Depression

I can't help but post this. Both Anthony and a listserv I'm on brought this to my attention:

Which towns stand in the face of depression
By: Sara Vigneri

Maybe it was all those years of futility for the Phillies. Or the shadows cast by New York City to the north and Washington, D.C., to the south. Whatever the reasons, Philadelphia has earned the melancholy distinction of being America's most depressed city, followed closely by Detroit and St. Petersburg, Florida. Men's Health compiled this list based on antidepressant sales, courtesy of NDC Health; suicide rates, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); and the number of days inhabitants reported being depressed, based on the CDC's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, accessed through bestplaces.net.

Where can you find happiness? Texas, that's where. Three of its cities placed in the top four: number one, Laredo; number two, El Paso; and number four, Corpus Christi.

The 20 Happiest Cities
1. Laredo, TX: A+
2. El Paso, TX: A+
3. Jersey City, NJ: A+
4. Corpus Christi, TX: A+
5. Baton Rouge, LA: A
6. Honolulu, HI: A-
7. Fresno, CA: A-
8. San Jose, CA: A-
9. Lincoln, NE: B+
10. Bakersfield, CA: B+
11. Buffalo, NY: B+
12. Anchorage, AK: B+
13. Stockton, CA: B+
14. Shreveport, LA: B+
15. (3-way tie) Madison, WI: B, Montgomery, AL: B, and Des Moines, IA: B
18. Wichita, KS: B
19. (tie) Sacramento, CA: B and Omaha, NE: B

The 20 Most Depressed Cities
1. Philadelphia, PA: F
2. Detroit, MI: F
3. St. Petersburg, FL: F
4. St. Louis, MO: F
5. Tampa, FL: F
6. Indianapolis, IN: F
7. (3-way tie) Mesa, AZ: F, Phoenix, AZ: F, and Scottsdale, AZ: F
10. Cleveland, OH: F
11. New York, NY: D-
12. Salt Lake City, UT: D-
13. Atlanta, GA: D
14. (3-way tie) Yonkers, NY: D, Pittsburgh, PA: D, and Kansas City, MO: D
17. (3-way tie) Long Beach, CA: D, Los Angeles, CA: D, Nashville, TN" D
20. Portland, OR: D

America's Next Top Model

So, I've been watching this show on UPN religiously, and I am now prepared to make my selections known (not that many of you care, but really, it's the only television show I watch - other than the Simpson's while I cook dinner to catch up on years of quality programming that I missed thoughout my childhood):

1. Kahlen
2. Brittany
3. Naima

Naima has been getting the audience favorite vote week after week, since this season began, but it's all a trick of editing. In the last few seasons the same thing happened - the girl that was least on camera, and had the least personality invested in the show (or absolutely NO bad moments), was the audience favorite. Again it is so with Naima. I don't feel like she brings much to the program other than a pretty face. I just reviewed all the portfolios up to this point and her pictures aren't even that strong.

As for Kahlen and Brittany, I think it's almost a toss-up, but I'm rooting for Kahlen. Brittany certainly has the more bubbly personality but sometimes her presence can feel like an assault and her pictures aren't always consistent. Kahlen, on the other hand, constantly takes beautiful pictures and is a master of disguise, but has a much quieter personality.

We'll see. I'll be tuning in every Wednesday at 8...

How Time Flies

I can't even begin to explain how quickly time disappears when you're busy and not having all that much fun. I can't go into all the details of what's going on in my life in such a public format as my Blog at the current time, but I am sure I will get around to it at some point.

Otherwise, I want to update you all (you know who you are) on a few of the things going on in my life.

First is the Publishing Course at Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism this summer. Last Thursday I got a really thin letter in the mail from them - and we all know what that means: I didn't get in. Somehow there were more qualified applicants than me (yeah, I know! I couldn't understand it either!). Lucky for you, only Anthony had to deal with my whining and crying.

