No doubt the loyal readers of my sidebar are familiar with my journal quote of the day. (This idea, by the way, seems to have been recently appropriated by a couple of other journalers. Sincerest form of flattery.) 

As a result of this feature, when I read people's journal entries, I find myself making mental notes of certain entries, so I can go back later and find an appropriate snippet of amusement or profundity. (I also based several of my diarist award nominations on the quotes of the day. So it's something to aspire to, for sure.)

Today, I made so many of those mental notes, that I decided to do an entry that consists purely of riffs off of other people's entries.  Is it te-riff-ic? Or merely de-riff-ative?  You decide.

I've been very insistent about doing this drive, never really seriously considered hiring movers and taking a plane. I've flown to California before. This is different, this is big, this is a long way that I'm going and I want to know how long it is. I want to see how long it is, watch it all go by.

Also, there's a lot of the country that I've never seen. I'm looking forward to it.

Susan is preparing for her own big move. Many of her entries resonate with me for one reason or another, but this one particularly so. 

I love the idea of driving across the country, and at one point when Marcy was moving here, I really was tempted to do it. (Of course if I had, she wouldn't have had to find someone else to go with her. That someone ended up being Matt, and the rest is history.) I can totally understand the desire to connect with the distance from Point A to Point B by driving it.

I look forward to many drives back and forth between San Francisco and Los Angeles. I now have a car that will make the drive back and forth, and I don't have to worry about the car falling apart halfway down the 101. And of course, driving back and forth will allow me to keep in touch with Matt, my family, and my friends.  I'll have something to look forward to on both ends of the excursion.

Sue also talks about losing her friends after she moves. Of course, that worries me, too. 

I know that some of my friendships will be unaltered. As it is, I don't see Katie that much, or Bruce, or Charlotte, and the friendships are fine. I get along better with Danielle the less that I see her. I know that my friends will visit me, and I'll visit them, and I don't anticipate losing anyone over this. I know I'll miss Tim and my sister like hell, but we'll adjust.

My only real worry is my relationship. It hurts to be without Matt. I suppose I'll have to adjust to life without him, but when we spend a week apart, I get gloomy and morose. I can't imagine how pathetic I'll be after weeks of separation. 

Even worse would be if we adjust so well that we don't miss each other at all. What if he likes the single life better? What if I revert back to my super-independent ways? I guess it's fruitless to speculate on how my relationship will change, but I know it will. It can't be predicted or quantified, but we will emerge two years down the road as a different couple.  Hopefully we'll be stronger. Hopefully I will end up with a diamond ring on my finger.  I can't say for certain, but I have a lot of faith.

The flip side of the coin is that I don't want to cling to the past, or to Los Angeles. 

Graduate school seems like a second chance. I get to go to college all over again, and not repeat the same mistakes I made when I got my B.A.  One of the main mistakes I made was shortchanging myself on the college experience. I don't have one friend that I made in college. Not one. I had friends back then, but I was never really invested in them. I was always coming home to be with my high school friends, and I really gave my college friendships short shrift. I really regret that, and I don't want to spend so much time fulfilling obligations to friends HERE, that I can't make any friends THERE.

It's my tangential friends that stand to suffer the most from this. Joan especially seems to be upset about my leaving. We see each other every day now, and she doesn't have that many friends. When I move, she's going to see me almost never. She doesn't even have an e-mail account that we can keep in touch through. So I should remember to extend myself a little in Joan's direction. 

And speaking of friends...

She not only was able to buy a ticket online that Saturday morning, but she bought one for me and is flying out for it. Yeah, that's Pamie. So she's coming out this weekend to take me to the big Weezer show.

Yes, I'm jealous of stee and Pamie.  (Or maybe I'm envious. Gotta get those two straight.) First of all, I passionately love Weezer and didn't get tickets. Secondly, I would love to meet Pamie and stee. But mostly, I'm jealous in general.

I wish sometimes that a journaler would meet another one and write an entry that says, "I met so-and-so, and she was a real bitch, and she has no fashion sense, and bizarre nose hair."  (Okay, I don't really want to see anyone's feelings get hurt, but you get my drift.) It's always, "Oh, I met so-and-so, and she was just the GREATEST, and now we talk on the phone, like, every single DAY, and we're flying to Vegas together to see Sigfried and ROY tomorrow and get DRUNK." 

