I had someone recommend reading the poet Nikki Giovanni, so I went to her web site to see what her work was all about. This was the first poem that I clicked on. I liked it so much that I wanted to share with anyone who might choose to read this blog. I'm going back read a lot more of her work.
So here it is... I hope you enjoy it.
Poem (for EMA)
though i do wonder
why you intrigue me
i recognize that an exceptional moth
is always drawn
to an exceptional flame
you're not at all what you appear
to be
though not so very different
i've not learned
the acceptable way of saying
you fascinate me
I've not even learned
how to say i like you
without frightening people
away
sometimes I see things
that aren't really there
like warmth and kindess
when people are mean
but sometimes i see things
like fear and want to soothe it
or fatigue and want to share it
or love and want to recieve it
is that weird
you think everyone is weird
though you're not really hypocritical
you just practice not being
what you want to be
and fail to understand
how others would dare
to be otherwise
that's weird to me
flames don't flicker
forever
and moths are born to be burned
it's an unusual way
to start a friendship
but nothing lasts forever
I was planning to not order any BPAL this month and now, at the ides of May, I am considering what could almost be classified as a rather large order. Self control: gone, gone, gone!!
I want to order Litha, because the honey mead and honeysuckle elements can not be resisted. I also need a 10 ml of O, because I use it almost like I breathe air. Then, yesterday, I decided to test Kumiho again and I believe I must have a bottle. I am also terribly intrigued by Baobhan Sith; it sounds like it could be a winner. I love grapefruity scents. When it gets totally hot and steamy in July and August, I know I won't be wearing Smut as an everyday scent. I need my options. And there are my rationalizations.
I can be pretty cheeky in my lack of concern about "appropriate" daytime workplace scents. In interest of juxtapositions, it's kind of fun to wear "business appropriate" clothing and a smoldering scent. Hee hee.
I get my hair done on Wednesday, and I can hardly wait. Last visit, I told the most wonderful Brandi not to cut very much off the bottom. She complied with my wishes, but suggested that next time, it might be a good idea to neaten up the edges. She's no fool; she knew it would grow so much and get so freaking long that it would be driving me nuts by now. We're planning to put some more blonde highlights in it just to add to that summery kissed-by-the-sun look.
Speaking of the sun, maybe I'm attracted to the scent Baobhan Sith because they were the "ghostly white women of the Scottish highlands" and I'm part Scottish and I'm just about that white. This weekend, I purchased some of the tanning body lotion and it's helping. I'm not looking to become the San Tropez tan girl, but it would be nice not to have legs that look like a couple of glo-sticks heading your way.
Today's BPAL: Smut and O (aka Smut-O-Rama)
Today's underwear: Tangerine bra and bikinis with a retro tattoo design print
Today's music in the CD player in my car: "Polaroids" by Shawn Colvin
I'm in relative slacker mode for a few days here at work. Woot! I've been a bit nose-to-the-grindstone for over a month now, and when I hit this point, I can breathe again. In accordance with my relative leisure, and the fact that I'm not going to wear a power suit if I don't have to do a presentation, I'm wearing a long-sleeved, longish black top with a skirt that has a black and brown Indian print, with a few gold sequins scattered about. Even with the sequins, the skirt is rather understated. And I'm wearing my black corset-lace boots. I'm wearing Mme. Moriarty, since my ensemble seemed a bit like a Misfortune Teller outfit.
Right before the New Year, and continuing into the month of January, I've been doing a brief Ganesha mantra at the start of my meditation each night. Silently. I'm not into chanting out loud, although I love to listen to chanting. If you aren't into Hindu deities, Ganesha is the elephant-headed man -- Ganesha was the subject of the amazingly beautiful BPTP Lotus Moon t-shirt. Ganesha is the remover of obstacles and the god of new beginnings. He also represents wisdom, learning and humility. I think he's a wonderful creature, whether you believe in him as an actual living, breathing diety or as a symbol that inspires you to use your own wisdom and learning to overcome obstacles (within and outside of yourself) and recognize avenues for auspicious new beginnings. And even then, to retain a sense of humility about the process. An elephant-sized order, but a good one.
I suppose my biggest task is to not overthink the entire matter. That probably invokes the humility factor, because I simply can't will things to be so, nor can I control inner guidance. You have to let it happen, you never know when it will arrive, you never know what it will be, but you have to be ready to listen to it. You just never know, and that is the hardest thing of all for me. In comparison, it's a piece of cake for me to walk into a briefing session armed with all sorts of information, because then I am able to say that I know the answer, or I know where to find the answer. To ask, to wait, and to not know about things that are much, much larger is truly humbling.
OM Sri Ganeshaya Namah. There are bigger things than this little place where I work.
Happy Mother's Day (in advance) to everyone out there who's a mom to a human kid, and also to everyone else who has pets, since they certainly do become our babies!
So here's my kidz... Mugzy and Ella Bean. Mugzy's a Boxer and Ella Bean is a Basset. Mugzy and Ella were both abandoned dogs found during cold, snowy winters.
Mugzy was found wandering down a country road by a farm family, who located his then owner. The owner said to shoot him. Thankfully, they knew they had a sweet, sweet dog on their hands and turned him over to Boxer Rescue. The poor little guy had pneumonia, but he recovered nicely and came to live at my house 5 years ago. The Mug-Bug is the sweetest man on the planet. He is utterly devoted to me and he follows me everywhere. Now that he's getting to be an older guy, I cherish every day that he's still here.
