any bad hair day can easily be covered with a hat. If you cannot find a hat, you might try a purple scarf.

guess who's working on natural lighting portraits not only in her digital photography but also the 35mm B&W courses?

bite it

McBeth.

some days it feels like the most i'll be capable of is baring my teeth and warning others away.

Thai pavillion

McBeth.

...a flicker of brightness and hope in the midst of Wisconsin dreary winter days

bridge

McBeth.

"There is a time for departure even when there's no certain place to go."

-Tennessee Williams

Scent Haiku Quintet

McBeth.

Patchouli

Lor's personal choice
Now, oh Sapphic calling card,
Karen wears you well.


China Musk

Your vial, wrapped simply
I wore, plus gave as as a gift
But hurled in labor.


Freshly Cut Grass

My independence
Military precision
Cranky push mower


Chanel No.5

Snuck some at Grandma's
My first credit card buy, mmm!
I am a soft girl.


Sweet-sour Sweaty Baby

I kiss the soft nape
Cheerios, powder and sweat
His naptime, my joy.

The grave affair of two old friends

McBeth.

A grave affair, this very unladylike leave-taking

Two long-unpolished vamps,
So far beyond their prime
Immodestly incontinent and offensively
malodorous, as if The Plague has descended upon them
now beg for benevolence,
clamor for compassion

Their tongues lolling, parched and shriveled
Throats withered to thin brittle leather strips

Several recent biopsies have proven
And second opinions have indeed confirmed
the gummy tumors
imbedded deeply in their souls remain
firmly inoperable,
malignant testaments to a lifetime of reckless
and ungoverned living

Still -- They stand resolutely now
And, wearily conceding defeat, they offer their resignation

Each consoles the other,
First, denying the necrosis (clearly visible near their collars)
Then - quietly, gently...
Looking into the leaking well of tears in one another's despairing eyes,
Admits the grim inevitability of their immediate futures

Huddled together, one toes the ground, whispering her
dreams to the other. Of how in their afterlives,
should they have them, they may return
as front yard planters for purple hybrid daisies which will,
come springtime, push up new life through their nutritive soil.

Interweaving laces, they lay down heel-to-heel
Weary
worn thin
offering up their lives in two final squeaks
releasing joy into the universe

Officials have not yet determined whether this will be considered
multiple homicide or a suicide pact.

Movie meme

I'm memeing again. Such a liar. Have I ever memed before? I believe this may be my maiden memeing voyage. C'mon, bat at me with a bottle of champagne ... Wild Turkey? Anything.
(edit: I lied. AGAIN! After some consideration I realized that this wasn't my maiden memeing voyage. Will you still love me in the morning?)

This time I found the goodie on Viv's blog. She said she found this task amusing; me? Not so much. I don't think I CAN come up with twelve movie quotes so I'm taking up her challenge here and now. Bring it on, sister.

1. Pick one dozen movies that are ones that you have special feelings about.
2. Pick a few lines of dialogue that mean something to you.
3. As people guess the film, strike out that entry.
4. If possible, after the film is guessed, explain why that movie made the list.

Now Viv may have the absoloveliest name I've ever wanted to squeeze (next to Nerolie, but that's another story for another time) and Viv may well get a gaggle of visitors necessitating the unveiling of her movie titles. Me & my blog? ummm... not so much about the visitors. Or visiting folk who leave comments (yet. yet?). So I'll plan to post the answers up in approximately one week just to give anyone who feels like meandering into this a fair deal. Bonne chance!

(*additional edit added 25 Jan '05: I don't know the HTML for drawing a line through text so instead I will BOLD the quotations that have been accurately guessed.)

1. "Oh, you should never, never doubt what nobody is sure about."
KIDS! Nobody guessed this?! It's only from the best, most freaky groovy fantabulous pre-Nemo extravaganza, filmed back in the day when movies were made to be fun and frightening because everyone knew kids were smart enough to hold both fear and humor together in their bulbous little heads at the same time movie ever! 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory'!
ooompa looooma doompa-dee-dooo...