I do have some great e-mail friendships with people, and if you are of those people, please don't misunderstand my regard for you. Plus I've met quite a few journalers in person, and you are all great too. (Except for the one with the nose hair. You know who you are.)  And I already have a best friend who I adore and who I don't spend enough time with. So what the hell am I complaining for?

Your entertainment, I guess.

It's Love Story meets Lolita, who in their right minds could consider missing that? I mean, I know that I, personally, just cannot get enough of the whole 'woman as a disposable tool to improve man' genre, really! I live for that kind of thing!

In fact, I want to see more movies where some wastrel of a guy symbolically ingests the life of a young girl, a modern anthrophage, to become a better man.

Saundra is so smart. Can you all sit back with me for a moment and revel in her smartness? Go ahead, read the entry. I'll wait. 

I saw this preview the other day and I thought it looked like a half-decent movie. Little did I realize the subliminal evil that it is perpetuating.  Anyway, I don't have too much to say about this except that her entry today is thought provoking and if I do see this movie, I will examine more closely what's really being said. 

Oh, and I can't wait to hear what my sister the film major has to say about it.

If you'd like to read how you can support the legislation banning elephants from travelling shows, or would just like to help support a group which acts as a watchdog, rescue operation, and wildlife refuge for mishandled performing animals, visit the PAWS (Performing Animals Welfare Society) website...

We treat these magnificent creatures like they owe us something. They don't.

Tamara and I apparently share a passionate disdain for circuses with performing animals. It's no secret that these animals are mistreated and abused (and worst of all, forced to interact with clowns) all in the name of cheap entertainment.

PAWS seems like a wonderful organization, and I thank Tamara for bringing it to my attention, because I intend to support it. Regardless of whether you do or don't, I'd like to encourage you to boycott circuses that force animals to perform. It's cruel and pointless-- take your kids to a play, or Cirque du Soleil, instead.

And while I'm on this soapbox, I'd also like to encourage you to vote for Al Gore this year.  Dick Cheney scares me even more than Dubya does, and that's saying something. Who on planet earth can rationalize guns that are designed to sneak past metal detectors? I hope Dick Cheney gets shot with one, I sincerely do. As for Gore, I don't care what anyone says, his "earth channel" with a live satellite picture of the earth is cool as hell. 

And unlike my boyfriend, I don't think it would be improved by adding porn music.

And so I watch Survivor with ... well, have another glass of wine, dearie.

Nancy's such a tease.

Last night's Survivor was fun. Unlike Nancy, I didn't have wine... I had Cosmopolitans (three). And, probably also unlike Nancy, by the time Big Brother was over, I was drunk off my ass. I really needed a night of debauchery and silliness and whoa, daddy. I sure got it. Mmm.

About Survivor though. It was actually surprising, who they voted off.  It was a great episode. The scene where they cut back and forth between the happy barbecue and the sad, sad rice eating, complete with mood music, was absolutely hilarious. It cracked me up to no end. And I almost cried when Jenna got her letter from home. 

(While on that subject, I read on the CBS site that they ended up getting her video from home after all, and she watched it immediately after she had been voted off. So that made me happy too. I can't imagine that she'd be allowed to see her kids at this point, since she has to stick around for the remaining tribal councils. I hope nobody voted her off because they thought she'd be able to see her "beauties" right away.) 

My new theory is that the next three castaways are going to get voted off in Sean's inane alphabet order. For the past two weeks, he's been oblivious to the fact that his vote has been the deciding one. I wonder if he will catch on that his alphabet "strategy" is being exploited by everyone else in the game. Probably not.

There's a discussion over at MBTV over whether Sean is a genius, or catastrophically stupid. It's been proven that his strategy is actually serving him very well, and he almost couldn't have planned it better. But I'd have to go with stupid anyway. 

If he was really smart, he would have gone back in the alphabet and targeted Gervase. I guarantee you that the Unholy Alliance knew he was voting for Jenna, and grabbed onto his vote. They would have done the same thing if he had targeted Gervase. 

And besides the fact that I like Jenna and don't like Gervase, it's Gervase who poses the bigger threat to Sean. If Gervase was eliminated, that would make Sean, physically, the strongest out of anybody. (Mentally, he's still rain man.) Obviously, he's not thinking in terms of competition. He's just blithely wandering up and down the beaches, shaving his chest, twirling his nipple ring, and trying to remember how the alphabet goes.

Idiot Seanvant indeed. 

Of course I felt fear and compassion for her, but I couldn't help reflecting on the irony that she was sitting there, talking about cancer, while sucking down as many cigarettes as possible before her cutoff time of midnight.