I was surveying the marriage announcements in the newspaper today. With no job, no degree, no girlfriend, and no visible future seeing the pictures of young, beautiful people so deeply in love is "motivational". The purpose of this post is not to discuss my reading habits, but simply to add to Dan's list of improbable names.
On Sept. 18 one Kelly Rose Ninneman will marry the man of her dreams...(here it comes) David
Mithrandir Fiorini. According to his brief bio David
Mithrandir Fiorini hails not from the forgotten lands of Middle Earth, but Columbus, OH. My questions are many, resources too few to solve the mystery of this name.
Labels: nerdcore
So, I'm returning to Ohio for a few weeks as I figure out how to do something worthwhile with myself for the next year or so.
Is anyone worthwhile still in Ohio? Anyone? Please let me know.
if you're going to celebrate your birthday, why not do it the right way...
http://www.thedailytimes.com/sited/story/html/168788
this is why the south rules.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0719041gator1.html
also, the selection for oprah's book club this month is the heart is a lonely hunter. score.
Okay, okay, perhaps one more before hiatus, and only because I'm in Ohio right now feeling a little nostalgic. So, this isn't a "new" poem, per se, but a rather old one. Composed by a young Cold Cowboy and myself over warm cokes and cheese whilst huddled in the basement betwixt games of pool, Space Harrier and Civilization, this poem casts into sharp relief all the fears and anxieties of a couple of flashy young business men on the move.
So without further ado: Friday Morning Poetry: Retrofitted.
RISK
Is Dangerous.
Thank you for your time.
please check out this site.
http://www.tubgirl.com
put this on my tombstone
the sun was like boiling bananas casting rust on orange and clear on white at leaves like burning trees.
discuss.
How do you feel about your nipples?
Friday Morning Poetry!
Madcap Hubcap
I'm set atop a hubcap
Hov'ring, darting through a misty haze.
Below me spreads a car-park
Where a herd of speechless drivers graze.
From out their rusted, bloated
Cars a bit of brush is leaping, green.
And they seem flabbergasted--
Snarling faces haggard, angry, lean.
Then I buzz down among their
Heads, which stink of hay and dung and sweat,
And dodge their grasping hands, slap
Back their fingers while I stress and fret.
Each finger, terrifying,
Every rusty car a saw-toothed maw,
Each bleating bark implying
That my hubcap has a deadly flaw.
Too late I realize that
They are right, that I am falling fast.
Before me looms more wreckage
Lined with gears, corroded nails and glass.
I'm shouting, shouting silent,
When I hit the wreck my hubcap flies,
And as I struggle up I
Turn my head to seek for where it lies.
It's lying not too far off
Covered thick with rust and creeping vines.
And looking at it closely
I can scarce believe it once was mine.
I'm torn, bereft and flightless.
I look to the sky and sadly see
Above, the shadows darting
Are now alien, a mystery.
Ahem, well. I think i might take a short hiatus from Friday Poetry. You know. I think you're all bored of it. i kind of am too.
have good weekends, all!
dan
friends:
the honorable d. prazer asked me to post this for you all. d. is a writer at the chillicothe gazette journal constitution star herald ledger tribune, so he gets the ap wire like a motherfucker. here's one fruit from that tree:
Three state universities to offer full benefits to same-sex partners
By CARRIE
SPENCER
Associated Press Writer
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - The manager of chemistry
labs at Miami University was suspicious when she read the e-mail that after 13
years of being turned down, she and other employees would be able to add their
same-sex partners to their health insurance and other benefits starting
Thursday. Now Amanda Whinery is a believer.
Miami and Ohio universities are the
first of the state's public four-year schools to offer health and dental
coverage, free tuition and other paid benefits to employees' partners. Cleveland
State University said it will soon follow.
The forms weren't ready yet at Miami
on Monday, so Whinery says she will return to the personnel office Thursday to
sign up her partner of 15 years, who has been uninsured for the past year.
"It
makes such a big impact on our household, financially and security wise,"
Whinery said. "It's equal pay for equal work."
Robert Glidden, who retires
Wednesday as president of Ohio University in Athens, announced the change at his
final board of trustees meeting. "We are doing this as a matter of fundamental
economic fairness," he said.
The benefits will help recruit and keep employees,
said James Garland, president of Oxford-based Miami.
"The university is not
weighing in on the issue of gay marriage and gay rights," he said. "It's
primarily a business decision."
Trustees at both schools passed resolutions
supporting the benefits even though no action was required.
Cleveland State has
clauses in three of its four union contracts requiring it to offer paid benefits
to same-sex domestic partners if any of the state's other public universities do
so. The benefits will be offered university-wide, said Joseph Nolan, vice
president of administration. Nolan plans to meet with the unions in about 10
days to negotiate details such as when the plan takes effect and how the
benefits will be taxed.