2. "One cannot be betrayed if one has no people."
Kaiser Sosa. Does that clue help anyone figure this out?
This quote was from the very smart 'Usual Suspects'. I remember the bleary stupefied sense I had, that "what just happened here?" feeling that hung like a fog the first time I watched this movie. I daren't say too much, in case you haven't seen this movie yet (because you will. trust me, it'll gnaw at you like a prairie mouse at the door of the silo in winter until you do) but what impressed me was this movie's ability to catapult my 'oh, I know what's going to happen to him/her/it next' assumptions far far away. I didn't know I could be so dense. Fabulous.

3. "A lot of alliteration from anxious anchors placed in powerful posts!"
This may be the only movie quote that I have repeated nearly weekly - for years. If you consider that the movie was made in 1987 that's a reasonably respectable rousting run of repetition. See below #4 for the answer.

4. "And if things had gone differently for me tonight then I probably wouldn't be saying any of this. I grant you everything, but give me this - he personifies everything that you've been fighting against. And I'm in love with you. How do you like that? - I buried the lead." (hint: came from same movie as quote #3)
Oh lordy, RUN to pick up a copy of this, all ye cynical lovers of both hearthbreak and humor. 'Broadcast News' made me a fullblooded Holly Hunter fan (I attempted to emulate her making time to cry bit. It didn't work so well for me but that only increased my admiration for her acting skills). The movie also taught me to keep a critical eye toward the surface levels of whatever on first glance seems simple.

5. "Yeah, we saw you and we were like 'whoa', and then you were like 'whoa' and we went, like, 'whoa'."
(*Yes, this came from 'Finding Nemo' and any adult who has not seen this movie yet MUST view it, whether accompanied by children or not. Very sweet. Ellen DeGeneres rocks as Dorie.)

6. "You cannot find peace by avoiding life, Leonard."
(*A certain east coasterererer has a fantastic sense of name placement. This quote came from 'The Hours'.)

7. "I know what it's like to want to die. How it hurts to smile. How you ty to fit in but you can't. How you hurt yourself on the outside to try to kill the thing on the inside."
This quote comes from 'Girl, Interrupted'. Angelina Jolie. Oh yeah whatever, there were some other actors in the film too, but don't pretend you didn't notice there was Angelina Jolie! Oh. Wait. There was something about a story and a plot in there too. And the curious psych experience (ooh, gotta love hospitals with tunnels)... I was diggin' on those too. But there was Angelina Jolie.

8. "I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries."
(good humorists can be neither felled nor fibbed to. Several of you knew this one immediately; what can I say? I like farts and imagining hamster mommies.) eye heart MONTY PYTHON

9. "The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return."
It is my opinion that Baz Luhrmann is a creative genius. If you can lay your hands on a copy of the DVD version of 'Moulin Rouge!', do it. Many impressive production details are included on the DVD version, conceptual stuff on up. I respect that Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor both - actually, really truly sang (and there was much singing!). Neither are particular vocal dynamos, but there's something so much truer in their unprofessional voices; something that gives the rest of the movie's inauthenticity *authenticity*. Also interesting to note, as listed in this IMDB reference: The plot of the movie essentially derives from three operas/operettas. The plot line of a young writer with Bohemian friends who falls in love with a sick girl that eventually dies is from "La Bohème". (Baz Luhrmann directed a stage production of Bohème in Sydney as well as a Broadway production in New York.) The plot line of a courtesan who learns that love can also be true and idealistic comes from "La Traviata". Finally, the plot line of the writer who travels to the 'under world' of the Moulin Rouge to find his love and tries to take her back to the 'upper world' comes from "Orpheus in the Underworld" which is an adaption of the ancient Greek 'Orpheus and Eurydike' myth.

10. "What is this Ethel - Halloween? You tryin' to scare me? Well you're wasting your time! I'm scarier than you any day of the week. So beat it, Ethel! Boo! Better dead than red! Somebody tryin' to shake me up? HAH HAH! From the throne of God in heaven to the belly of hell, you can all fuck yourselves and then go jump in the lake because I'm not afraid of you or death or hell or anything!"
'Angels in America', directed by Mike Nichols, was first released as a play, then a mini-series on HBO. This particular quote, by Roy Cohn (played by Al Pacino), caused the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck to stand at attention and was rasped during his dying days, in a hospital bed, alone, being visited by the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg who Cohn has put to death, along with Rosenberg's husband Julius, years earlier convicted for communist acts & espionage during the the Cold War (the height of McCarthyism). I pitied this sad little dying horrible lump of man and I hated him - SO much. I delighted in his suffering. I loathed myself for delighting in his suffering. And when Roy wasn't being an ass, there were other big things happening with other characters, including angelic unions. 'Angels in America' is the great stick playwright Tony Kushner shakes at HIV/Aids, and should be on your list of "to sees" soon.