Ella Bean was sighted wandering near the Interstate in a rural area. Her rescuers had quite a time catching her, because she'd probably lived on her own for a while. She was eventually captured and turned over to a shelter. She was a wreck when she came to live at my house; she was stressed, skinny and extremely distrustful of humans. She has a big lump on her ribcage, the probable result of being kicked. But two years later, she's a squishy, happy, devoted little soul. Basset feet are the cutest things on the planet. I never knew I could be so endlessly charmed by dog's tooties!
We all work out our maternal instincts one way or the other, don't we??
The title of this blog entry is the name of a Bob Schneider song. It has a few nonsensical lines in it, and according to Bob, those lines were word phrases that came to him in dreams or just bubbled up out of his brain. I've always listened to that song when things are going on in my life that I simply can't explain. Ain't that the way life is supposed to be? I 'spose so.
So as I write this, I'm sitting with Mugzy (the Boxer), Ella Bean (Basset Queen and current avatar) and Puddin' Tom all watching me. Yes, Puddin' Tom! I've been bringing him inside and with the advent of cold weather, he's staying indoors more and more. They all get along. Ella Bean really wants to lick him and mother him, and he's just not ready for that, but his way of repelling her advances is to just hold his paw up in the air, as if he's going to bat her. She knows enough to stay away. Mugzy just ignores him, although Puddin' usually gives the Mug-Bug a friendly "hello" meow when they encounter each other. I'm very proud of all of them.
I saw a couple of people in the last day who make me really, really happy. I was incredibly mellow and calm this afternoon. Then I came back to work after lunch and discovered that my former coworker (the one I mentioned a couple of entries ago) is very, very, very sick. He should be in a hospice, but being either very stubborn or in total denial, he won't admit he's dying.
A guy in my office, who's one of the sick guy's best friends, told me that when he was at the hosptial on Friday, the sick guy was talking about how I'd come down to his office a few times, once to give him coffee beans, and once to give him a vintage TV show photo (of Richard Boone in "Have Gun Will Travel"). He said it meant so much to him, and I had absolutely no idea how it had brightened his day. Hell, and I thought it was my bra! Well, that too. That, to me, is proof that you never know when you're doing something that is a big deal to someone else, either good or bad.
Don't get me wrong; I have another friend who's been a black hole lately. She and I used to have a friendship based upon a certain mutual regard, but in recent years it's become a very needy, one-sided thing for her, where I'm supposed to be Ms. Sunshine-Logical-Never Has A Problem. She and I have both been there for each other in difficult times in the past, but honestly, now it's all about her. I'm nice to her, but I hold my space rather intensely these days. Even when she's nice to me, it's as if there are strings attached, and my crap detectors really start to ping. I wish I could be like Puddin' Tom and just hold up a paw at her Ella Bean-like approaches and get her to walk off, but I think people are more clueless than animals would ever dream of being.
It was a day of ups and downs. I don't know how to feel, except lucky that I got to see people who really rock my world and I was able to enjoy them. Ain't that the way life is supposed to be?
It strikes me that this entry had a bit of a Carrie Bradshaw quality to it -- you know, starting out with a question and taking off from there. It annoys and amuses me that "Sex And The City" has affected my writing style, although I never recall Carrie writing about death and sex, although she should have. Intense sensory experiences are often when we feel our most alive and embodied, and that includes really good desserts, sex and shoe sales. And how could I forget? Sniffing the best perfume oils in the world, and we know where to find them!
I work for a state legislature. They only meet part of the year and they're almost finished, but the final week or two can involve working some long hours, because they meet into the night. A lot of it is a hurry-up-and-wait process for my office, since if there's something on the agenda, we have to sit around and wait for it to come up for debate. There may be a lot of blog entries from yours truly next week...
Anyway, this afternoon a coworker and I were looking at Monday's very long agenda. He commented on a bill title -- something to do with obscene materials. He said: "Hmmm...it's a smut bill." I automatically said: "I love teh Smut!"
He looked at me and said: "Really?" Not that he's a prude, not one little bit, it was just the rapidity of my remark and my great comfort in saying it that took him aback. I told him about Smut of the BPAL variety. He said: "Is this the same group that made the Beaver Moon t-shirt and that Naughty t-shirt?" I said yeah, more or less. (No point boring him with BPAL and BPTP distinctions.)
I still hope the lovely and talented Macha makes a Smut t-shirt design some day, 'cause we do love teh Smut.
Since my previous entry was a prolonged rant, I'm doing another entry to lighten up the mood, and it's on one of my more favorite subjects.
I turned on TV last night and there on the screen was some absurd CBS 4th of July special, featuring Boston Pops doing a live outdoor concert. But when I turned it on, Aerosmith was playing along with the Boston Pops. What? I guess the Aerosmith boys came from the Boston area. But it was surreal, to say the least. First of all, these days, Steven Tyler has a tighter face than his daughter Liv. It does not look especially flattering on him -- a bit too much work, I think. But I could have lived with that, had he sounded halfway normal. Oh my hell, his voice made the menacing cat scream-growl noise uttered by Puddin' Tom sound like the song of a lark. Tyler at his best never had a resonant or clarion-clear rock star voice, but this was off-key and vocal chord polyp-inducing squalling. I nearly hit the mute right away. Actually, I did so when he started to hack his way through "Dream On." It was just too sad.
But Joe Perry was, well, Joe Perry. He and Steven did look like they got into a Clairol frost 'n tip hair highlight system together, but I like the way it looks on Joe. (Do I dislike they way anything looks on Joe? Probably not.) Joe has two big platinum blonde streaks running on either side of his part, and it looks rather dramatic, as if he needs any more drama and presence.
