| deputy deputy |
[24 Jul 2004|12:31pm] |
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mood |
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 chipper |
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What would your dream occupation be?
"Is everybody in? Yes? Okay. Welcome to the White House. My name is Donnatella Moss, I work here in the West Wing as an assistant to Deputy Chief of Staff Joshua Lyman. Which, I guess, makes me Deputy Deputy Chief of Staff."
Her customary joke manages to draw a few obliging chuckles out of this group, but most of them roll their eyes or show blank expressions, staring impatiently through her to the door behind, beyond which they'll meet the leader of the free world, the one they've really all come to see today.
So, none of them are really paying much attention to the words of this young aide before them. If anyone remembers her by the end of the day, she expects it'll just be as the girl-with-the-turtle's-name.
Donna realises this, but she tells them anyway, sometimes just to hear it for herself.
I work at the White House.
Even saying so brings a new rush of excitement each time, and she knows that this is where she wants to be.
"Okay. We're going to head across to the Oval Office now, if you'll follow me..."
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| the sky is falling. |
[12 Jul 2004|09:23pm] |
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mood |
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 worried |
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mun note: this takes place after The Fall's Gonna Kill You.
The world will end tomorrow. What do you do today?
The sky is falling down.
Or, at least, one hefty chunk of it is. We don't know where it's going to hit and we don't know when, but there's a Chinese satellite called Zodiac up there about to go into a two-thousand-mile-per-hour free-fall, and surely that is something to be worried about.
This is what I've been trying to warn people about all day.
This thing could crash into earth at any time, taking who-knows-how-many people with it, you understand. Nobody is safe from this, because we have no way of finding out where it is, and I don't want to be Chicken Little here, but-- The sky is falling.
So why is nobody interested?
I'm just a lowly assistant, here. There's a lot that they don't tell me, but there are some things they can't hide. I can see it in their faces, this fear, this disbelief, and I know something else is going on. And I know that Josh is scared, and that frightens me even more.
The sky is falling, but people can joke about that, 'cause there's something worse going on, something much worse that makes massive objects hurtling towards us at murderous velocities look like child's play. The world could be coming to an end tomorrow, and I'd be none the wiser.
I hope that I've jumped the gun on this one. I hope I'm misreading the signs, but something tells me we're in for something big.
Because the sky is falling down on us and nobody cares, so I'm left to wonder: What else is about to come crashing down on us? And who will it take with it?
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| Using time productively as usual. |
[11 Jul 2004|01:52pm] |
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mood |
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 creative |
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(And for the record? The boyfriend is neither a gomer nor a Republican. In fact, I don't think he's even a registered voter.. Just to clarify.)
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| Forever is a lot longer than you'd think. |
[05 Jul 2004|12:27pm] |
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mood |
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contemplative |
] |
Would you live forever, if you had the choice?
You can look at it from one perspective, and say that it would be incredible to watch history unfold, and to meet your great-great-great-grandchildren. And the eternal youth thing would be a very attractive perk. Maybe you could be happy like that, but it's not for me.
I want to grow old alongside my the people I love. I want to stand beside them and face up to whatever life decides to throw at us right up to the (hopefully distant) end. Yes, I'll die eventually, but maybe in my time I'll have left some kind of mark, even if it's only in one person, and in that way a part of me will survive.
So, no. Forget living forever. I'll take my allotted time, and I'll live it to the fullest.
Life is short, but that's what makes it so sweet.
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[28 Jun 2004|03:06pm] |
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mood |
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 bored |
] |
Type your username with your:
nose: donnatellamuse
elbow: donjnazqtellazmujsed
tongue: donnatellamuse
chin: connatellamujse
eyes closed: donnatellamuse
foot: donnatellamuse
eyes: [eyes...?? Am I supposed to use my telekinetic powers?] donnatellllamuseeeeeeeeeeeeee [Damn. My powers are off today.]
back of hand: donnatel,,lamkuzed
palm: donnatellamuse
mouse: donnatellamuse
wrist: dobnat6ellpawm8se
Okay. That got me some weird looks.
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[24 Jun 2004|12:21pm] |
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mood |
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 stunned |
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I'm halfway between being touched and totally freaked out.
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif?v=92.2) deputy_deputy
I have fans. I have fans.