In regards to the Foreign Service exam, administered by the U.S. Department of State, I took the written half of the exam in DC this past Saturday. After nearly seven hours with the TEST NAZI, during which time we weren't allowed to eat or drink (not even water!) and were lucky if we were able to score a bathroom break, I don't even get to find out how I fared until the end of July.

The test seemed to go really smoothly for me, but it is now out of my hands. If the stars are aligned correctly, then I will pass this phase and move on to the next level of examination: the oral. Now, contrary to popular opinion, "oral" is not always a dirty word. It will not be something you see on skinimax, but rather I will be admistered a Model UN type of interview for about 8 hours.

Other than that, I am leaving Philadelphia (for the last time, I hope) at the end of May. It looks like the City of Brotherly Love will be without me once again, but my mom will be the beneficiary of my company for the next three months. Yes, kids, your dear old Ryan will be taking a break from the weary world and trying to take it easy this summer. With any luck, I will work some easygoing job for three months to pay off my student loans and such, but mostly I will relax. Yaaaaaaaaaay!

Film Festivus

Another weekend devoted to the film festival gods, another two days of sun-drenched bliss, another Saturday and Sunday devoted to doing absolutely nothing with the greatest man on the planet, my Anthony...

This time around, the only things that went wrong during my shift at Festivus (a.k.a. Philadelphia Film Festival) is that I had no co-manager for the Ritz East and managed two theatres on my own on Saturday, and that a not-so-great manager showed up several hours early on Sunday, methinks just to piss me off.

Other than that, it was a really easy ride, with great volunteers, great friends, great movies (although I heard that some were not-so-great, but I'm going with a theme here), and great Anthony to bring me Starbuck's capuccino (my newest addiction - I'm even fiending right now!) and lunches.

Okay, I've decided that I am now STARVING and need lunch, but I am waiting for Anthony to call me back on my work phone (I just discovered that our cell phones have been turned off because we are late on our bill - oopsie). Which means that the hunger has eaten away at my brain cells and I no longer have anything else to say. Grrr....

Another Day, Another 8 Hours Wasted at Work

The only people left in my office today are me and the new part-time development lady we just hired for a temporary fix to our lack-of-funding problem, so I have ample time to waste this afternoon. At the very least, I don't see myself being overly disturbed for the next couple of hours as my colleagues are not even in the same state today. (Although I could get a severe rap on the head from our Board members, but I have long since devised a way to avoid them when there is something else that needs to be done.)

So the big story of the day is the fact that I didn't get home until 1:30 this morning. From the Film Festival. ME. IN BED WAY AFTER MY BEDTIME. What on earth was I thinking?!!! Today I am a total zombie, and it was physically painful pulling myself out of bed this AM, let alone peeling my eyelids back from my red-veined, watery eyes. I keep telling myself, "Toto, we aren't in Kansas anymore," which for me means that I am not the college student I used to pride myself on being. I can't stay awake much past 10AM and expect to bound out of bed for work in the morning. I can't even have a drink on a school night these days. Somewhere in the past four years, I have become RESPONSIBLE. Eeek!

Except in the case of the Film Festival. I was out at the Ritz East Theatre last night (one of the holy holies in my way of thinking; the Ritz Theatres are always showing independent and foreign films, even when the Film Festival is not in town), managing one of the two theatres. All night we were pretending we had something to do with our nine volunteer ushers, but by the time the last two movies (one in each theatre) were seated, I couldn't look anyone in the eyes and say, "You need to stay here til midnight to help gather ballots at the end of the shows." So I let them all go, but one: our sweet, sweet Marianne, whom I've known for years (and was yet another witness to the now infamous 4th of July paying-the-toll incident).

Literally right after the door slammed shut behind the last departing volunteer, and while we reconciling our box office for the night, the fire alarm malfunctioned and screeched on for about twenty minutes. We had to empty both theatres, and while people were rushing about trying to figure out what was going on, I grabbed all the money, shoved it in the cash box, and wandered around the theatre trying to grasp onto any thread of a thought through the insanely jarring cacauphony of the fire alarm.