11. "You can lose ALL your points for any one of three things: One- If you cry. Two- If you ask to see your mother. Three- If you're hungry and ask for a snack. Forget it!" (hint: foreign flick)
You're not going to rent 'Willy Wonka'? Fine. I don't like your choice but I'll accept it. But THIS one is a different story altogether. 'Life is Beautiful' (La Vita e Bella) is the joyful story of a Jewish man's love, his imagination, and his family. It is the story of grace and glory, of what a parent should be expected to do for a child, a husband for a wife. Lovely, lovely, lovely.
This quote was spoken by the father (Guido) to his son when they reached the concentration camp. I don't want to say more about it for fear of giving anything away. See this film, then we'll talk.

12. "Get the butter."
(*Multiple good guessers here - sweet little deviants, all of you. This was Marlon Brando's quote from 'Last Tango in Paris'. Wow-wee. Pardonez-moi while I fan myself.)

on second thought...

In the year 2005 I resolve to: Read the manual. Get your resolution here.

hallway waiting

McBeth.

hoofbeats
pattering
walking on my grave
tip tap tip tap swish
swash ding

Have you ever felt too awake to lie down
but too tired to stand up?

His department ran out of money.
The story is ... the election...
this is a young go-getter, this guy.

let us go by the bookstore.
Do you suppose we'll find what you're looking for?

Excuse me. Ding.
Swish
Swash.

Yah, I'm going to close one of them this year,
I don't need both accounts.

And I said --
Yah!
Then they were all Oh My God! Jah!

What's your name again? I'll give you my number.
Oh please, I'm too old for that.

Ding!
What foreign languages did you take?
When I was in the army I learned Spanish.
Ding!
Ding.

thud.
thud. swarsh.
ding-ding. DING.

Hujh-a-bujh-a get down rujh-a

Don't you just hate when you can't find the right
Words?

e.u.w. gross

McBeth.

Once there was a rabbit.
It got its head blown off in an unfortunate hunting accident.

Most bunnies would give up but not this rabbit.
No, it magically healed and continued to leap about, headless and fluffy as ever.

Headless bunnies can make do in rabbit society
if they are willing to recognize their headlessness.
Yes, they can get along just fine.

And that's the end of this story.

poetic introduction

McBeth.

His name was Michael, but the Oxford locals called him Hattie Kismet.
He spoke knowledgably; secure that his previous occupations (both as a Bang & Olufsen theater designer and that fun congressional speechwriting volunteer work) would make for interesting stories around the counter at the diner and,
One day, a larger better Him.

He was lean,
A streamlined efficiency home furnishings expert by trade,
An outdoorsman by bliss
Who found his greatest relaxation and joy
either looking out over a pole off the side of a boat
or on top of five please-God, let-them-be-solid inches of ice.

His soul was as clear and wide as a Montana trout stream,
Swiftly fluidly winding from Upper to Lower
Easy working for the sure-footed
A delighted glimpse of rainbows darting just below his surface

Like varities of winged creatures,
His love knew the migratory pathways, flying intercessory miles
between the cold Midwest and the California coast,
touching hearts with the woman he adored,

That beautiful school teacher, his beloved
The dear one who understood the articulate nature of his song,
recognized it immediately, even if he wasn't a Top-40 tune.

He reckoned that not every song was meant to suit each person
He smiled with the mischievousness of a catchy tune
And was excited about the possibilities -
Like turning his 'fuck-they-can-reach-me-everywhere-EVERYwhere!' phone
OFF
for an hour
twice weekly
And, despite possible concern that he wouldn't have time to complete writing worth presenting, he anticipated improving his writerly confidence.

