For the second night in a row, as soon as the clock strikes two in the morning, I cannot help but crave… spaghetti. I’m starting to wonder if my genetics are being tampered with by some strange Italian disease. Next thing I know I’ll have darker hair, I’ll speak with a great accent, and some charming Italian man will woo me as we dance among the streets of Firenze.

Okay, so the last bit sounds especially good…

*achem* Anyway. You know, I bet I contracted this disease when I had that double-scoop of gelato while I was in Berlin (straccietella and fragola, mmm, my favorites). It was infected with Italianess. Because now I can’t get enough of Italian music, Italian food, Italian everything. And now with the pre-dawn spaghetti cravings, I think I’m done for. There’s no turning back now.

But dang it, I really want some spaghetti. That stuff I made last week was to die for. I’m going to make some tomorrow, I have to, or these cravings will become too overpowering for me to handle. Mm, I should pick up some bread too… I’d make it, but eh, by that point it’s siesta time. I might as well just buy it, no? I was going to make spaghetti tonight, but then Mom took us all out to this restaurant place by the mall and it was… hideous. Service was horrible. They threatened to take my grilled cheese sandwich away from me because I had ordered it from the children’s menu, but they thought it was for my nephew (who was with us.) Apparently, they’re Age Nazis, and you can’t eat from that menu at all and they steal your food if you’re over ten years old. Dang it, I didn’t want a nasty burger from the adult menu, I wanted that grilled cheese. Nobody was touchin’ my sammich. Thankfully they left me alone after a while, so I ate in peace. Sort of.

As you can see – again – I’m still not sleeping well. I’ve tried to sleep regularly, I’ve tried to even knock myself out with some medication to see if it’ll help, and still nothing. My body may be in America, but apparently my soul is Japanese. Great, this means that my body’s American, my digestive system is Italian, and my body clock is Japanese. Man, I’m a mess! 🙂 I’m Ameritalinese!

My Rita Hayworth CD arrived today!! Hooray! Now I can finally learn the rest of the lyrics to ‘Put the Blame on Mame.” I’ve had that song stuck in my head for *ages* but couldn’t remember the rest of the lyrics. Hoorah, I’m all happy now. 🙂 And, along with that CD, I found a Louis Armstrong CD at Ross for only $4! I’m buried in music. With the 7 cds of Mp3s that Lelo sent me, the Rita Hayworth one, and now Satchmo, I still haven’t been able to listen to all of it. I love that.

You know what? It’s really strange having a discussion about the Middle East with a Muslim from Egypt. Puts a different perspective on things. And you know what else? The news really should be more responsible about who they show on television. Or, at least, they need to show the balance of opinions rather than just the fanatics. It’s almost as if the news is unwittingly (I hope it’s unwittingly, anyway) spreading around anti-American propaganda all because they only show the ridiculous blanket statements about prejudiced views on the Middle East and Muslims without clarifying further intent or placing such comments in clarifying content. Now it looks like every Muslim from the Middle East that I talk to seems to think that because I’m an American I automatically think all Muslims are terrorists. That’s just sad. You know, I’m starting to wonder if people believe their TVs too much. If so, shame on people. On the American side of things, the only Muslims we regularly see on TV are the fanatics – the Bin Ladens and the like – whom we know to be extremists, fanatics, and all-around angry people. A rational person would see that and realize that, hey, that culture has the same ratio that ours does of good people vs. bad. It’s not like we don’t have extremists and fanatics over here, for goodness sake. Make the connection, realize that it’s the same in both places, and realize that the sane, normal people are just too mundane to be put on the news. It’s not like CNN’s going to have a breaking story about, “This dear sweet Muslim helped an old lady across the street today.” That happens, but it’s not a news flash. So, silly people who believe everything their TVs tell them, tend to forget that there are still good people in the world.

Remember that. There are extremists everywhere. Don’t judge a whole culture on the extremists. Any rational person should agree with that. You know, that’s one thing that really touches a nerve with me because, being a Mormon, my faith is often judged too harshly by the actions of extremists. I had a friend earlier this year that frequently accused me of being brainwashed because he chose to see only what the extremist Mormons did. That really hurt. Why? Because that same person didn’t decide to judge all Baptist church-goers on the actions of the predominantly Baptist Ku Klux Klan. He didn’t choose to judge all of Christianity, proclaiming them all evil and nasty, because of the Crusades. That same person wouldn’t have dared to call all Muslims terrorists simply because of the existence of Al Qaeda. And yet it was okay to call all Mormons brainwashing, polygamist, lying, deceitful “bastards” simply because of a few bad eggs. Mormons are just like any other microcosm of society: we have our good people, our in-the-middle people, and our down-right nasty people. If you judge based on just that one small sect of nasty people, then you’re missing the predominant good. The Mormon church never once proclaimed that all of its believers were perfect beings. Never. Neither do the Baptists, Catholics, Lutherans, Methodists, Hindus, Muslims, et cetera. If it’s evil to be prejudiced against the Muslims or the Baptists, why is it acceptable to be so blatantly prejudiced against the Mormons? If it’s so wrong to be prejudiced against African Americans, why do some people find it acceptable to persecute and falsely accuse Muslims and Arabs?

Some people can be so two-sided.

Whoa. That turned into a rant. And it got slightly political. Honest, I wasn’t being political, I just had to say it. Prejudice makes me mad. I’ve seen too much of it. After having lived in Mississippi and going through a school system that was so full of bigotry it was sickening, I can’t imagine anyone justifying such hateful thoughts in their own mind. Eugh. Those people scare me.

Happy thoughts! You know what makes me happy? The good ole’ slightly cheesy show, ‘Early Edition.‘ It was on CBS a few years back and had a good solid run of quite a few seasons. It’s all about this guy – Gary Hobson – who receives “tomorrow’s newspaper today”. In this newspaper, it reports all of the bad things that happen to people in the city of Chicago. So, Gary – being the nice guy that he is – spends his days running around the city trying to solve these problems for people. He finds missing children, stops murders, catches criminals; you know, the whole works. It was just a good, cute, happy show with nice people in it. It wasn’t anything to necessarily write home about, but it was a good show that I looked forward to watching every week. (And, it also helped that the guy playing Gary was really cute.) I miss shows like that. I can’t find anything like that on the networks anymore, something that’s just simple, cute, and nice. Instead everything’s all gritty, grotesque, graphic, and unhappy. Reality’s unhappy and gritty enough, thank you. When I watch television I want to be entertained, I want to be taken away from the hum-drum and frights of daily life. I want to be happy. There should be more shows like that.

Anyway. (Man am I ever in a ranting mood tonight.) ‘Early Edition’ disappeared for a few years, but I was delighted to see that PAX has started running it in syndication. This makes me very happy indeed. If you’ve never seen the show and you too are looking for something happy, please check it out. If you like it, or if you’re an old fan of the show like me, please write to PAX and tell them you’re happy to see it again. I now Tivo the show practically every night. I love it! Thank goodness for satellite TV!