Not a whole lot of them, but still fans, of the moderately scary variety.
Is there anything that I should know?
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| Bugs and beetles in my garden, oh what horror, oh what dread... |
[21 Jun 2004|09:09pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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 weird |
] |
Is it me, or is this place starting to get a little crowded? Have picked up another room mate, name of Sunshine, which I'm assuming is supposed to be a joke because he's black as night and very crabby. No idea where Siobhan (that's the human room mate) picked him up, but he's made himself right at home in here. He's completely ignored the other two cats; just strolled in to take pride of place on top of my bed, from which, by the way, he hasn't budged.
He's a strange old cat. The most bedraggled animal I've ever seen; he's missing an eye, part of an ear, and the rest of him is absolutely covered in scars, but there's still this kind of unbroken pride in him. Haughtiness, even.
Anyway, our new resident has brought to light another mild dilemma. You see, Drusilla's rabbit recently gave birth and Dru's given me one of its babies. However, unless I want him developing some kind of nervous disorder, I don't think home's the best place for him at the moment.
...Josh? Do you think he could, maybe, live at the office for a little while?
Wow. I really wrote an entire entry on housepets.
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[15 Jun 2004|02:35pm] |
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mood |
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amused |
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| How to make a Donna moss |
Ingredients:
5 parts pride
1 part humour
5 parts ego |
Method:
Layer ingredientes in a shot glass. Top it off with a sprinkle of curiosity and enjoy! |
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| The end of the world. You have to love these bright and cheery topics. |
[12 Jun 2004|09:57pm] |
The world will end tomorrow. What do you do today?
I'd be at the office, the same as always. The government doesn't stop for the end of the world, you know.
Honestly, I think Josh is right - I think we'd all still be trying to stop it from happening. I can't see any of us here waiting around for the end to come to us, it's just not what we do. We've had the sky fall down on us more than once and come out the other side. End of the world, obviously, that isn't going to be the same, but futile or not, all we can do is keep on going. Even facing death, you have to keep living.
There's no point in breaking down and crying about it, because when all of your tears are gone the world's still going to end tomorrow. Actually coming to it maybe I'd be different, but I wouldn't want to have any tears on my last day. I'd want to laugh as much as possible, even if there wasn't much going on to laugh about. I'd call my family, I'd be there with my friends.
Try to make it a happy ending.
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| Of good and evil. |
[13 May 2004|06:42pm] |
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mood |
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mellow |
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What is good? What is evil?
I think the general feeling around here is that "good" and "evil" are synonymous to "Democrat" and "Republican". Which is slightly unfair, because I've known a lot of Republicans who are really great people. For that matter, I've known quite a few Democrats who are completely not.
People... okay, Josh, rags on at me about the number of Republicans I've dated (I'm thinking I have some kind of magnetic field...) - but when it comes down to it, Republicans aren't so different from non-Republicans. But when you're under constant fire like we are a lot of the time, it's hard not to think of it in terms of "us" and "them". Every Republican is one of the bad guys, you know, Satan's henchmen.
The line between good and evil can't be drawn along party lines, or any other kind of divider; it's not so defined. In fact, it's nearly impossible to have one without something of the other. I'm seeing that, more and more as I live my life. Almost anything you do to help somebody is going to have repurcussions on another.
For me, up till now, those somebodies have mostly been individual people, maybe a group of people - and now, I think about the kinds of decisions the President, Leo, Josh, have to make daily, and now we're talking things that might affect thousands, more... It's mind-boggling. One night, I raised my hand in the Oval Office. Half an hour later, more than thirty US senators were walking onto the floor of the Senate to stand by one of the most determined grandfathers I've ever seen.
But, good and evil, okay. Let's start with good. It's... I don't know how to say this. It's putting a smile on someone's face; doing something, just because it's the right thing to do; being true to yourself; finding you have someone to lean on when the going get rough. It's the small things you always take for granted. It's not stopping for a beer.
Evil? Well, that's just the opposite. Evil is fear, hate, pain, destruction, violence, doubt, selfishness. It's giving in to your demons.
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| Donna's top three weirdest gifts. |
[13 Apr 2004|08:12pm] |
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mood |
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chipper |
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What is the oddest gift you've ever received?