Poor Steven Tyler was working very hard to keep the energy and drama focused on him, and all Joe had to do was stand there, play the guitar and toss his head around. If you got it, you got it.
ETA: OK, I just read that Steven Tyler was "fresh from surgery on his vocal chords," so that's why he sounded so bad. But that's like getting a liver transplant and going out and drinking shots a month after you've been released from the hospital! Rest your voice, Steven.
I have always been amused by the saying: "their karma just jumped up and bit them in the ass." It's so much more colorful than sayings like "what goes around comes around," or "they got their just desserts." That's probably because I had an Airedale named Karma, and I always could picture the literal Karma laying around in angelic sleep, then suddenly jumping up and chomping butt.
Popular culture in the U.S. has turned "karma" into such a cliche, as in "peace, love and good karma, man," but karma is a two-way street.
And if you haven't figured it out, while I don't really take pleasure in other's misfortunes, sometimes it really interesting to see a fast turn-around of karma. Sometimes it's very, very slow, and other times it's as if events reach a critical mass, and karma wakes up in a big hurry. I think those of us who get little karmic nips all the time are luckier than those who have karma sitting there and watching, just like a terrier waiting for hours for the vermin to move out from under the building. Because then it's just a "ker-pow" of a punch.
There's a couple of people who I know fairly well who are walking around with chunks missing from their butts because karma just got them. I'm sorry life is anything but a dream right now, but I hope it's a wakeup call. You just can't treat people that way forever.
Since Dawndie has written about this, and now Filgree Shadow has told her story, I guess I'm brave enough to tell my own paranormal story. If anything, they make good reading!
My maternal grandfather died when I was 3.5 years old. My mother had helped my grandmother take care of him until he became too ill to stay at home, and she used to take me along. Just as an aside, this was not a good move, but my mother was of the opinion that little kids didn't "get it." She tends to think very small children simply don't have the ability to understand what's going on. But my first memories are of running through a room where he was in bed and I was utterly terrified of him, because cancer had moved to his brain and he was in a state of delirium. Today I have a galloping case of hypochondria, and the seed was no doubt planted at that early age.
But I was his youngest grandchild by about 8 years, and word has it that when he was well enough to live relatively normally, he doted upon me. Based upon photos from what my mother always pronounced in melodramatic tones to be: "That. last. Christmas," this was, in fact, true. I also remember his funeral and my brother working very hard to keep me quiet, because I was rather giddy. My grandfather was dead, and he wasn't going to be around to scare the crap out of me anymore. And my beloved grandma might eventually stop crying. She always felt a lot of anxiety about me seeing him so sick, and my reaction to it. Then I felt bad about making grandma feel worse. Is it any wonder than I'm angsty?
What I recall is that sometime after he died, I was sitting in the waiting room of a doctor's office with my mom. I wasn't sick -- I was getting some sort of immunization. The door of the waiting room opened and my grandpa walked in, dressed exactly as he was when he was well. He sat down across from us and was looking at a newspaper. I leaned forward and stared at him. I looked at my mom, who hadn't glanced up from her magazine. Because my mother has always been an inveterate people-gawker and normally seizes the opportunity to engage a captive audience in a conversation, this wasn't normal. And it was her dead father that she was ignoring! Dood, he's back, at least say hi! I kept staring at him then looking up her. He kept glancing up and saw me staring at him. He looked a little chagrined and wouldn't look directly at me. He acted like someone who was trying to not be seen. I leaned forward even closer, thinking he'd at least say hello. He laid down the newspaper and walked out. My mother kept flipping through the magazine like no one was there. I remember looking at her like she was insane. I can see this entire event in my mind so clearly, it's like it happened this morning.
I always attributed this event to the notion that I was, in fact, sick, and my feverish little brain was working overtime. I never told my family about it. Then about 5 years ago, my mother told me a story about sitting with me in the waiting room of the doctor's office, less than a month after my grandfather had died. She couldn't remember why we were there, but she remembered that I wasn't sick. She said I became extremely, extremely quiet, and then turned, looked at her very seriously and very distinctly said: "I think if you look around here, you'll find grandpa."
I never told her what I remembered, she wouldn't have accepted that as anything but my wild imagination.
I've often read that little children can see and hear things that adults can't, and that the social maturation process shuts off that corner of our mind. I tend to agree with that. Also, never take a toddler along to do hospice care. Not a good idea at all.
It occurs to me that I have not provided a definitive update on the cat who took up residence on my front porch nearly two weeks ago. I was calling the kitty Puddy or Puds or Puddin', and a week ago I took the little geek into the vet to get the giant hairballs cut out of his fur and to get a general health assessment.
So here's the news: the kitty is a neutered male, the vet guesses he's about 10 years old. He'd probably lived on his own for a while, considering the extent of the matted hair on his back, but he obviously was someone's pet for most of his life. He had no microchip, and no lost cat report fits his description. His ears were simply very dirty, he had no mites or parasites except of evidence of some fleas, so he was treated for the nasty fleasters. His bloodwork came out clean and vet gave him vaccinations. The vet also said he was in amazingly good shape, considering his age and his recent "on the road" lifestyle. The shambling gait that he has is probably due to general age and perhaps some sort of old injury. But some of it, I believe, was due to the fact that the poor guy was skin and bones and half-starved.
