never

image via: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/picturegalleries/2478687/Sign-Language-week-nine.html

in response to walking

in response to an earlier post of mine, i have just discovered this new site: http://www.walkscore.com/thanks to digg.com.

basically, it informed me that i moved from the numero uno walking city in the country to the fortieth. however, i lived in oakland, not san francisco, and walking around oakland sort of made me fear for my life. also, even though jax comes in at number 40, i am so impressed we made the list at all! no other city in florida did. and why have we? because of great areas like san marco. voila!

and there you have it.

California (awesome)

via http://graphjam.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/funny-graphs-californians.gif

folio fails to respect

i have to say i was extremely disappointed with folio's most recent cover story "ten things i hear about you". i couldn't decide if i was more upset with the author, who splits his time between his hometown of chicago and "florida's first coast", for encouraging a terrible attitude and outlook on the city in which he resides, disrespecting all the things we jacksonvillians love, tossing them, and us, aside as ignorant, backwards, and overzealous over seemingly small qualities.

or, perhaps i was more upset with folio for publishing it. i am pretty sure it was meant to be humorous, but as a person who has lived in a place that views the south in a BACKWARDS and IGNORANT way, i found it offensive. i battled those rediculous stereotypes the entire time i lived in california. i never understood. people in the south don't sit around bashing the rest of the country. maybe that's why the rest of the country does. if we [the south] can't be bothered, then we must be stupid.

what's wrong with us being proud? and if you hate it so much, [insert author's name], then why don't you just leave instead of trying to bring us all down with you? perhaps they [author and magazine] thought by speaking to jacksonvillians, it made it okay to bash us. that way it's not insulting because, i don't know, we are "in the room", instead of talking about us behind our backs. it's not like he published it in chicago, after all, because that would be in poor humor.

i am not opposed to speaking your mind, even if it's negative. or especially if it's negative. but when it's pointless [the article made no real point beyond "jacksonville sucks"] and serves only to make everyone around you look stupid, then you're just an ignorant bully. go back to middle school, or go back to chicago. either way.

my hands are full!

Okay, this post essentially has nothing to do with Jacksonville.

I am not ashamed to say that I am tawdrily, tastelessly, self-loathingly addicted to celebrity gossip. Hey, it's a pastime. I find Perez outrageously offensive to my exact liking. I adore Michael K's homo-centric wit and charm. And X17's blatant refusal to feel ashamed for spending their days chasing and stalking makes me smile on a regular basis.

Perhaps I find it ironic or something. That might make it all better, if I did. But I doubt that's even true.

So here is what I am saying... has anyone ever noticed how celebrities are always carrying like twenty things at once? They carry these ridiculously large bags and then hold all the contents in their hands!

I have a few theories. Perhaps they hold these things as distractions. Like, "I can't see you paps because I am too focused on the huge water bottle wedged between my cellphone and keys and the ginormous scarf!" Or perhaps its like walking advertisement, as seen in Lohan's incessant display of Ariva. Or maybe they just like to snuggle with teeny tiny dogs.

This post is almost embarrassing. No, I am pretty sure it is embarrassing, but it baffles me. Why do celebrities have so much more shit to hold?

Celebrating the Rabid Fox

IMG_6979.JPG
Originally uploaded by hilarydarling

Every year, on the last Saturday in February, my friend pulls the world together for the latest and greatest holiday, the Celebration of Life.

Food abounds. Kegs pour endlessly. Music wafts through the air. Christmas lights lead the way through the enchanting garden all the way to the abandoned train tracks that lead your mind down the overgrown trail... We contemplate where we've been, we look at where we might be going, but we always know that back down at the party we are going to celebrate the good things.

The rest of the world hasn't caught on just yet, but this year all that changed with the Rabid Fox Attack.

It all started with a whiz. One celebrater wandered into the woods, following the lights and flowers, when out of nowhere a "dog" bit him on the ankle. He soon realized, however, that no dog had a tale so bushy. Walking toward the party to warn the masses, he was bit again, and again and again.

The fox then attacked another celebrater, this time a clever guy trying to document the moment on digifilm. This time the fox was wildly slung like a wet rag attached to his foot, ripping his jeans into shreds before getting trapped under the wheelbarrow.

There it stayed, scratching at the sides, for hours. The children were playing "Run Away From the Fox". The women were all sort of forlorn, with long, worried looks on their face that the fox might be scared. And the men stood around discussing ways the fox might die.

Animal Control eventually showed up and took the fox away in a net. But it made front page news in the Tallahassee Democrat's Sunday Paper.

Now, we are all worried about our friend who might have rabies. He has to get a lot of shots.

But we will celebrate forever the year of the Rabid Fox.