amateur porn, the "perfect look" is even less of a factor. Amateur porn is about the normal, everyday woman, whose mouth is maybe too big, whose legs are maybe too short, whose ass is too skinny or whose ankles are too thick. It is true that most amateur porn stars are pretty or cute, but most women are pretty or cute if they put on a bit of mascara and lipstick. Men don't watch porn in order to find physically perfect women: they want to see non-abhorrent lasses doing dirty things.
Finally, porn is one of the few image-based industries where beauty is explicitly not of the issue. Any physical "defect" has been and will continue to be featured in porn, from obesity to pimply asses, because people enjoy that. They are curious voyeurs. They enjoy witnessing people that look like people they know being sexual.
I am a great consumer of porn. So is my boyfriend. This doesn't make me feel bad about the way I look. Neither does it make him suggest that I get ass-cheek implants."
[To be very honest, the reason I am including this is that name-dropping porn stars is a guaranteed way to get page hits.]

I need sex. I am the proverbial insatiable woman, who expects her man to deliver a couple times a day (actually, although that would be very nice, I could settle for a quickie every day or more elaborate intercourse every other day). Adam has been busy the last few days (and has not been doing much other than staring at the computer; he looks pale and haggard; I worry) and I haven't been getting laid. I need sex!
I wonder what exactly goes into my sexual appetite, so to speak. The primary component is the fact that I physically enjoy intercourse (this is not a question of orgasming; that I can always do for myself): it is energizing; it is relaxing; semen has mild anti-depressant qualities. Then, there comes the fact that Adam turns me on: he looks a delightful combination of sweet and nasty, innocent and experienced, and that's really sexy. Then, there's the pill, on which I have been for the past month, and which makes me feel like I am making an investment here, and I need some returns!
Speaking of women and sex, I need to research for a philosophy paper which argues that women and men are indeed different -- both naturally and societally, but the latter because of the former. Also, I am considering writing a little piece on pornography for my Jesuit college's scholastic competition.

I am coming to you live from Seattle University's computer lab, where the buzzing work atmosphere is pleasantly engaging. It is incredibly nice out. The sky is ubiquitously blue, a rare feat in Seattle, the sun is shining (and brightly so; I am pretty sure that, of all the places I have been, the sun shines brightest in Seattle -- when it does), and it is warm with the perversity suitable for a place where it rains on approximately 183 days of the year, but where one can sunbathe in early March.
It has been a bizzare couple months. I have had the Miami Vice apartment to myself for 5 weeks, gone -- at the same time though with slightly less impetus than Adam -- through states of indecision about my near-future activity plans, and started taking the pill, which has gravely accentuated my psychotic episodes, but made them Swiss-watch regular.
I realize that I haven't really been doing much of late by way of putting my mind to work. School is not nearly enough to make me feel like I am accomplishing something, and I need the feeling that I am being useful. I'm not satisfied (but what else is new?) with my level of energy. I get tired or feel unwilling to do stuff too often for my own taste -- yet I know that this is largely how I am. What I haven't been doing, pretty much for the last couple years, is to force myself to become engaged in an activity. I've been cutting myself too much slack. That's gotta change.