He was a strong young white spruce
riding blind on the back of a flatbed
still growing, still protected by the burlap,
unconcerned about where he may be headed or planted
Confident that the life he was being led toward would be
A playground
without age or height restrictions.

pre-dawn skies, 4:45am, Hornby

McBeth.

melted blueberry crisp bubbling
at the edge of the treeline
waking on the flat
sandstone shoreline

beneath tall carmelized-trunked Arbutus,
wherein the tufts of the highest
freshest, greenest-smelling leaves
sit two raucous eagles hawr-hawring
at the hilarity of their mutual baldness.

examining me over the bleary red edge of my sleeping sack stares a saucer-eyed seal,
bobble-headed curiosity,
standing in dark amusing contrast to the raspberry sorbet layer of
fluffy energy-gathering clouds now hovering above the trees

I recall lying awake in the darkness last night,
me and the dying batteries of my flashlight
Hoping to outlast that hopeless feeling that accompanied my temporary blindness.

now, with the savory course of
eggy over-easiness
served full-up and bright with a short order cook's slapping bell DING
I'd welcome quiet
stillness
sleep.

no resolve

McBeth.

I'd like to think that I'm the singularly original nobody-does-it-better girl but the truth is Orionoir came up with a far better, far quicker response to the new year than anything I'd attempted. Yeah, okay so it might be the chundering effects of his chemotherapy which led him to pre-plan his blogging (and really, you gots to give the kudos to the boy if he's that full of foresight that he'd plan his blogging in advance for the time he'd be offline during his chemical flogging, but I digress...) Hang on -- he's a guy! *ding* So maybe I'll continue carrying this ridiculous belief that I'm the pseudo "IT" girl for a while longer. Just a little while. Not long at all, really. Mostly I'm hoping his barf-o-matic ride will be a short one.

Alrighty, here is my meme:

* I resolve not to hesitate when I'm unsure. This should cover menu choices, buying books based solely on the titles, and all matters of dressing myself.

Last year's thinking: "Gosh, should I wear the underwear today?" The new and constantly improving 2005 thought process: "Underwear? HA! And for that matter what's the deal with pants? Who needs 'em?"

* I resolve not to paint my cats in 2005. Simply because I CAN mess with them does not mean I SHOULD mess with them.

* I resolve not to be a square mother in aught-five. I'll get tight with my baby's shizzle, be da bomb maw, best love in the 'hood. The only trouble I may encounter with this one is that - well - my baby's shizzle may not wantza du get tight, y'all. I may have to conceal my supa-mothah status under a veil of boring white middle-aged woman.

* I resolve not to replace all the light bulbs with the super-compact energy efficient numbers. This is a two-parter, really. The energy efficient compacts give off shit light (hey, y'all ever heard of non-yellow, non-oranged light you freaktastic bulb designers? So what if you concocted the cutesy swirl design - don't bother knocking until you have a swirly energy efficient bulb by which I can read... then we'll talk).

What direction have I to travel toward if not for the blessing of my energy inefficient heel dragging? It's a slippery slope, you see... first she goes all energy efficient bulbs, next thing ya know she's moved her house right straight off the grid, eating self-raised ostrich and making quilts using dryer lint from the solar-powered dryer out back. I'm not prepared to be such a progressive citizen. Not before 2010, at any rate, and that's why it really is just best that I put the kai-bosh on the total replacement of my old Reveal blue light light bulbs.

* I resolve not to eat less than heavenly food. I will delight in soft bries, mousse torte, homemade mushroom soup and the occasional bag of Cheetos (if a nibble on a cheese toe will put me one stop closer to the celestial joy of a saturated salivating taste bud).

* I resolve not to travel far without my new thesaurus. I mean, uh, my fresh modern original au courant lexiconography, a veritable glossarist collection of words.

* I resolve not to receive a gift until I am fully prepared to write a thank you note in return. While her methodology may have left something to be desired, my mother's force-feedings on good manners gruel DID teach me how to properly behave; responding appropriately seems like one of those things I can pay my time and attention to.

* I resolve not to be quite the usual passive-aggressive tool I want to be when I get mad (frustrated, tired, bored...).

