on racism

Is it possible to be racist against your own race?

First of all, I'm sometimes not even sure what people mean by racism. Does it mean you inherently dislike people of a specific race? Does it mean you make sweeping generalities about a particular group of people? Does it mean you judge people by what they look like before getting to know them? Sometimes I feel like I'm being racist if I even mention what someone's race is.

Well, I don't know what racism is really. All I know is that I don't like white people.

I've made this discovery gradulally over the course of this last year that I've been living in Columbus. (I know it is unfair, but there really wasn't a very diverse population in the area I lived in Utah.) Of course I am going to make a sweeping generality in this next statement, but lately it seems to me that the white people I've met and interacted with have been impersonal and sometimes just downright mean. They don't smile at me at work and they don't seem to be willing to help me in shops and what not.

Perhaps this is just on my mind because I didn't have good experiences with white people today. My team leader kind of yelled at me. And another guy just couldn't understand why I didn't want to go out with him. And andother coworker was just short and unhelpful when I asked her questions.

On the other hand, Friendly Indian Guy at work gave me an apple just because I told him I liked them. And the black guy at the library called me adorable when I asked him a question. An my Taiwanese friend emailed me to tell me congratulations on my marathon. Why can't the whitey's be this nice?

In conclusion, I'm taking Lady MacBeth's idea and ending with a picture. (Warning: mild swearing ahead.)

i've made a terrible mistake

This weekend, I travelled down to Nashville with my aunt, cousin and sister to run in the marathon they have there. When I signed up for the race about 7 months ago, I thought there was plenty of time to train for it. When last week rolled around and I had done zero training for it, I decided I could probably still do the half marathon. I mean, after all, I am a Neeley and that comes with a certain amount of natural athleticism (despite what you may think by looking at me).

So, the four of us go and pick up our race numbers the night before the race. The marathon race numbers are black, while the half marathoners are red. I asked the lady who gave me my number if I could switch to the half and she said sure - I just had to split off with the halfers at the appropriate place, no problem. So, that was my plan. My sister was doing the half and my aunt and cousin were doing the full. We talked about it, and aunt and cousin were confident that I could, in fact, do the full. I decided to see how I felt at the end of the half and perhaps go on.

The race starts and I did feel pretty good during the half. I'm slow, but I know that. I walked about a half mile of it, but that was all. So, when the split came, I decided I could, in fact complete the full. After about 15 miles I realized I was an idiot. If I didn't even train for the half marathon, how could I think to complete a full 26.2 miles? I mean, there's being confident and then there's being a damn fool. Of course now there are only two options: finish or ask an ambulence for a lift back in. And you know I'm too stubborn for that. So, I finished. Around mile 18 my body decided there was no more running in it. I hobbled the last 8 miles in, going slower and slower, each mile getting farther and farther apart. I thought I would be walking for the rest of my life. Finally, I reached the end - one of the last finishers. I actually started crying a little when I saw the finish line. But I did it. I got my medal.

I just want to say - it was a hard course. It was so hilly! I always felt like I was going uphill. And it was so bloody hot. Even the guy who won was projected to come in at 2:15 and didn't come in until 2:34. Oh, and also someone had a heart attack. So, I feel like a champion for even completing. Just don't ask me to move at all this week.

new job

Hey friends. I'm too tired to come up with anything clever to say today. I just want to say I got a new job. Hooray! The new job is a contract job with the state of Ohio department of Legislative Information Systems. Basically I'll be writing software for the Ohio legislature. I gave my notice yesterday. I honestly thought my boss was going to cry for a second. Not because he'll miss me, but because of what my leaving will do to his timeline. I felt really guilty yesterday, but today I started telling my coworkers and the response I got most was, "Congratulations and please take me with you." So I feel less badly today. Mostly I'm excited to start something new. My last day at this place is May 8th and then I'll be starting my new one May 11th.

And that's all I've got - suck it, monkeys!

yo ho!

Before you ask, yes I have heard about the captain of the ship who was recently captured by pirates. (And subsequently rescued.) I don't live in a cave, after all. (Or on a pirate ship, but even then, I think I'd have some kind of access to the news.) Lady MacBeth told me that perhaps I should rethink my love of pirates based on some of the recent news stories of Somali pirates, et.al. Instead of doing that, I will tell some pirate jokes.