So for now, he's living contentedly on the front porch with his little kennel for shelter and his food and water. He isn't going anywhere, believe me! He's filling out, I'm brushing him daily to get more of the dead hair out of his coat, and his wobbly gait is improving. He loves to crawl onto your your lap, purr and knead his paws. Ella Bean, Basset Queen, was taken out on the porch to meet him, restrained by her harness and her leash, and Puddin' Tom just watched her and gave a warning growl every now and then. She didn't push it. Mugzy the Boxer was curious, but not aggressive. If they keep meeting up, a truce may be established over time
And as you can see, I'm calling him Puddin' Tom. I think it sounds like a cross between a children's book title and a good ol' southern boy. He apparently feels like he's found his retirement home!
Wow, I have a friend (a man) who fell off of someone else's deck (which was only a couple of inches high) and freakishly managed to detach his quadricep (the big muscle that runs down the front of the thigh) from where it attaches around the knee, taking a few tendons with it when it blew.
After I finished wincing and groaning around about the huge amount of hurt that has to be, I realized that I wear stilettos much higher than the deck from which he fell. But he's a guy and I'd wager his joints were pretty tight and wouldn't tolerate the twist.
I rationalize high girl heels by not walking very much in them -- no Carrie Bradshaw-like trotting down the street in them. It's hard on the shoes and it's hard on the feet. That's where I found "Sex And The City" to be the ultimate fantasy; no self-respecting Manolo lover would walk that far on asphalt, because it rips the hell out of them. And there was never, ever, one scene of Carrie soaking her aching tooties after a day of cavorting around in her spikers after Mr. Big or Aidan or whatever man du jour she had her sights set upon. If I'm wrong about that, please comment and let me know. There was a show when Big had angioplasty, but never one where Carrie had bunions removed.
I love girl shoes as much as anyone, and if I ever get a pair of Manolos (or Jimmy Choos), I will post a photo of me wearing them on this blog. (My guess is that I would obtain a used pair on eBay, but you never know when the fairy godmother will appear. Hey, a girl can hope.)
But in the meantime, BPAL is so much more affordable and versatile. You can walk on the asphalt in Chuck Taylor high-tops and still smell like a princess. That's a good trade-off.
I am a word etymology geek, and of course, any sort of "where did that world come from?" question sends me off in search of its origins. In this case:
Webster's New Millennium™ Dictionary of English-
Main Entry: blog
Part of Speech: n
Definition: an online diary; a personal chronological log of thoughts published on a Web page; also called [Weblog], [Web log]
Example: Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the author.
Etymology: shortened form of Weblog
Usage: blog, blogged, blogging v, blogger n
______________________________
I admit, I was really down on blogging a couple of years ago, if only because the few blogs I'd run across were the most self-aggrandizing, nauseating pieces of crap I'd ever read. I realize now that the source I'd used to come across them led me to some very unsatisfying blogs. (A much different forum, I won't get into that right now, that's another entry in itself!)
Then I started reading political blogs, especially after watching a discussion on C-SPAN where a number of print media journalists were lamenting the demise of the newspaper as a source of true investigative journalism. The reason they most often cited for that demise was the proliferation of chain newspapers that functioned to reflect the views of the corporate ownership. One of the panelists was the woman who started the political humor-commentary blog Wonkette. Some of the more traditional print journalism panelists were dissing blogers because they lack the editorial control of journalistic ethics, and she retorted that when traditional journalism simply wouldn't look at the hard topics, investigate issues or print the controversial stories, blogs were stepping in to fill that void. And indeed, more and more serious journalists are running their own blogs these days, to the point that they're e-zines. I appreciate that a lot.
Since Wonkette is essentially a political humor blog, I started reading a few more general humor and commentary blogs, just because some of those people make me laugh like crazy. And my local newspaper makes me laugh, but only inadvertantly, and only because they are so hick and pathetic. Good blogs takes things to a higher denominator, and I feel like I'm actually a part of the world again.
So this brings me to writing in my own blog space, which I started mainly for the jollies of it. I saw it as writing practice, if nothing else -- I had no idea what I'd write about. But really, I tend to have a lot of stories. I see my life as an endless series of odd stories and observations, and I share the better ones. (Well, not all of them, but at least some of them.) Sometimes I get a little Zen or a little angsty, but that's human nature. And often, issues and problems take on a greater shape and clarity when one writes about them; the mere act of writing can help end the spinning-in-the-head that too often occurs if we just mull over things without setting them to print.
I think reading each other's stories gives perspective to our own stories. I have friends who know me well, who see me a lot, who have certain expectations of me, and who sometimes do not look at me with fresh eyes. (Not in that "fresh" way, for any of you perverts out there! Oh, oops, hold it...I'm the pervert! ) So many of you give me a fresh perspective, either from your own entries, or through comments on my blogs. Sometimes you are a realilty check that I just can't get from my friends. Hopefully now and then (when I'm not carrying on about underwear, high heels, BPAL or dreams of George Clooney), I give you a different perspective that might also serve as a reality check.
I think our reasons for blogging are as varied and nuanced as we are, and it only adds to the tapestry of our lives. All of you make my life so much more interesting, and for that I am most thankful.
Do you ever have one of those spells in your life, where you'd just like to put the universe on notice that he/she/it can stop tossing grenades in your path? That maybe you're just tired of dodging explosions in the road, and a bit o' smooth sailing might be a lovely change? Just long enough to have a little time to get some things figured out? I think some people are given a life of more combustables than others. And my life, for the last year, has been a series of big-ass explosions and smaller rumblings, more akin to a volcano getting ready to blow. I'm getting weary of it.
Maybe if I could be a little more clueless, everything wouldn't seem so acute to me, but who wants to be clueless? Sometimes I think those of us who are rather gothic in our outlook are simply the people who just can't stop paying attention long enough to get clueless. Not that I can't be clueless about many things, but they usually aren't important enough to tranqulize me to what's going on.