Every year in April, Josh sends me flowers to celebrate an anniversary that doesn't exist. Actually, it does exist, but it's in February, though Josh is adamant about celebrating in April. It's still about the strangest thing I've ever been given flowers for.
Josh also takes second prize for the moose meat he brought back from Helsinki. Ginger got a collector's plate of moose, Bonnie got a hat with a picture of a moose, and I got a... moose. Which was very sweet, in an "oh-my-God-what-the-hell-am-I-going-to-do-with-a-dead-moose" sort of way.
I didn't want to hurt Josh's feelings, but there was no way I was going to eat a moose unless there was a very large sum of money waiting at the end of it, so I asked around to see if anybody else wanted it. And here's where it became a bit of a thing, because I gave the meat to an intern, who sold it on Ebay so he could pay his rent. Josh ordered me to fire the intern and I ended up saving his job by buying back the moose meat I didn't want in the first place for $210, which the guy couldn't even pay back because he'd already spent the money.
The adventures of the moose meat, there's a story. Do you know how hard it is to get rid of a whole burnt pine box of moose sausage? I tried feeding it to the cats, but they wouldn't go near it. Also when my room mate Siobhan found out she thought I was trying to poison them and demanded I get rid of it. Which was what I thought I'd been trying to do in the first place. I offered it to her, but she thought I was joking.
Why does everyone think you're joking when you offer them a crate full of sauna-soaked moose meat?
Even Ginger, the moose-lover, didn't want it. Guess she was a little jittery after what happened with the intern. She did suggest that if I really didn't know what to do, I could flush it down the toilet.
Thanks, Gin.
Eventually I became so sick of it just being there, so I had everybody over for dinner, cooked up the moose meat, and then we all sat around the table and joked about it, and pretended we were going to eat it. Except for Ginger and Sam, who actually ate it (Ginger willingly, Sam after being coaxed into it) and Margaret, who claimed she would try anything once and took a single mouthful before gagging.
Stealing in first, and I'm sure Josh will love this, is Doctor Free Ride. My ex-boyfriend thought he was God's gift, but the one that earns him the prize wasn't even intended as one. I don't know why he even bothered turning up at the hospital, but he did and it cleared up a couple of things for me.
It's amazing how the smell of beer breath can bring you to your senses.
~ Donna
Deputy Deputy White House Chief of Staff
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| Buried? Over my dead body. Oh, wait... |
[04 Apr 2004|03:19pm] |
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mood |
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 gloomy |
] |
What do you want on your tombstone - and why?
You're assuming that I actually want to be buried.
I'm going to be cremated. I don't know about anybody else, but to me there's something almost fake about a burial. Laying someone down in a casket, dressed up, made up, looking like a stranger because everything that was that person is gone and now they're just another body; putting them in the ground and then putting up a sign to tell everyone who it is that somewhere under their feet is rotting away slowly.
When I think of cemeteries, I think of rows upon rows of grey tombstones; endless. With so many graves pressing around you end up becoming anonymous, just a part of a rising fatality count - an "also dead".
I don't want that.
When I die, I want my body to be cremated, and then I want somebody to take my ashes and scatter them somewhere, maybe in Wisconsin, or wherever I've made my home by that time.
*shakes her head* God, morbid stuff.
~ Donna
Deputy Deputy White House Chief of Staff
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| I hope that someone gets my message in a bottle |
[04 Apr 2004|12:10pm] |
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mood |
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 silly |
] |
If you were left on a desert island, what three things would you take along?
Having been left in the middle of Indiana (which is basically the same thing), I can tell you with certainty three things I wouldn't bring, that being my boss, Toby Ziegler and no blunt objects suitable for rendering them unconscious.
Would it be considered cheating if I asked to take food, drink and a means of escape?
Okay, okay, okay. I'm just saying, if I found myself stranded on a desert island and I was allowed to have three things with me, I'd be looking to send for a helicopter, you know? Of course, in the highly unlikely event that I was left washed up on an island, somehow I don't think I'd get the choice of sending back for anything. Unless it was on Survivor.
But, okay, let's assume that there's ample food, water, shelter, all the basic comforts, and that I'm not under any threat from native lions and tigers and bears, or about to be dragged off and killed by cannibals. Your basic idyllic pile of sand in the middle of the ocean. Possibly with a couple of palm trees, a souvenier shop, maybe...