* I resolve not to leave all those Teleflora vases empty this year. Vase usage stats are not available (read: I have no bloody idea how many of them are currently stored in the hard-to-reach high cabinets, nor how they manage to reproduce adorable bud vases at those astonishing rates). Okay, so for the sake of choosing a number: one. I can surely keep ONE vase filled with a fabulous floriculture fixing.

* I resolve not to purchase any books authored by Dr. Phil McGraw, even though I generally espouse his theories on child-rearing and family cohesiveness. How's that workin' for me? Gr-rrr-rrreat.

* I resolve not to forget how much I get out of the following magazines (the winners names will be announced in no particular order. If your name is called please come forward to the podium to receive your award): Rolling Stone, Wired, PC World, Reason, Bon Appetit, National Geographic (your moon spread was dee-lish). You each bring me joy and I want you to know how much I appreciate you

* I resolve not to panic.
(I'm such a liar. Of course I'll panic, it's what I do. But maybe during my panic moments 'oh yeah, I resolved not to do this' will make the moments shorter, or fewer and further between.)

* I resolve not to pass on presented opportunities to be loved. Furthermore, I resolve not to neglect making opportunities to give love out. The particular commodity is self-replenishing and is always always always available both to give away and to get back. It just makes sense.

baubles

McBeth.

She was occasionally driven to distraction by materials both soft and shiny.

she's dear but my, what a mixed bag

McBeth.

The insomniac, fretting over the airline trip her unaccompanied child will be taking to far-flung frightening places in less than two hours' time, decides the night is not meant for restfulness but in stead takes comfort in the queasy feeling slung low in her gut.

She's remembering the particular sense of dis-ease, rediscovering her Holiday Moment.

morning thought

McBeth.

I have ocean sounds in my ear this morning
ebb twisting itself over flow...
with the image of you above me
in front of me
behind me rocking,
looking at all of me, quaking

sweating, discovering,
robustly starting,
sharing,
claiming, continuing,
given to wanting
giving in to being wanted.

I could watch the reflection
being uncovered
flesh thrusting into flesh
in the mirror again
and again

and I hear the ocean in you

end of the line

McBeth.

There was a time, and it wasn't so long ago, that I could be very quiet. I kept most of my thoughts to myself, I stepped outside of critical conversation, I ducked. Afraid, I suppose. I'm not certain what my fear was about though. I remember my very young years in school, lining up to walk sing-file to the gymnasium or the lunchroom or on the occasional field trip.

Most of my teachers kept order in the classroom by using the "You're Special!" laminated name tags on a weekly chart, giving multiple children opportunities to shine by getting to be the leader of tasks. I have a feeling Pat Purcell (the nose-picker and otherwise most twitchy kid in the class) was a special special person so he frequently showed up as leader of one category or another, but otherwise my teachers used some arbitrary system to pick line-leader, milk passer-outer, office go-fer, chair pusher-iner.

What seems odd to me - now - is that I felt most comfortable at the end of the single-file line. It seems curious to me that even in my earliest years I was certain that I would be an incapable chair pusher-iner, resolutely accepting that Renee Bailey (the know-it-all) or Christine (the pretty girl, even when she was minus a tooth or two) or for chrissake even Danny and David Shirley (the dressed-alike twins who mugged like identical apes for class pictures) would be deserving of laminated placard tasks.

Given the benefit of hindsight I think it makes perfect sense - both in terms of plot and character development. What I can't understand is how a teacher - how a string of teachers - didn't recognize that kid at the back of the line as much by what she wasn't saying than by what she WAS saying. There's a part of me who like to talk with those teachers know what I do now. I attended Mrs. Carlson's funeral when I was in first grade - if the kindergarten teacher left that early. chances are slim that many more of them are still living and, aside from everything else, I'm not so sure HOW I'd begin finding that trail of educators now. But I do fantasize what a meeting might be like...

The fantasy begins with them each being individually delighted that I've looked them up because they've been thinking about me over all these years. I then show them a picture of my child, proudly cluck about what a fantastic kid he is, what an affable bright sweet man he is becoming. Then I tell them that he's a quiet one, my son ... in fact, so NOT troublesome, so kind and gentle he is that I've had discussions with HIS teachers, pleading with them to please encourage him, please pay attention to him - please SEE him. And I would segue from what I have done as a parent for my no-fuss son into asking what my parents asked them to do for me during those semi-annual parent/teacher conferences.