But I suppose to be awake to the difficulty of life is also to be awake to the gorgeousness of life, so why be a whiny-pants about it?
The college football team that has the big-ass stadium in my town is currently in L.A., playing USC. I have some family members who flew out to L.A., and they're sitting in the stadium, watching it right now. I have the TV on in the other room and I'm only semi-paying attention. If I hear a lot of yelling, I stop and listen to what happened. I haven't been to a Nebraska home football game for, I don't know... over 15 years? I never sit and watch one on TV; it seems like a giant waste of time. When games are on TV, it's actually a very good time to go shopping, but there's a thunderstorm moving in and I really don't want to be in a store if a tornado warning happens. And we had one of those last night... it did rain like a bastard, but the ominous wall cloud skirted south of town.
But, back to football. It's not like I never watched football -- I used to watch it all the time. It's difficult to avoid growing up in this state. My brother started playing high school football when I was about 2 years old. I remember being miserably cold and bored at my brother's games. And even though I don't watch it very much at all these days, I can still turn into one of the boys for a play or two and get into discussions about the design of the play, spot the holding or facemask violation or watch a receiver closely enough to see if he's in or out of the field of play when he comes down with the ball. But then I get bored and leave. Too many people in this state base their identity around the football team's success or failure. There are many things in the world that you can use to make yourself miserable, but I don't think the relative success or failure of the Huskers is a valid excuse for depression.
Actually, what I did find depressing was when I flipped past the Nebraska coach's TV show the other night and he had on the most butt-ugly sports jacket I have seen on TV in years. From a distance, I thought it was some ultra-cheesy blue denim sports coat from the '70's. I kept watching the show just to see a close-up. It was a lighter (denim-colored) blue wool coat with a bit of a plaid design in it. Even worse! Shades of Rodney Dangerfield in "Caddyshack!" The previous coach turned the team to shit, but he was dapper enough. He was a spokesperson for a local men's clothier and they supplied him with clothing. I have no idea who is giving the current coach his clothing, but Pat Riley he is not.
Hmmm... I think the thunderstorm has passed and I can go to the gym -- it's another good thing to do during games. The game is usually on the TVs, so I can look up and check the score to see what's happening. Actually, I always want Nebraska to win, or to at least play well, because then I don't have to deal with everyone else's bad mood and complaining on Monday morning.
In closing, I really want to go spend money for sateen bedding. I have one set, and I want more. Why does it matter to me what the thread count is of pieces of fabric that I lay on when I'm mostly unconscious, or at least in an altered level of consciousness? I don't get it, but it so nice to wake up and fall asleep on sateen sheets, especially when I wear Mme. Moriarty, which smells so insanely good that it makes me want to have sex with myself.
I can't think of anything else to say after that last comment, so I think I'll just stop. Go Big Thread Count!
ETA: OK, I misspelled "thread" as "tread" because I was being inattentive, as all the weather bulletin beepers went off and I did want to jump up and run off to see what that is all about. A tornado was 50 miles or so north of us, around Omaha. It proceeded to rain like a bastard and even hailed a little bit, so I decided to not go to the gym. Once I ascertained that the tornado wasn't hitting hard in Omaha (it didn't do any damage), I somehow became entranced watching a cheesy infomercial for a 10-CD set of '70's music. The video clips of the '70's artists featured on the CDs were hypnotizingly odd. These CD sets have a lot of the pop music of the '70's, and the word "geek" kept going through my head. There was one guy, however, who was a one-hit wonder and he did look a lot like the guy who played Denny on "Gray's Anatomy" last season. I think the score of the game is USC 21, Nebraska 10. A respectable effort, considering we sucked two years ago and they were national champions. (See, I know more about football than I want to admit.)
I'm in a rut, but it's a lovely rut, and a rut that I am happy to wallow in. I'm still wearing Tunisian Patchouli with O slathered over the top. It is a nice dirt rut with a bucket of honey and nuggets of amber poured into it. It works for this time of year. My body chem is very seasonal and this is the Tunisian patchouli time of year; it gets too overwhelming when the weather cools off, and even now, I like I much better when it's layered and softened with the O.
I have a tattoo of a triskele on my sacrum; I got it because I love Celtic spirals and it reminds me of the New Grange stone carvings. I've had it for several years now and I only recently discovered that in "The Story of O," the protagonist (or maybe I should say the pro-agonyist) wears a ring with a triskele design. As a result, in some quarters, the triskele is a symbol for BDSM.
So I wear O, I have a triskele tattoo, someone give me my leathers and a whip! A friend of mine used to get a catalog from a place called "Dream Dresser," and he always passed it on to me. Oh my. It made me want to become a domme on the spot. He stopped getting the catalog and we looked up the company on the web, and sadly, I think they're defunct.
All that said, I never do the domme act. I think I have more fun making people believe that I would make them get down on their knees and bark like a dog, than I ever would have if they actually did so.
Oh yes! I have on an eggplant-colored bra. One of the VSC bandolier minimal-padding numbers. I really like the way that the straps look, they're wider-set and very flattering. And I love the color. My panties are black mesh bikinis. I do have undies to match the bra, but they tend to produce VPL (visible panty line) and I have on a pair of those long shorts/short trousers with dark hose. I didn't want to ruin the line.
So I've been told that men love VPL as long as it's not incredibly evident. Just a shade of it that find rather sexy, just because they get to think about your panties. But is that true? What have you heard? Do report back...consider it a research mission.
