So far so good. I'm still alive and so are the people around me. I must say, the patch is a wondrous tool. I have only used the gum once today. Not that I was a chain smoker or anything but I think that says something about the patch.
I am (was) a car/coffee smoker. As my job requires me to drive around all day, I feel pretty darn proud of my self. Don't get me wrong though..I have had stomach pains and a terrible headache all night.
Also either my husband hasn't noticed or has decided not to say anything about my quitting. I figure that maybe he will say something after a week or so. Maybe when he feels like I am actually doing it.
Funny thing..I could smoke all day and just not at home and he'd never be the wiser. But I'd know and I'm not cheating myself out of this one!
So day 2 down...on to day 3.
oh! and I got all of my money back from Apple..
Friday, July 2, 2010
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Foreclosure Pets
Economy and pets
Dogs are known as mans best friend. But what happens to this best friend when the man loses his job and is looking at foreclosure? The dog is no longer viewed as an asset to the humans’ way of life. Desperate humans don't look at a pet as living, breathing creature incapable of fending for it self. They see a pet as property, no different than a worn sweater with holes thrown into the garbage for others to take away. Recently there have been reports of animal cruelty where owners who are in foreclosure move out of the home and leave their pet behind. Pets who are the casualty of foreclosures are often left indoors, without food, water or the comforts of a temperature-controlled environment. Experts say a dog will become dehydrated within 24 hours without water and could die in extreme heat within a few days. Like humans, dogs and cats can go for a long time without food but will quickly die without water.
What are the causes of such cruelty and how can we as a society help this growing problem?
Works Cited
Grier, Katherine C. Pets in America a history. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2006. Print.
Hirshey, Gerri. "In Animal Shelters, Reminders of the Economy." The New York Times. The New York Times Company, 11 May 2008. Web. 03 June 2009..
M., Allen. Kindred Spirits How the Remarkable Bond Between Humans and Animals Can Change the Way We Live. New York: Broadway, 2001. Print.
Dogs are known as mans best friend. But what happens to this best friend when the man loses his job and is looking at foreclosure? The dog is no longer viewed as an asset to the humans’ way of life. Desperate humans don't look at a pet as living, breathing creature incapable of fending for it self. They see a pet as property, no different than a worn sweater with holes thrown into the garbage for others to take away. Recently there have been reports of animal cruelty where owners who are in foreclosure move out of the home and leave their pet behind. Pets who are the casualty of foreclosures are often left indoors, without food, water or the comforts of a temperature-controlled environment. Experts say a dog will become dehydrated within 24 hours without water and could die in extreme heat within a few days. Like humans, dogs and cats can go for a long time without food but will quickly die without water.
What are the causes of such cruelty and how can we as a society help this growing problem?
Works Cited
Grier, Katherine C. Pets in America a history. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2006. Print.
Hirshey, Gerri. "In Animal Shelters, Reminders of the Economy." The New York Times. The New York Times Company, 11 May 2008. Web. 03 June 2009.
M., Allen. Kindred Spirits How the Remarkable Bond Between Humans and Animals Can Change the Way We Live. New York: Broadway, 2001. Print.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Yellow Tassel
As I sit and ponder my life and what’s to come, my fingers separate each nylon string. Yellow strings all tied neatly together by a silver ring, each one delicately woven to mark a special occasion.
As I separate the strings by two, I think of what has happened. How many years I have spent working towards this day? I hear in my mind all of these voices and all of the words. I’m no superman. I don’t have all of the answers. I have all of the same questions about where I’m going and what I’m going to do from this point on. What does this mean? The mark of the end of an era? The start of a new day? A new beginning? A new me? What are the expectations? I hear in my mind all of these voices telling me what I’m supposed to do and what is expected from others.
32 strings counted….looks about half of the strings. Half. Halfway. Am I half way there? Where is there? Should I know all of the answers now or only half of the answers?
Am I going to disappoint some or all by my decisions or am I going to disappoint myself in the end?
Today marks a significant day in my life and the lives of those who have been struggling by my side. We are to rejoice in knowing that we have accomplished something and look towards the future. My chest tightens and my breathing quickens when I think that this is it. This is supposed to be my day to shine, yet I still have no answers to the questions that lie before me. I should be elated and join in the celebration outside the door but my fear takes hold of me.
I finish counting the 64 strings of yellow colored nylon secured with the silver ring and smile. This yellow nylon tassel with the numbers 08 marks my passage into the next chapter of my life. I take a deep breath, stand and walk towards the future.