Other four-year universities and Ohio's two public
medical schools with partial or no benefits for domestic partners said they have
no immediate plans to change, but many are watching the policies of other
schools. The issue frequently comes up in contract negotiations at schools with
union-represented employees.
Kent State University has had meetings recently on
the topic. A faculty-staff committee at Bowling Green State University plans to
have a report by fall about whether the benefits should be offered.
"This is an
issue of competition with other universities and even private businesses," Kent
State spokesman Ron Kirksey said. "It looks like everybody is looking at this
now."
The Youngstown State University faculty contract expires next summer, the
first of four pacts to come up for negotiation, spokesman Ron Cole said.
"Certainly the decisions from the other universities are going to play a role in
that."
The state's nearly two-month-old ban on same-sex marriage does not affect
universities' employment benefits such as insurance, said Rep. Bill Seitz, the
Cincinnati Republican who wrote the law that took effect May 7. It applies to
specific privileges granted by law to married people, he said, such as refusing
to testify against a spouse in court, transferring pension benefits to a
surviving spouse or filing a joint tax return.
"What I think about their
decision is not important, because the bill does not preclude them from making
that decision," Seitz said Monday. Gov. Bob Taft and the Ohio Board of Regents
said the business decisions are up to individual employers.
The law ended years
of legal uncertainty about whether public universities could offer the benefits,
Garland said.
The new university benefits aren't identical to those of married
employees because the value must be taxed as income under federal law.
Administrators expect fewer than 20 employees to sign up at each school, adding
$50,000 to $100,000 yearly to insurance benefits that cost about $20 million at
Miami and about $30 million at Ohio.
Whinery, 48, gave birth to John two years
ago, and her partner, Kristen Jacobson, quit her job to care for him in their
Oxford home. John is covered on Whinery's policy, but the couple couldn't afford
more than one year of private insurance for Jacobson. For the past year,
vacations and outings have been planned around avoiding risks and exposure to
germs.
"We knew we couldn't afford an emergency room visit for her," Whinery
said.
Labels: gays, ohio
im training my kids and here is the proof:
next week we are learning about scotch guard bongs.
A Lickety Poll
So, the cancelation of the Lalapalooza Tour has cut greatly into my current job by making it obsolete. Therefore, a life-altering choice has been laid out in front of me. My options as they stand right now are
A. Move to Santa Barbara and keep working with the non-profit who I am with now in a customer service postion. This would put me closer to the school that I would really like to go to, but I may not love the position.
B. Work on getting a job in DC with the Human Rights Campaign doing work that I am almost certain I would love. Just getting this position would take a ton of work and is not nearly as certain as the above position.
C. Move to Chicago with the best friend and girl friend, but take my chances with unemployment and crap job possibilities.
What would you do?
Surprise! Thursday Afternoon Poetry!
Well, I will once again be abandoning my post tomorrow's morn, so I figured I'd have a go at some p.m. poetry on Thor's day.
Garbage Pail Vision
Gazing at the garbage pail
I flail but fail to see
It's shadows.
Wholeness kept
Of Secrets wept,
And faces painted pale.
Knuckles white and gripping fast
Aghast I grasped but miss
The Picture.
Light the dark,
Revealing spark
I cannot See, I'm blind!
Leaning further, further down
But frown, the sound was false!
There's something
In the can
A Hallowed plan
I'll penetrate the gloom.
Darkness dancing lithe and black
Fall back from lack can't See
The formless
Flashing eyes
With hooded lies
Alight in the Abyss.
Leaping emptiness will out
To shout and spout the bliss
Of garbage--
Stinking peels
And toy-truck wheels
Are spelling out my fate.
Eye won't open, won't reveal
To steal or heal my hope--
It festers.
Patience lost
Encased in frost
Of bitter lessons learned.
Staring still am I at trash
Wet ash, a mash of truth
To slimy
For to hold,
Unless so bold
Are you to rise and know.
Thursday poetry appears to be less zany and more weird.
dan
p.s. Not to rag on my man the Cold Cowboy...but why don't you slap that chump Nader around and get him to send Socks some Marveldog story to work with?
If you are not the Cold Cowboy but you have some idea of what the above statement means, please report to the Principal's office immediately.
the legend continues:
"Bill Brasky is the father of every kid in this town!"
"He did 3 tours in 'Nam...... I was in Corpus Christi on business a month ago. I had this eight foot tall Asian waiter, which made me curious. I asked him his name. Sure enough it's Ho Tran Brasky!"
"He did all the makeup on the 'Planet of the Apes' movie."
"He once ate the Bible while water skiing."
"They use Brasky's foreskin as a tarp when it rains at Yankee stadium."
"He wears a live rattlesnake as a condom."
"Darryl Hawkins has a summer home in Brasky's groin!"