Back to my fragrant rut...
Well hells belles, I haven't written an entry in almost a week! What have I been doing? I'm getting busier at work and it cuts down on my recreational writing time. Whatta gyp!
Last night I went to the pet food store to get some kitty food for Puddin' Tom, and the Italian Greyhound Rescue organization had a table set up by the door. The guy who's the local IG rescue coordinator was there with two of his foster doggies. The one was a bouncy youngster, about a year old. The other dog had some white on his face and was obviously a mature fellow. When I kneeled down to pet them, the older guy came over, put his eensy teensy little paws on my legs and snuggled his head against me and kind of whimpered and cried. The sweetie, the honey! There was another woman there and I wanted her to be able to pet him, but this little dog kept coming back and just leaning on me.
I asked the IG rescue guy what the story was with the older dog -- he said it was an owner surrender. This couple had owned two IGs since the dogs were pups; one dog was 9 and the other was 8. They decided that the dogs were getting older and might get more high-maintenance, so they just turned them over to rescue. Kind of like the dogs were motor vehicles. What doucebags. This little dog kept looking at me with his big sad eyes, and you could tell he's just confused. And sad. And frightened. He's being very well-cared for in his foster home, I know, but the poor little guy wanted to adopt me. He broke my heart.
Look, IGs are really delicate little creatures and I already have a bossy Basset and a very possessive male Boxer. I would seriously fear for the poor little guy. I only hope that he turns on the big-eye nuzzler act on for other women and he gets a wonderful home very soon, so he can be curled up on a couch with a little comforter thrown over him on chilly autumn nights.
Wayward dogs and pain in the ass men, they all love me.
Yesterday I went to the hairdresser and she and I contemplated the condition of my hair. I apparently became a little impatient with the hair styling process when I was still really harried at work, and I turned my flattening iron up WAY too high. That, dear readers, can produce nice short-term results and nasty long-term results. I have a thing about fried-looking hair, and here I had it on my own head.
So I had her cut about 3 inches off the bottom. She's also starting to grow out a few of the layers, so what I have today is effectively a longer and wilder version of a Louise Brooks bob. My hair is still at the middle of my neck, so it's hardly as bobbed as LuLu's, but it has that wedge effect.
I thought this was a drastic change, so I walk into my office after getting my hair done and one person noticed. I walked back in this morning and a couple of other people (who would have said something if they'd noticed) didn't notice much of a change. Isn't it weird how we always scrutinize ourselves so intently and expect others to do the same?
I think as long as person is clean and well-groomed and doesn't display pet peeve irritants (such a French manicured toenails or artificial nails with rhinestones that may pop off and land in your lap), people really don't notice the little nuances unless you're a very visually oriented person.
So now I know that someone with a fried hair pet peeve won't be standing around, looking at me, thinking "eeeewww!"
Odd subreference with BPAL elements: I was looking at minilux's BPAL icons and noticed that Louise Brooks was pictured in a couple of icons, one being for the scent Beatrice. There's a town in my state called Beatrice; it's about 35 miles directly south of where I reside. However, it's not pronounced the way the woman's name Beatrice is commonly pronounced, which is "BEE-uh-truss." No, people call this town "Bee-AT-triss." (And put a hard midwestern "r" in the last syllable.) I do not know the source of this trend, but people where I live will jokingly pronounce the name of the town "Beat (as in the beat goes on)-Rice (as in the grain.) I don't recall what was in the scent Beatrice, and I don't think it was something that I would have enjoyed, but even if I had, it would have been terribly difficult to not tell people that I was wearing "Beat-Rice" that day.
Story that was jarred loose in my brain as a result of darkity's story from the other day, about the fake nail popping off the girl's hand on the bus and landing on darkity: A long time ago, I was eating with a then-boyfriend in a Grisante's restaurant. We were at a table that was separated from another table by a divider that was probably 4 feet high. At the other table was a couple with their young son (about 5 or 6 years old) and one set of grandparents. The kid was wired for sound anyway, and Grandpappy was not making matters better, because he kept saying to the tyke: "So are ya all excited it's your birthday? Do you think you're gonna have lots of presents when we get home? Huh? Huh?" The kid was thrashing around, kicking and waving his arms. A waitress, hoping to provide a calming influence, gave the kid some crayons so he could draw on the paper that was put on the tabletop over the tablecloth. Didn't work. Then, I looked down at my plate to take another bite of whatever it was that I was eating, and a crayon suddenly plopped down in the middle of my plate. The kid had lost control of the crayon in his hot little hand as he was waving his arms around and it landed in my pasta. The mother was mortified, grandpappy was unrepentant and the kid was too crazed from being driven into a frenzy by his apparently sadistic grandpaps to even notice. A waiter saw it happen, came over, grabbed my plate and told me he was providing me with a replacement. My boyfriend said that the look on my face, as I handed the crayon back to the mother, should have caused the entire table to turn to salt and crumble away. People! I wasn't really mad at the kid, but his adult entourage needed to have their butts kicked.
Retail therapy, moi?
Well, I must stay true to my word, and when I say in my sales thread that I'll reinvest the proceeds from my sales in the Lab (and then some), I must follow through. I placed a tidy little order for a bottle of each of the following: The Brides of Dracula, Theodosius, the Legerdemain and Snake Oil. The Brides of Dracula was the only scent of the recent LEs that really tripped my trigger. I hadn't ordered the Legerdemain with my Carnaval order because the jasmine made me jittery. Then I tried Siren, fell in love with it and realized that jasmine need not be a reason to rule out a scent. So the Legerdemain it is. And of course I need a bottle of Snake Oil to sit in reserve and age like a fine wine while I use my current bottle.