As I separate the strings by two, I think of what has happened. How many years I have spent working towards this day? I hear in my mind all of these voices and all of the words. I’m no superman. I don’t have all of the answers. I have all of the same questions about where I’m going and what I’m going to do from this point on. What does this mean? The mark of the end of an era? The start of a new day? A new beginning? A new me? What are the expectations? I hear in my mind all of these voices telling me what I’m supposed to do and what is expected from others.
32 strings counted….looks about half of the strings. Half. Halfway. Am I half way there? Where is there? Should I know all of the answers now or only half of the answers?
Am I going to disappoint some or all by my decisions or am I going to disappoint myself in the end?
Today marks a significant day in my life and the lives of those who have been struggling by my side. We are to rejoice in knowing that we have accomplished something and look towards the future. My chest tightens and my breathing quickens when I think that this is it. This is supposed to be my day to shine, yet I still have no answers to the questions that lie before me. I should be elated and join in the celebration outside the door but my fear takes hold of me.
I finish counting the 64 strings of yellow colored nylon secured with the silver ring and smile. This yellow nylon tassel with the numbers 08 marks my passage into the next chapter of my life. I take a deep breath, stand and walk towards the future.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Framing Reality
Framing Reality
I watched a video titled “Warlord” by David Garrett. In this video there was a lot of symbolism. The beginning shows images of a fire and you hear a man speaking in what I believe was Native American. Then the film opens to a scene where a boy is sitting at a dining room table. The narrator is speaking and I could only assume that the narrator was the boy. He speaks badly of his mother and the food he is given. Then the scene focuses on the dog, which the narrator speaks of highly, in a sort of “God like” position. The mother drinks through the entire film and the boy seems to not like the way of the world. He sees the TV as blinking lights that made the other children dumb. He was given pills for behavior issues that he threw up and saved. He crushed these pills and put them in his mother’s alcohol. The timeline is by the moon. He runs into the forest after proclaiming that he wouldn’t follow the ways in which people lived. Many followed in him by the end of the film.
Symbolism: Going against the economic system. The pharmaceutical system in drugging the children. Treating the dog as a God. There are no men or fathers in this film only mothers.
I watched a video titled “Warlord” by David Garrett. In this video there was a lot of symbolism. The beginning shows images of a fire and you hear a man speaking in what I believe was Native American. Then the film opens to a scene where a boy is sitting at a dining room table. The narrator is speaking and I could only assume that the narrator was the boy. He speaks badly of his mother and the food he is given. Then the scene focuses on the dog, which the narrator speaks of highly, in a sort of “God like” position. The mother drinks through the entire film and the boy seems to not like the way of the world. He sees the TV as blinking lights that made the other children dumb. He was given pills for behavior issues that he threw up and saved. He crushed these pills and put them in his mother’s alcohol. The timeline is by the moon. He runs into the forest after proclaiming that he wouldn’t follow the ways in which people lived. Many followed in him by the end of the film.
Symbolism: Going against the economic system. The pharmaceutical system in drugging the children. Treating the dog as a God. There are no men or fathers in this film only mothers.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
First draft of 2nd paper
The Golden Age of Hollywood produced legendary movie stars such as Humphrey Bogart, Jimmy Cagney, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Clark Gable, Katharine Hepburn, and Jimmy Stewart. The glitz and glamour of being part of such an elite group did not go unnoticed by up and comers in the film industry such as Cary Grant. But to achieve this status, the personal life of actors had to be hidden from the public. During the era between the Great Depression and World War II, the persona of male film stars was in part an illusion created by Hollywood film makers, studio heads and sometimes the actors themselves. Which has been the norm ever since. Film idols such as Rock Hudson, Montgomery Clift, Richard Chamberlain and James Dean were seen as Hollywood sex symbols where as in fact they were struggling with their own sexual identities.
Archibald Leach was born on January 18, 1904 in Great Britain. After years of theater work and side jobs Archie arrived in Hollywood the first week of January 1932. Paramount was looking for a leading man to fill the void of the untimely death of Rudolph Valentino. Archie Leach signed a five-year exclusive-services contract with Paramount Publix in February 1932 and by way of a name change Cary Grant was born.
Although Cary Grant’s cinematic career spanned more than thirty-five years and seventy-two movies, the years that he spent living with Randolph Scott remains a mystery.