Part of their response would come as truth and fact -
"Oh, well we agreed that your skill were more advanced than those of your ape-faced, nose-picking peers. And that you definitely had a streak of Something Special so we accelerated your learning to keep up with your advanced skills by sending you to older children's' classes."

Part of their response is left for my own flight of finding- and making-peace-with-myself fancy -
"Your parents stopped in regularly, you know. Yes! They both wanted to know about your grades, of course, and the asked me to clarify what I meant by 'Is a joy to have in class'. But the truly telling reflection of your parents' affection for you was the unusual questions they asked me, such as 'Is she happy? Does she talk to you about her interests? Can you tell when she's not? How do you help her through those times? Does she have friends? How can WE help her to feel loved and Most Important? Should we encourage her to invite schoolmates over to our home?'".

Usually by this time in the fantasy conversation I begin to feel beleaguered by the amount of shit I'm slinging and call it quits somewhere in the list of 'help us help her' questions. I have a quiet moment within the still-running fantasy though - truly a magical moment where, if it was a made-for-TV movie, a blue glowing light would appear just above my head, where the music would turn tender, maybe a lone acoustical guitar perched out on a veranda at sunset in the Blue Ridge Mountains ... I have a tired but thankful posture. I say to my former instructor "I never knew they cared so much about me. And what's more, I never realized that you all saw me so clearly, even in my youngest years. I was so silly to have doubted any of you, even for a moment. I'm flabbergast at the ridiculous amount of time I've whittled away simply fussing over my doubts. Thank you. Thank you SO much for paying attention to the little quiet nice girl at the end of the single-file line."

In the fantasy I embrace my childhood teachers warmly as though we are the dearest of friends, inviting them to spend a week at my country cabin as soon as they can make time in their schedules for quiet and good wine and cheeses.

I then ask them each to bring their favorite hat along on our together-vacation so I can photograph them wearing it.

you gotta do whatcha gotta do

Two bucks is two beeping bucks.

I've tried sleeping ... several times already, and have been to the grocery store and back already. Don't really want to take my knock-me-on-my-ass meds because they -well, because that's exactly what they do and I don't much like it. So here I am. blah dee blah.

So I'll play the stream of consciousness game and maybe that'll either bore me enough or wear me out such that I will go to sleep. Yes? Yes.

I had all my shit piled on the little conveyor belt at Mega-Store, waited waited waited for the checkout person to appear (he didn't). After enough time had passed that I had a good hunch s/he wasn't paying attention or wasn't nearby I started an aisle-by-aisle check to find a human. Lemme tellya, at this time of day (or night, I suppose, would be the more accurate term) there are only 4 people working the entire store. I found the guy, asked if he could check me out or if tonight was my lucky night and I was getting the goods for free. He laughed, apologized, followed me up front.

Scanned everything through and I was nearly all done. Then, the last 3 items were chicken (one not on sale, 2 ON sale w/$1 off in-store discount stickers on 'em). He scanned them, bagged them, tried to scan the coupons. BEEP. The register didn't like the coupon. He tried the other coupon sticker. BEEP. No go. Scan the first again. BEEP. Gosh, if it didn't work the first time, what makes him think that the computer is going to have a change of heart part-way through this process and suddenly love that bar code? Scan the second again, apparently following same train of thought as #1 ... BEEP. No. Scan. BEEP. NO. Poor guy, it isn't his fault.

Meanwhile, a line of alcohol-perfumed folk have lined up behind me, each with a couple of items each. I apologize to them for whatever the hang-up might be but the hell if I'm leaving that store without the $2 discount - these days it matters and where do we all have to be rushing off to so quickly anyway? They're all good-humored about the holdup, chattering between themselves about how there are eight different versions of Spanish so you can't just assume that when a person says they speak Spanish that it'll be some kind of 'universal' Spanish. Yes, the drunks in the middle of the night DO have important matters to resolve, and this is clearly one of them. BEEP.