It turns out that an off-duty fire marshall was actually attempting to see one of the movies we were playing and he helped us turn off that god-awful noise.

The other upside of the evening: the fact that neither of the films could be rewound and had continued to play during our fire drill. What that means for a film festival is: LOST REVENUE. Amazingly enough, we didn't refund any ticket sales money, but we gave out a lot of guest comps for future films. I was surprised that the number wasn't higher, with one theatre having been sold out and the other near capacity, but 60 comps is still a lot of dough when you consider the fact that is the equivalent of about $570. (To me, that's a month of rent so I wouldn't laugh in the general direction of that much money flowing out of my pocket either.)

Did I mention that there was another treat in store for us? Right near the end of the films, I got word that a man was walking through the parking lot right outside the movie theatre slashing tires. As if it really needs to be said: Yay for police intervention! And Yay for me working at the singlehandedly most "interesting" venue of the festival!

Lucky for me, I had my Anthony there watching the film that should have made Mark Hamill a star! (The Big Red One, if you haven't seen it.) So I was able to get a ride home instead of walking, and we were even able to give our box office volunteer a ride home as well (thank goodness she lives right around the corner from me!).

I suppose I should feel worse for Anthony since he had actually been up at 4:30 yesterday morning, after returning home from bringing a friend to the hospital at 12:30AM that same day, but I am an evil, cold-hearted bitch and I will whine all day about my terrible position in life.

God, I need a nap...

It's Been 9 Days, 15 Hours, 58 Minutes, and a Handful of Seconds...

...since I've seen my baby. And although we are now in the same city, and he is actually in my apartment as we speak, I am chained (figuratively, might I add) to my desk for at least another half hour or so. If whining had ever gotten me anywhere in life, I might be persuaded to throw a mini-tantrum right here on the floor, screaming, "I want my Anthony NOW!" But even from here I can see the carpet stains and I already know that nobody here really gives a damn.

So, option number two would be to waste a few minutes at work to write about absolutely nothing on my Blog. Mostly because my brain is a few molecules short of full working order and it is incresingly hard for me to but nouns and verbs together to make coherent sentences, let alone come up with ways to entertain you (yes, YOU, my three whole readers).

Things that have been taking up too much of my time lately include: work (why again am I staying late and working overtime on weekends???), catching the common cold and battling with it for lack of something better to do, (still) studying for the Foreign Service Exam which is being held in D.C. the weekend of the 22nd-24th, and the Philadelphia Film Festival.

For those of you who haven't heard of the Film Festival (do you even know me at all?), you really need to get your butt back to Philadelphia for the two weeks a year that we screen films from all over the world. It's an amazing experience, whether you're volunteering or actually watching the screenings, and it should not be missed. To my way of thinking, it's just like being at Cannes or Sundance, without any of the Hollywood fuss and fickleness - nothing but straight-up, wonderfully imaginative, and well-written movies. For the movie buff in all of us...

A moment ago, I took a break from writing for a potty stop and I thought of something I could include in my post: the latest and greatest conversation amongst the elite group of people I like to call my friends. My friend Aurit recently married her beau of many years, Paul, and my amigos from college are all over the airwaves lately discussing the pros and cons of the wife (and eventual children) taking on the husband's surname after marriage.

They've bantered about the ideas of being nonconservative vs. a traditionalist, splitting the difference and combining both the man's and woman's last names into some new and improved surname (i.e. Smith + Johnson might become Smohnson or Jith or Smithson or Johnith, etc.), the good and bad aspects of the hyphenate, altering between the maiden name at work and the husband's surname in your private life, and even throwing out all the labels altogether. This is what happens when several of your friends are practicing psychologists and philosophes!

In any case, I have largely staid out of such conversations - especially when Ben puts in his two cents about women and their rightful place in the kitchen, wearing skimpy clothing no less! - because I really haven't had a lot of time to weigh in.