Have you seen the new pirate movie? It's rated aaaaaaaaaaaaarrrr!

What's a pirate's favorite letter? You might think it's aaaaaarr, but it's not. It's P. It's like aaaaaaaaaaaaarrr, but it's missing a leg.

Deep Thoughs:
I bet treasure chests without handles really annoyed pirates because how the hell am I supposed to carry this thing?

If they ever have a swashbucking school, I hope one of the classes is Laughing And Then Jumping Off Something.

Pirates sailed around the world looking for buried treasure, but what they didn't realize is that the real treasure was the fond memories they were creating.

This is a pretty good video if you want to learn how to talk like a pirate:

how to talk like a pirate

A few months ago, I dreamed I was a pirate captain. Despite what you may think, I don't actually have dreams like this very often. In my dream I was sailing around the brightly colored Caribbean looking for ships to attack, when all of a sudden I thought: I am a Mormon; I probably shouldn't be killing people. I thought maybe I could get away with just stealing and not actually killing anyone, but then I thought that stealing wouldn't be considered being honest with my fellow beings. In an effort to suppliment our piratical income, I organized a bake sale. The point of this story is this: perhaps someone should mention this solution to the Somali pirates. I mean, who doesn't love a good cupcake?

And finally, I leave you with ... the janitor.........

janitor!

many meetings

(Get it? It's a reference to The Lord of the Rings....)

At my current job I have to attend quite a few meetings. Some of the meetings are very useful with valuable information. Some are not as useful. But I almost always go to everything they tell me to. Except once I accidently moved my calendar to the wrong day and consequently missed all my afternoon meetings, but I got a lot of work done that day.

Today I was scheduled for ten and a half hours of meetings. I don't actually work ten and a half hours a day. Some of my meetings were overlapping, so I had to pick and choose which meetings to go to. I've never been scheduled to go to that many meetings before. It was crazy - just one meeting after another.

In order to keep from going crazy in my meetings I sometimes have to do things to entertain myself. Besides the usual doodling and daydreaming, I have other activities to occupy my mind during these meetings. Today I actually started singing out loud on accident. I got a very strange look from the guy next to me. I knew it was time to engage my Alternate Meeting Activites.

The first of these that I have is to divide everyone into teams in my head and then see who would win in a rumble. Like I pit all the people with glasses against the non-glasses. Or those with drinks against those without drinks. Married vs. Single. Talkers vs. Non-talkers. Bad hair cuts vs. good. Once I have the groupings, I see who is on which team and I decide which team would win. Then I redo the groupings and go again.

Another activity (being the silly girl that I am) is to match everyone up in the room. I look around and see who would make a cute couple and I hook them up in my head. Sometimes people get left out because there are rarely an even number of men and women in the room, and so then I have to decide who gets a companion and who remains a lonely heart.

Along the same vein, I sometimes rank the men in the room in the order in which I would go out with them, 1 being he's the first guy in the room I would go out with. Depending on who is in the meeting, sometimes certain girls beat certain boys in this category. I don't stop my rankings there, though. I will rank people on who I like to talk to, who is most likely to quit first, the order in which I want to punch you in the face, etc. These rankings are gender neutral . I also will do physical characteristics like tallest to shortest, fattest to skinniest, oldest to youngest, darkest to lightest.

The downside to these activities is that usually I'm looking around the room constantly in order to form my teams or gauge people's weight. Usually if your head is moving around that much, people notice, so I have to be a little careful and observe covertly.

I have a few more mental activities, but this post is already getting long and I've already started thinking about which one of you would be able to beat me in a fight, so I think I'll end here.

a short and merry life

In case you didn't know, "a short and merry life" was the motto of the famous pirate Black Bart or Bartholomew Roberts. He was the most prolific pirate of all time. His career as a pirate lasted about three years, in which time he captures about 300 ships. (In comparison, Blackbeard was active six years and captured about 30 ships.) Black Bart knew that being a pirate was hazardous, which is why he adapted that motto - he knew his life would be short (it was) but he wanted it to be merry.