Scott came to live with Grant as She Done Him Wrong began filming. They lived on West Live Oak Drive in the house nicknamed “Bachelor Hall”. Although reports of women frequenting the house were made, the rumors about Grants sexual preference generated by competing movie studios and studio-controlled gossip columnists became difficult for the public and Paramount studio to ignore. Actors’ living together in Hollywood was considered normal at this time to save on expenses. But Scott came from a wealthy family in Virginia who made their fortune in the textile industry.
During the filming of She Done Him Wrong Cary Grant met and started dating Virginia Cherrill. Although the relationship was good for the public image, it was a rocky one behind closed doors. Scott was jealous of Cherrill and during the making of Gambling Ship Scott bought Grant a house on Santa Monica beach. This house would be a place where they could get away from Hollywood and in Scotts’ mind, away from Cherrill. This lavish gift did not stop Grants love affair with Cherrill and they married on February 9, 1934. Although their marriage only lasted a little over a year, during their honeymoon “Grant told Cherrill stories about the games boys from England played with one another, the measuring of their penises to see who had the biggest, the “circle jerks,” the rubbing up against one another at night for comfort-all the things, he said with a half-smile, that go on in boys’ dormitories all over England, from Eton to Oxford. As she would tell friends and acquaintances later on and note in her diaries, it was the closest Grant ever came to admitting to her that he was bisexual.”(Eliot, 106)
Archibald Leach was born on January 18, 1904 in Great Britain. After years of theater work and side jobs Archie arrived in Hollywood the first week of January 1932. Paramount was looking for a leading man to fill the void of the untimely death of Rudolph Valentino. Archie Leach signed a five-year exclusive-services contract with Paramount Publix in February 1932 and by way of a name change Cary Grant was born.
Although Cary Grant’s cinematic career spanned more than thirty-five years and seventy-two movies, the years that he spent living with Randolph Scott remains a mystery.
Scott came to live with Grant as She Done Him Wrong began filming. They lived on West Live Oak Drive in the house nicknamed “Bachelor Hall”. Although reports of women frequenting the house were made, the rumors about Grants sexual preference generated by competing movie studios and studio-controlled gossip columnists became difficult for the public and Paramount studio to ignore. Actors’ living together in Hollywood was considered normal at this time to save on expenses. But Scott came from a wealthy family in Virginia who made their fortune in the textile industry.
During the filming of She Done Him Wrong Cary Grant met and started dating Virginia Cherrill. Although the relationship was good for the public image, it was a rocky one behind closed doors. Scott was jealous of Cherrill and during the making of Gambling Ship Scott bought Grant a house on Santa Monica beach. This house would be a place where they could get away from Hollywood and in Scotts’ mind, away from Cherrill. This lavish gift did not stop Grants love affair with Cherrill and they married on February 9, 1934. Although their marriage only lasted a little over a year, during their honeymoon “Grant told Cherrill stories about the games boys from England played with one another, the measuring of their penises to see who had the biggest, the “circle jerks,” the rubbing up against one another at night for comfort-all the things, he said with a half-smile, that go on in boys’ dormitories all over England, from Eton to Oxford. As she would tell friends and acquaintances later on and note in her diaries, it was the closest Grant ever came to admitting to her that he was bisexual.”(Eliot, 106)
Grant and Scott at “Bachelor Hall”In 1936 Scott married Marion duPont Somerville from Virginia. Somerville detested Hollywood which was in fact perfect for Scott because he could live in Hollywood with Grant while filming but would take vacations to Virginia to see his wife. Not to mention the elation of the film studios to their “gossip problem”. Scott and Grant still lived together at the house in Malibu and were often seen at parties and movie openings. Scott’s marriage to Somerville ended in 1939.
Cary Grant and Randolph Scotts’ love affair ended in 1939. Scott called Grant and they met for dinner at the Brown Derby to discuss their relationship. After long hours of laughing, crying and hugging they agreed to part ways but promised to remain friends forever. Ironically their friendship lasted only a week when the battle of the Santa Monica beach house started. The agreement when Scott bought the house was that if either of them were to marry, the other would have to buy out the other. Grant having married first would have had to move out. But Grant refused and threatened Scott with legal action. Scott fearing his career would be over did not want to go to court. Scott moved out and gave the house to Cary.
