Guys, I think I’m still on break from Xanga for awhile but I did want to let you all know what I’ve been up to during my longest Xanga break ever.

- Working a lot, a lot, a lot. Pure exhaustion is a lot of the reason that I’ve been on a Xanga break
- I’ve been gone a lot during the weekends doing some things, some not so fun things!
- I’ve been doing a lot of work over at my book blog, A Bookish Affair. It’s going well and I’ve begun to get books offered to me to read. I’ve even done a few author interviews. I also set up a Facebook fan page for my blog that I’d love for you to like.

I miss a lot of you and I will be back. I got really annoyed with a lot of the drama that was going on when I left. I thought I was ready to come back until I heard through other means about something really horrible that happened to someone I really care for and respect on Xanga and decided that I wasn’t quite ready to come back yet. I do plan on coming back but I just feel like I still need to re-examine in what capacity I should be here in.

Tell me something good (or bad if you’d like). How are you? What are you doing? If it’s too long for a comment, send me a message. I’d love to hear from you!

I first read Three Cups of Tea several years ago. If you aren’t familiar with this book or the author, Greg Mortenson, basically the book tells the story of Mortenson visiting a mountainous region of Pakistan after a failed attempt at climbing K2. He is essentially taken in by some villagers and falls in love with the area, determined to do something to help them. He sets up schools, which kind of takes on a life of its own.  I was really touched by the story and thought that it was wonderful, a sort of educational micro-finance and by micro-finance, I mean foreign aid of sorts given by a private citizen, organization, or company to another specific group.

Now there is controversy over whether Mortenson really told the truth about some of his adventures in the book after a damning 60 Minutes report. Mortenson is now accused of lying about when he visited the town that he initially set up the school in and about being held by the Taliban. On top of this, there have also been questions on the funding and handling of money given to Mortenson’s organization, the “Central Asia Institute.”

The idea behind Three Cups of Tea is a really cool one but I’m wondering if the potential lies might not take away from some of the story. I’m really struggling with this. Personally I believe that acts of micro finance can do a lot of good on a small, local level. Often times, I think it’s easy for foreign aid given to governments to be misused or just to not get to the people who could really use aid. Micro finance allows for the support of a specific group, project, or sector at a more direct level. In all facets of life, I’d rather hear the truth no matter how bad/boring/indifferent/ugly/ [insert other world with negative connotation] it may be. Pretty lies don’t do anything for me.

So I have two questions for you:

-  How important is integrity if your point is still really good?

- Is there ever a need to embellish the truth?

The Architect is away this weekend at a bachelor’s party for one of our dear friends, who is getting married next month. I have nothing planned until noon tomorrow. Tonight, I plan to open a bottle of wine and watch some girlie tv shows or movies. I also have a stack of magazines calling my name. I have Cosmo, People, The Economist (hah, one of these things is not like the others).

Now I do love the Architect a lot and I love when he’s home with me but it’ll be sort of nice to catch up on all of the bazillions of Royal Wedding shows that I’ve been recording without my dearest husband poking fun at my not-so-intellectual tv choices.

I’m all about having a slow Friday night every once in awhile!!!

What are you doing tonight?

Last night, our mayor and several of our city council members were arrested just outside some of the Congress buildings! Oh brother…

So what were they arrested for?  They were arrested for unlawful assembly, which carries a paltry fine of $50, which is so not worth getting arrested for.  The mayor and the council members had been protesting some of the lovely policy riders of the new budget agreement that Congress is working on this week. Basically the policy riders allow Congress to meddle in DC’s money and how it chooses to spend said money. Some of the things included in the riders are the school voucher program, the needle exchange program, and city-funded abortions. If DC were a state, Congress would not be able to dictate what the city can spend its money on. Alas, DC does not have statehood.

Living in the DC-MD-VA area for most of my life, I’ve always been aware of DC and the issues surrounding the lack of statehood. Moving to the District has made me acutely aware of what issues not having statehood brings. If a government shutdown had happened this week, many of the District’s services would have been closed. No DMV. No trash pickup. No library. It would have sucked big time.

I don’t really understand what the big deal about DC becoming the 51^st state would be besides the fact that we would no longer be a pawn for Congress… it’s so frustrating.

Even if the mayor and his compadres didn’t exactly get arrested for defending DC rights, they obviously feel strongly about the issue. It got me to thinking about whether or not I could think of something, some issue that I would be willing to get arrested for. I can’t really think of anything that I would risk being arrested for. I don’t know what that really says but what say you?

What would you be willing to get arrested for?

The street I grew up on had a lot of girls on it. A few of those girls had brothers and they always wanted to play with us girls since there were more of us anyway. Being the industrious (okay, sort of mean but in a goofy way) kind of girls we were, we made sure that we got to dictate the rules if the boys wanted to play with us. Usually these rules involved either being the baby or the puppy if we played house and fetching us things.

There was one particular family that we played with a lot. They had a daughter whose age fell in between me and my next sister’s age and a son whose age fell between my sisters. He always wanted to play with us and he was sort of a push over so we knew we could get away with a lot when developing our rules of play. One of our favorite things to do was to dress him up like a girl (wig and all). He’d even let us paint his fingernails. He was just so desperate to play with us and he was a really good sport.