1. Sun block. (I have sensitive alabaster skin, I'm not about to venture into the desert without some protection.)
2. My diary.
3. Someone to share it with. Being alone sucks more than anything.
~ Donna
Deputy Deputy White House Chief of Staff
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| To turn back time. |
[28 Mar 2004|05:00pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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thoughtful |
] |
If you could change one moment in your past, what would it be?
CJ asked me a question like this a little while ago, actually.
If I could go back in time, if I had the chance to do any one thing differently... wow. I can think of a dozen things just off the top of my head that I could change in a heartbeat. I'm sure if I thought about it I could come up with a lot more. Screw-ups, bad decisions, missed chances - you name it.
There's a lot of things in my past that I wish I could change, but the truth is, they're as much a part of who I am as everything I've done right.
Think about it; if I had been smarter and told Jeff to go to hell, I wouldn't have ended up broke and on my way to Manchester to join the Bartlet campaign, and I wouldn't be sitting here right now, in the Deputy Chief of Staff's office in the White House, typing this entry working extremely hard. I would have missed out on knowing some of the most intelligent people, and the best friends, that I have ever met.
There are some things that I can't remember without cringing, or sighing, or biting back tears and if somebody told me that I could go back and change one of those moments... I would be seriously tempted. But ultimately, I don't think I'd go for it.
I've learnt from my mistakes. I still am. It's learning the hard way, but by changing one of those moments, what else would I be changing?
I'm happy with my life, right now. And that doesn't mean there aren't things about it that I'd like to be different, but messing with the past isn't necessarily going to make things better. That's what tomorrow's for.
( However... )
~ Donna
Deputy Deputy White House Chief of Staff
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| "The most useless day of all is the day on which we did not laugh once." |
[19 Feb 2004|04:06pm] |
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mood |
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 artistic |
] |
What makes you laugh?
Did you know the average person laughs fifteen times a day? A lot of things make me laugh. Not always funny things, but they make me laugh. For example... well, let's see...
I laughed for Dr. Free Ride, at all of his jokes. None of them were worth a smile, but I loved thought I liked the guy... and maybe I wanted him to like me, too. So, I giggled instead of cringed at all of his lousy punchlines, and I tried to convince myself it was geniune. He fancied himself a regular comedian.
I laughed when I came home from my deposition, after Cliff met me outside my door wanting to know why I lied, and all but threatening me with criminal charges when I tried to deny it. Sounds like a strange thing to laugh about it, but that's exactly what I did. It must have been the nerves, or something, because the minute I slammed the door shut behind me, all I could do was sag back against it and laughed until my throat was dry.
I laughed when Josh told me my sense of self-worth would always be drowned out by my need to be coupled, because if I didn't laugh, I might have cried.
I nearly laughed and cried at the same time when they told me that Josh was out of surgery, and that he was going to be okay. That was relief like you wouldn't believe.
I laughed when my friend's dog got inside and terrorized Siobhan's cats. (Long story. Basically, it started with Curtis and his labrador retriever-cross-grizzly bear Deefa, and poor Socks appearing at a very inopportune moment. I swear, it took us ten minutes to get the cats and dog under control, during which time Deefa had upset almost everything not bolted to the floor, including the cats.) When I looked around at the mess - the muddy paw-marks on my new white shirt, the wailing cats, the miffed look on Deefa's face and the mortified one on Curtis's - I just burst out laughing. The whole thing was so ridiculous... and, for reasons probably only apparent to anybody who was there at the time, it was incredibly funny.
I laugh with my friends. Josh, Sam, CJ, Will and Charlie. Ginger, Bonnie, Margaret and Carol. Siobhan, Curtis, and others... Some of these people, I swear, know me better than I know myself, and it's so easy to laugh around them unguardedly.
I laughed when Medonza was confirmed, when we helped Stackhouse out during his filibuster, when we were elected, when we were re-elected... The times when I feel like I'm really a part of something. The real thing. I tell you, those are the greatest days.
~ Donna
Deputy Deputy White House Chief of Staff.
Simply brimming with mirth.
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| Guilty as charged. |
[15 Feb 2004|10:38pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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melancholy |
] |
What's your favorite guilty indulgence?
This is gonna sound stupid.