However, if you really think about it, where did this idea of the patrimonial heritage come from anyway? Several years ago, my mom told me this great idea that I wish had been implemented much earlier in our ancestry. She thinks that all female offspring should keep the name of the mother, while the male offspring keep the name of the father. In my way of thinking, this should extend to same-sex couples as well - with one child taking one name, and the next child taking the other surname, and so on and so forth. That way, the idea of a name "dying out" becomes obsolete, unless a couple decides never to have children (and they were the last of that line) or they only have one child.

Actually, the more I think about it, then to be fair, every family would have to have two children, with each child taking a different name. Maybe it's not such a good idea after all.

But it would have worked out in my family, where there is only my brother and I. Today I would then have the strong Italian surname of Locatelli (if we went further back, I am sure I would have some other Italian surname, but Locatelli is as far back as I can remember off the top of my head) and Dan would have our current Czech surname (which has it's origins in the 15th Century). Although, keeping to that tradition, my first name would probably not be Ryan - it would be Emma Rose Locatelli (Ryan Locatelli just doesn't have the same ring - and my mom might have thought to use my two great-grandmothers' names earlier if she was trying to make it fit to the Italian surname, rather than many years later after I was in high school).

It is totally possible that had my mother had this inspiration a lot earlier in my life, I might be a completely different person.

Yet that brings me back to the idea of taking on a husband's name at marriage. I have read a few things on the internet that are just plain weird (for example, one site claims that if a woman won't be "submissive" to a man's masculinity and take on his name at marriage, then she is really not physically or sexually attracted to him and will be the one to initiate divorce), and inconclusive, but I haven't been able to find an actual explanation for the adoption of the man's name.

Maybe it has something to do with the ancient tribal custom of "selling" your daughter into another family, in essence giving her away in exchange for money, bartered goods, or prestige that could be gained from a propitious marriage. In that situation, the male was clearly dominant so perhaps as time passed and surnames were adopted, it was only natural that women adopt the males' names.

If that is the case, then there is some validity to the feminist claim that women are continuing to be subservient to men if they continue to take on their husband's name upon marriage. Unless, of course, you refuse to acknowledge that line of thinking, and just continue with that tradition for traditions' sake.

For me, I like the idea of changing into a new role or moving into a new phase of my life by adopting a new name. It is the only time in life that you still have legitimate cause to pick out your own name (and no, I don't really give any credence to people who have officially changed their names to symbols), whether it's hyphenated, some freakish amelioration of two names, or just his last name replacing that of your father and clearly signifying who is the ultimate male in your life now. I see it as a chance to blossom into something new.

Whoa! Partner

Before you guys get all up in my junk (to steal a phrase from the ever-eloquent Anthony), yes, I fully realize that my webpage looks like someone ran over it with a lawnmower. I blame it all on my local expert, one Mr. X - as in THE Ex, my former beau, Vince. He has been helping me set things up on the HTML side of things (oh, the limited shelf life of my own HTML knowledge!), and then he had to go incommunicado so he could move. HOW RUDE!

I tell ya, if I ever get my hands on you, boy...

Speaking of "boy," I am nearing the end of a really fantastic book called The King Years by Taylor Branch. It's all about the civil rights movement here in the U.S. and how wonderfully backward we white folk used to be. And yes, I use the term "used" very lightly.

In any case, the book won a Pulitzer Prize and albeit of great and daunting length, I fully suggest you go buy you a copy (or borrow it from your local library, just like poor people like me do).

Other things of note in my life: yesterday I decided to move. Yes, yes, I know, I just got (back) here. But at the same time, I can feel it's time to move on again (what with the insanely unsatisfying job and the hostile home environment). My goal is to be in Massachusetts or New York by June 1st. Most of that decision relies on my ability to get accepted into the Columbia Publishing Course. If I am accepted, then it's off to Columbia's dorms and the rush of NYC again. If not, there's a very good chance I'll be summering with the Kennedy's. Or, at least I'll be in the same state.

In either case, what I am most looking forward to is a change in scenery, a change in the daily grind, and a slice of happiness.