Fast forward about 15 to 20 years: He’s now a huge football player type and married and just about as masculine as they come (not that it wouldn’t be fine by me if he was not). I’m quite doubtful that us girls dressing him up affected him in any way or made him re-think gender roles. And we dressed him up quite a bit.

I think nature is more powerful than nurture many times. Of course, there are some cases where nurture takes over but nature is what it is.

There’s been some debate over a J.Crew ad that features a mom painting her young son’s toenails hot pink. There are some people who believe that the ad is promoting transgender-ism or the revoke of gender roles. I think it’s pretty nuts; pink toenail polish does not have the power to change a child from who they were originally destined to become.

What say you?

It gets to the point sooner or later where you need something more out of a relationship. I haven’t been getting that lately but I understand, or at least I think I do. I fully believe every relationship needs to give each partner enough room to sort of spread their wings (if you will).

Full Disclosure: I don’t know how to say this really but I feel like I can be honest with you Xanga. We’ve been through a lot together and I think you’ll understand where I’m coming from. Hopefully you will….

I’ve been cheating…

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I saw these questions being passed around and I couldn’t resist!

A. Age: 25

B. Bed size: King and it is wonderful!

C. Chore you hate: I don’t like putting dishes in the dishwasher because the dirty-ness freaks me out a bit.

D. Dogs: I really want a dog or two someday. All I know is that I will definitely be getting them from a pound rather than a breeder.

E. Essential start to your day: I am not my usual vision of loveliness until I have some caffeine and breakfast (usually oatmeal).

F. Favorite color: Always blue.

G. Gold or silver: Silver.

H. Height: I am 5′ 5″ and a half but I round it to 5’6″

I. Instruments: I played piano and flute when I was younger. Loved piano, hated flute

J. Job title: Purveyor of awesome

K. Kids: Someday but not for a few years.

L. Live: DC, of course.

M. Mom’s name: I usually call her Mom.

N. Nicknames: Meg, Mim, Nim, Meggles, Kitteh

O. Overnight hospital stays: Not since I was born.

P. Pet peeve: Inefficiency, tourists

Q. Quote from a movie: Hrm, I can’t think of one right now.

R. Right or left handed: Right

S. Siblings:  2 sisters.

T. Time you wake up: 5:45am during the week. The early birdie catches the worm.

U. Underwear: Yes

V. Vegetables you dislike: Brussel sprouts

W. What makes you run late: My hair usually.

X. X-rays you’ve had: I’ve probably only had a x-ray on my teeth but I’ve had many MRIs and CTscans.

Y. Yummy food you make: Cookies!

Z. Zoo- favorite animal: Pandas and big cats.

I don’t have that much to say this week. DC has been rife with nerves (which has inevitably rubbed off on me) and if you watch the news at all you know why. If the government shutdown happens, our lives in the District may be seriously disrupted. The city’s funding is all sorts of tied up in Congress.

Here are just a few city services that may be affected:
- Libraries will be shut during the shutdown
- The DMV may be shut as well
- While Metro will not be closed, they are planning to run less and shorter trains
- Parking will not be enforced
- Smithsonian museums and the zoo will be closed
- Trash won’t be picked up (major ick)

It’s so frustrating that Congress would put ideology over keeping some of the federal city’s basic services running. Not having representation basically sucks. I’m really hoping that even if there is a shutdown that Congress will at least have the decency to give the city a little money to keep things like trash pick-up running.

On top of the service issue, this area is going to take a huge hit financially. DC thrives on tourism and so many tourists come to see things like the Smithsonian museums and our memorials. The tourists aren’t going to be shopping here or eating in our restaurants… sigh.

Here’s to hoping that something gets turned around soon…

I got back from my New Orleans trip yesterday morning. All in all it was a great trip with a few high- and low- lights.

Lowlights:

- B got her purse stolen the second night we were there. Luckily she had scaled down her bag to go out so only her id, credit card, phone and about $40 in cash got stolen. It sucked but it could have been worse if her whole wallet got stolen.

- Because her id got stolen, we had to go through a lot with TSA to get her back home yesterday. She got to go through one of the infamous rub… er… pat downs. B told the agent that it was the most action she had gotten the entire trip (maybe this is actually a highlight).

- We came back to horridly cold weather in DC. The temperature in New Orleans was in the 80s everyday that we were there.

Highlights:

- We ate a ton of good food. We had beignets, chicory coffee, po boys, shrimp creole, fried chicken, gumbo, jambalaya, bread pudding and red beans and rice. It was wonderful!

- We did a lot of shopping. I bought some cool new jewelry for myself!

- We visited the Garden District. If I had to live New Orleans, I would live in that neighborhood. The houses were so grand and the gardens were gorgeous and so lush, a welcome sight for us as our home is still struggling through the end of winter.

- We got to ride streetcars! As I’ve said before, I love public transportation so I was very excited about the streetcars. They’re a little bumpy and kind of slow but it was very cool to actually ride on them.

- I discovered a lot of new music. Not only is there music everywhere in New Orleans, my sisters introduced me to a lot of new music, which is always fun.

- We took long naps every day we were there. I had missed naps!

- We had a lot of good nights out on the town.

- We made a lot of good memories!