I have a diary. It's something I've always done; ever since I was in high school I've kept a diary, in some form or another. It's something that I can confide in. It's a way to get things off my chest and, well, believe it or not, it's kind of relaxing to get home and just write whatever comes into your mind.
So... you're probably wondering how this is a guilty indulgence.
Yeah.
Okay.
...and I think that was supposed to be my cue to tell you.
A couple of years ago, during the MS thing, I was subpoenaed, and, in my deposition, I was asked if I kept a diary. I said, yes, yes indeed.
Only, I didn't.
It was instinctive. My diary is private stuff. They had no business asking about it. It wasn't material, there wasn't anything in it that was relevant to anything. Or I didn't think so. I didn't think. The word just slipped out of my mouth, and it was there, and it got recorded just that way.
Question: Do you keep a diary? Answer: No. Question: Okay. Do you...
Cliff knew it was a lie. That's a downside to dating the head counsel of the committee that's investigating you and your friends. He'd seen my diary, and he knew I had lied about it.
So, basically, I had screwed up, bigtime. These people hadn't got nothing on the President with MS, and I had dropped this right into their laps with one stupid word. The fact that I had lied under oath and could be facing fines and a jail term wasn't too good, either.
Telling Josh wasn't so bad. I mean... it was bad. I had this sick feeling in my gut as I explained what had happened, and he was understandably pissed. But angry-and-shouting Josh, at least, was better than Josh the cold-and-silent. Josh was great. He arranged a meeting with Cliff and cleared everything up. Part of the deal was that Cliff was allowed to read the diary, something which had me gritting my teeth, but I'd only brought it on myself, and it sure beat any of the alternatives.
The next morning, I went out early and bought myself a new diary. A slim, 96-page exercise book with a bright green-and-blue cover. Nothing like my old hard-backed, dark covered book. At the time I said to myself that I would never be able to get myself to write in the old book, on the same pages where my feelings had been laid bare before Cliff Calley - it would just be too weird for me. That was what I told myself, and it was true.
But the other reason, the main reason was the guilt. Whenever I opened that book, whenever I looked at it, it would remind me of all the trouble I caused for everyone, and the even bigger trouble there could have been.
It's stupid, but even now when I go to write in my diary I get this twinge of... I don't know, conscience, I guess. I feel like I'm doing something wrong, even though I know that I'm not. Maybe I'm just paranoid, I don't know. But I do know that I haven't been writing so much, lately.
Other guilty indulgences? I do have a tendency to tease my boss Okay, so I don't always feel guilty about that. While some may consider it insubordinate, many people find it actually quite an endearing quality. And, well, I can't say I don't enjoy seeing him splutter. *smirks* As for stealing his food - "A meal is best enjoyed when it is stolen from somebody else", as my mother used to say. (Okay, so her exact wording might have been more along the lines of "best enjoyed when shared with somebody else"... but I'm sure this is what she meant.)
~ Donna
Deputy Deputy White House Chief of Staff.
Guilty as charged.
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Questions from ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.2) claudia_jean: |
[15 Feb 2004|01:26pm] |
| [ |
mood |
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 high |
] |
1. What is the hardest part in working for Joshua Lyman?
Joshua Lyman.
2. Is it true that you never have bad hair days?
*smiles smugly* Well, 20 hours spent hitch-hiking half-way across the country with Snoopy and Pokey was almost enough to make my hair curl...
3. If there was on time in your life that you could change, what would that be, why would you change it and how would you go about doing it?
I wouldn't have wasted my time, money or feelings on Jeff Dr. Free Ride. If I had been smarter back then, I would have seen through him. I would have dropped him instead of dropping out of college for him, and paying all of his bills until he got tired of me and kicked me out. But the thing is, if that hadn't happened, then nothing after that would have either. I'd never have joined the campaign and met you guys. And I would never want to change that.
There's a lot of things I wish I'd done differently... but all I can really do is learn from my mistakes.
4. If I were to go on a "scalping" party to rid the Earth of Mandy, would you help me or turn me in?
*expressionless* No comment.
When do we begin?
5. Where do you see yourself after leaving the White House?
I'd like to give some witty and insightful answer, but the truth is, I really don't know for sure. It opens up so many new possibilities...
( Want to be interviewed? )
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