And in the wine mode, I just finished regaling a friend about a Austrian (and I mean Austrian, not Australian) white wine, brand name Lois. Specifically,, it's Fred Lois Gruner Veltliner. It's very nice white wine, not too sweet -- dry, but not dry in an icky way. It's delicious. Really, really nice. As in, grab a bottle of it and sit in the sun and eat cheese and crackers over the long weekend. Preferably with someone you like, but if keeping yourself company is the best option, don't forget to treat yourself. Put on your favorite BPAL scent and let it waft around you.
What is it that the Lab's postcards say? Sensualist stimulation? By all means, go for it.
If you have the time, go to the BBC web site - www.bbc.co.uk
In the search mode, enter "brain test" and the first result you will probably get is "Science - Sex ID." That link will take you to a very comprehensive test that is designed to gauge if your brain functions on a more typically male, or typically female basis. Be ready to take time and have a ruler available -- you'll be doing some measurements of your fingers (index and ring finger ratios can indicate exposure to testosterone in utero and the degree of exposure can affect brain function). This isn't one of those little fun tests -- it's rather comprehensive and it makes you use your brain in ways that might not be your typical mode.
I have a male friend who took it who tested out as having more female way of thinking; this was no shock to him. He's the youngest child in a family with a stay-at-home mom and a military officer dad. He spent a lot of time growing up being exposed to a more female mindset. (And my friend isn't gay -- he's very straight, in case you were wondering.) I have a robustly hetero female acquaintance who last summer tested out as having a male mindset. Obviously, it's an indication of how your brain works, not your sexual identity.
How'd I test out? Directly between male and female.
Writing this made me think of a particularly idiotic quote from a politician of past years. Too bad that while he's still stooopid as hell, he seems almost innocuous in comparison to today's idiots:
"What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is." -- Dan Quayle
Hell, I have all sorts of time at work now... I can go back to reading poetry and posting favorite poems, so for all of you that detest poetry, just sign off now. And it's spring, so let's be romantic as hell, at least for a moment or two. Then I'll get real, but still in a romantic way. So for all you lovers out there, here's two ways to look at it.
A mushy poem that I love, by E.E. Cummings:
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
And a not-so-mushy poem by Wallace Stevens:
The night knows nothing of the chants of night.
It is what it is as I am what I am:
And in perceiving this I best perceive myself
And you. Only we two may interchange
Each in the other what each has to give.
Only we two are one, not you and night,
Nor night and I, but you and I, alone,
So much alone, so deeply by ourselves,
So far beyond the casual solitudes,
That night is only the background of our selves,
Supremely true each to its separate self,
In the pale light that each upon the other throws.
And you know, maybe they aren't so different, after all...
It's summer! I know the solstice isn't until a week from today, but I had one marker last night and another one this morning. It's official in my world.
Last night I went outside at dusk and the fireflies are out! I'd seen one or two fireflies in the garden over the weekend, but it was during the daytime and I didn't notice them at night. Last night, at dusk, they were rising up out of the garden and twirling all over. The first sight of hundreds of fireflies waking up for the night always stops me in my tracks, because it is so gorgeous and amazing, especially living here on the prairie. We go through the harsh and barren winter, the mercurical spring, and it's hot and dry a great deal of the time in the summer, but you can go outside on summer nights and watch the stars rise in the sky and watch the fireflies repeat the act as they rise up out of the garden. It's just a miracle.
And when I walked out to check the baby cardinals in their nest this morning, I discovered that the first day lily of the year is blooming in my garden! Day lilies are named appropriately, since each lily lasts but one day, but fortunately they produce a lot of blossoms. The one that's blooming is a pink-peach color and it literally yells "summertime!"
Today's non sequiturs begin with the fact that the Reverend Jim guy that I mentioned in my prior entry is, in fact, employed. I went into Meadowlark Coffee yesterday and he was sitting outside, wearing a shirt normally worn by U-Stop convenience store employees. I asked Debbie, the morning barrista, if he was actually a U-Stop employee and she said yes, she was rather certain that he was. I commented that I'd always thought that he was a client at the county mental health center. And Debbie said yes, she was rather sure he was.
I was watching "Austin City Limits" on PBS last Saturday, and I know it was a rerun, but I was deeply amused at the contrasts presented by the two featured performers. I like both of them, but who decided to put Lyle Lovett and Jamie Cullum on the same show? Lyle is tall, skinny, taciturn Texan who smiles only on one side of his face, is so rigid when he performs that one suspects he might break in half if he made a sudden move, and is entrancingly weird-looking. I figured out that part of what makes him so very odd-looking is that his eyebrows are almost nonexistent. He has all that hair on the top of his head (which styling products have really tamed in recent years) and absolutely no eyebrows. But don't get me wrong, I like his voice and a lot of his music, although I don't listen to him that often.
Did he burn his eyebrows off as a kid and they never grew back?
Jamie Cullum is a hyperanimated little sparkplug from England who runs and jumps all over as he is singing and playing the piano. He's so little that I kind of want to call him "Frodo," but he's also quite adorable. Maybe the Austin City Limits crowd for his show was the same group who showed up to see Lyle perform, and they just didn't get what Jamie was all about. They were as lifeless as the day is long, and I've never seen a group of such unrhymtic-looking people in my life. What was the matter with those white people? Get up and move! At least sway a bit! Granted, I love Jamie's music and his style, but I felt sorry for him, having to perform on TV before an alleged "live" audience.
Just. Plain. Cute.