Another film star who came on the scene at the end of the Golden Age was Montgomery Clift. Monty, as his friends would call him, started in the theater at a young age. He became a big name on Broadway and in 1946 went to Hollywood. There are many different accounts to when Monty’s homosexuality started.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Paper 2- the beginning
For this class we are writing about culture. I have chosen the topic of the film industry from the 1930s through the 1960s and homosexuality.
During the Golden Age of Hollywood, the mass adoration of male film idols was in part an illusion created by Hollywood film makers, studio heads and sometimes the actors themselves. In this paper I hope to dive deep inside of the world of such icons to reveal their true sexual identities. Film idols such as Cary Grant, Rock Hudson, Montgomery Clift, Richard Chamberlain and James Dean were seen as Hollywood sex symbols where as in fact they were struggling with their own sexual identities.
Five for Hollywood by Parker John tells the story of Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean, Rock Hudson Natalie Wood and Montgomery Clift. Their friendship, fame and tragedies are all documented in this book.
Cary Grant A Biography by Marc Eliot tells the story and intimate details of Cary Grants life including marriages, movies, family life and his bisexuality.
Shattered love a memoir by Richard Chamberlain is a memoir by the actor that reveals his true self from public persona, including his sexual orientation.
James Dean little boy lost by Joe Hyams and James Dean the mutant king : a biography by David Dalton are two biographies on James Dean. These books chronicle James Deans life and give fascinating insight to his public and personal life.
Monty a biography of Montgomery Clift by Robert LaGuardia gives a biography of Montgomery Clifts life and tragic end.
The audience that I am writing to is general, anyone interested in the famous and Hollywood glamour.
During the Golden Age of Hollywood, the mass adoration of male film idols was in part an illusion created by Hollywood film makers, studio heads and sometimes the actors themselves. In this paper I hope to dive deep inside of the world of such icons to reveal their true sexual identities. Film idols such as Cary Grant, Rock Hudson, Montgomery Clift, Richard Chamberlain and James Dean were seen as Hollywood sex symbols where as in fact they were struggling with their own sexual identities.
Works Cited
Chamberlain, Richard. Shattered Love a Memoir. New York: Regan Books/HarperCollins, 2003
Dalton, David. James Dean the Mutant King: A Biography. Chicago, IL: A Cappella, 2001.
Eliot, Marc. Cary Grant: A Biography. New York: Three Rivers P, 2005.
Hyams, Joe. James Dean: Little Boy Lost. New York: Warner Books, 1992.
LaGuardia, Robert. Monty: a Biography of Montgomery Clift. New York: Arbor House, 1977.
Parker, John. Five for Hollywood. Secaucus, NJ: Carol Pub. Group, 1991.
Five for Hollywood by Parker John tells the story of Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean, Rock Hudson Natalie Wood and Montgomery Clift. Their friendship, fame and tragedies are all documented in this book.
Cary Grant A Biography by Marc Eliot tells the story and intimate details of Cary Grants life including marriages, movies, family life and his bisexuality.
Shattered love a memoir by Richard Chamberlain is a memoir by the actor that reveals his true self from public persona, including his sexual orientation.
James Dean little boy lost by Joe Hyams and James Dean the mutant king : a biography by David Dalton are two biographies on James Dean. These books chronicle James Deans life and give fascinating insight to his public and personal life.
Monty a biography of Montgomery Clift by Robert LaGuardia gives a biography of Montgomery Clifts life and tragic end.
The audience that I am writing to is general, anyone interested in the famous and Hollywood glamour.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Assignment 4
Culture.
I would like to write about the film industry from the 1920s through the 1960s and the homosexuality stigma. I have been reading a biography on Cary Grant and found to my surprise that he was bisexual. The film industry and actors hid their sexuality from society to keep their image of the masculine leading man. I did research last night and found many more actors who were in fact gay or bisexual and were either outed by others or themselves years later. Some of these actors include Montgomery Clift, Rock Hudson, George Chamberlin, Ian McKellen, Eroll Flynn and James Dean.
I would like to write about the film industry from the 1920s through the 1960s and the homosexuality stigma. I have been reading a biography on Cary Grant and found to my surprise that he was bisexual. The film industry and actors hid their sexuality from society to keep their image of the masculine leading man. I did research last night and found many more actors who were in fact gay or bisexual and were either outed by others or themselves years later. Some of these actors include Montgomery Clift, Rock Hudson, George Chamberlin, Ian McKellen, Eroll Flynn and James Dean.
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