I bought three bottles from the update -- two from Wanderlust and one from Carnaval Diabolique. Specifically, Cockaige and Lyonesse from Wanderlust and Midnight on the Midway. What is life without at least one or two pending BPAL orders? About as boring as a Lyle Lovett crowd at a Jamie Cullum concert!
There's a line of thunderstorms blowing through out here on the prairie tonight, here in the land of Willa Cather, and I do love a nice rumbly thunderstorm. Nothing severe or tornadic, mind you, just a garden-variety thunderstorm. Rain, a bit of wind, thunder rolling in the distance. It's just so great.
The most utterly gorgeous drive I've had in some years was about 4 years ago, heading east out of Ft. Collins, Colorado. If you head east, you drive directly away from the Rockies and into a rolling grassland. It was about 1 in the afternoon and thunderstorms were moving across the area. You could look to the north and see blue-black clouds in the distance with sheets of rain whipping out of them. Occasional flashes of lightning, rolls of thunder. It was an incredible contrast to the rolling yellow-green grassland and the lonesome, winding road. I put on the Cowboy Junkies and sailed along. By the time I got to Nebraska, it was blue skies and clear sailing across the state. That was a great drive. I had soundtrack music for each part of the drive... I started out with the Cowboy Junkies and by the time I pulled into my home city, I was listening to cool jazz by Patricia Barber.
That was probably boring. You just had to be there. I was in a zone during that drive, I was so in love with so many things on that drive. There's a Buddhist nun named Pema Chodron (she's American, that's her dharma name) who said she became a Buddhist nun because she wanted to fall in love with not just one person, but the entire world. In a very pure sense, of course. My passionate nature doesn't allow me to forego the ways of the flesh, but I do, at times, truly understand what she's saying.
By the way, my favorite song by The Doors isn't "Riders on the Storm," it's "L.A. Woman." There's another driving song for you!
My brother is about 12 years older than I am, and thus, I'm right in between his age and his oldest daughter's age. So once when I was about 19 and Lori was about 7, Lori decided she wanted to send my dad a letter, and she wanted to dictate it to me. It was really quite hilarious and I think my dad saved it for a long time. It started out: "Hi Grandpa. How are you? I am fine. The house hasn't burned down yet."
And therefore, the title of today's entry. For whatever reason, the firework lunacy around my town seemed to occur on the evening of July 3, rather than July 4. The next door neighbors have been out of town for over a week, leaving their 17-year-old daughter to care for the household. She was having an allegedly wholesome teen gathering at the house, complete with fireworks. Then, about 2 a.m., I was awakened from my slumbers because someone was frantically ringing the doorbell over and over. I got to the door and yelled "WHO IS IT?" and the response was: "YOUR FENCE IS ON FIRE!"
Great. I ran out the back door, turned on the hose and for whatever reason, ran to the right part of the yard. My DH was left standing confused and didn't even know where I went. But the time I got around the corner, the fire was almost out, for the neighbor's daughter had also turned out their hose and was spraying down the fence.
The explanation: although there were about 4 carloads of kids hanging around, they just all happened to be driving past, and hadn't been spending time there. They claim they stopped and rang the doorbell, couldn't wake us up, and went to her house and got her to come out and put out the fire. Yeah, right. I'm a light sleeper and one doorbell ding is all it takes to rouse me from horizontal slumber to a sitting-straight- up, wide awake state.
And the fire was really caused by a plastic gas can that was set on fire. The fence was scorched due to its proximity to the gas can. The kdis, of course, had no idea who had started it, or where the gas can came from, but it was a random act of arson.
Once the kids heard my DH has finally come to his senses and called the fire department, everyone who just happened to be driving by got in their cars and promptly left. This included the friend who was supposed to be staying with the neighbor's daughter. The neighbor girl's eyes popped out of her head when she heard the firemen were arriving, and that they would probably call the police. She yelped: "But the fire is OUT!" Apparently the two guys who knocked on our door felt it was a good idea to let us know the fence was on fire, while the others didn't want us to figure it out. Our neighbor's daughter feigned great innocence to the fireman and the cops and claimed she'd been indoors watching movies when the act of arson occurred.
The cops took forever to arrive, so we were up until almost 5 in the morning. The police just rolled their eyes at her story. By light of day, you could see where the gas can was on fire in their driveway, and someone kicked it (probably to get it away from her car, not a bad idea), it rolled down an incline toward our fence, and then it scorched the fence.
This is the daughter of people who have a patio chimnea in the the back and like to burn tree branches in it, but if the branches are too green to burn well, they dump charcoal lighter on it and get flames jumping 3 or 4 feet out of the chimnea. I am sure they will also take no responsibility for anything, because she's obviously copping to nothing. The firemen did take pains to point out to her how the fire could have really damaged her house a lot, because if it had continued, it would have gone up into a tree and hopped over to the roof her her house first.
And crap, just last week I had commented that she's very good at playing the wholesome cheerleader, fine Christian girl routine, but she's obviously a bit more of a handful than her older sister. But the parents don't seem to get it, because they're too busy acting like they're socially superior to their neighbors, while they guzzle beer and burn scrap lumber in their chimnea.
So why is it that when people act either superior or have to wear their wholesomeness on their sleeves, it's usually to cover up something else?
You read all about it, here it is in graphic detail... just the usual goings-on around my house. Ella Bean gets busy on Mugzy: CORNHOLE!!!!
I know the photo development folks see it all, but methinks they had to wonder, just a bit. However, it may have been a welcome, if slightly odd, break from all the Christmas photo shoots.