Checkout guy is still waving coupons to and fro, hoping for something to change, some magic to happen. BEEP BEEP BEEP. He laughs nervously, explaining that he'll have to call the manager (one of the other three nighttime employees manning that behemoth of a warehouse neighborhood market). 'Not a problem, I've got until dawn', I purred back.

Up comes the manager, to wave coupons and press buttons. BEEP. whap. BEEP BEEP. whap. Seems the computer doesn't like my coupons because the chicken was already on sale and the computer doesn't think I should also be getting $1 off for two of the packages. I refuse to beg but I also refuse to leave without that goddamned $2 off my receipt because now... this is register war -just me and it- with only a pierced-nosed geek-looking student-aged manager standing between us.
And I intend to win. BEEP.

whap. clicketyclackclick. BEEP. thump. BEEP. click click.
.... silence. Silence? SILENCE!

He's done it! We are victorious over the computerized cash register and we have triumphed! I get a twitch, and the sudden urge to high-five the manager, the clerk and the other customers. Nobody else seems quite so excited as I am, but fuck em if they can't smile over a true $2 savings.



ok, sleepy and bored with myself (see? I said it'd work and voila!) so I'm really going to give this sleep thaang another shot. Thanks for being such a nice audience. Tip your wait staff generously ... I'll be here all week.

If wishes were snoglobe confetti

McBeth.

I prefer to take very broad, very liberal strokes at my wish list list-making.

It's not a simple thing to say the thing I want. I may be laughed at. I may be completely ignored. I may receive the size small instead of the large, I may get the thing that clearly indicates that someone was not listening to me (BIG personal peeve)... so I don't make the lists and try to talk about personally significant matters as infrequently as I can get away with, which really isn't all that difficult if you can manage to get a person to talk about their stuff because lord knows we all got lots of personal crap to sort through - anyone given an opening, an audience and silence will generally take it and run.

Try it. See if I'm wrong.

It's all relative

How rich are you? >> I'm loaded. It's official. I'm the 692,212,161 richest person on earth!

Come, rest a while.

McBeth.

I've been thinking about being in relationship with others: how and why we make the choices we do, how we deal (or don'€™t) with the consequences, what the next steps can be (which may or may not have any bearing on what actually happens).

I was on the floor of the lower-level room where my son tucks himself away for TV watching, computering, and other miscellaneous things mothers should not be required to keep close track of (this one doesn'€™t, at any rate). We were hanging out, watching a George Carlin video, laughing (possibly slightly more than gives positive indication of an overtly healthy mind). As we giggled and guffawed and high-fived Curious George, I poked around at the contents of items on the bottom of the bookshelf my father made for me in 1986, created after I was forcibly ejected from my parent'€™s home for the ultimate offense of loving a person deemed evil ~ sinful ~ un-loveworthy. I didn'€™t simply date him and love him, no. I continued to date and love him after my mother made her opinions and, in due time, her forbiddance frighteningly, screamingly clear. The cost of that decision - not to mention a few choices later on -€“ was energizing but ultimately fiercely destructive (for me, for him, for my sense of family) on a number of levels.

While gently using my hand as a dust bulldozer to shove layers of months-long inattentive housekeeping to the side, I uncovered an envelope mailed to me by that fellow I'™d dated back in the day. The envelope was postmarked 10 July 2000 and had affixed to it the ho-hum flag-and-a-building 33-cent postage stamp. Enclosed along with his letter was a page ripped from a J.C. Penney catalog. A lovely plus-sized blonde woman model in a periwinkle blue two-pieced outfit was slung comfortably upright in a white hammock, a pair of white slings to her left side. Her expression says "hey, I'€™m cute. Would you like to swing in my hammock with me?"€™; she'™s very appealing to me and a downright cutie. She's the gal who I'd imagine visits nursing homes on weekends, just because; who buys the extra groceries to place a few in the food pantry donation bin. On the picture he'€™d written '€˜Beth --->'™, assigning me to her characteristics. Funny ... we do sorta look the tiniest bit alike if you squint. Anyway.

The letter, written in loopy scrolling blue ballpoint pen read:
"€œDear Beth,
Hi. Ever think about going total blonde. You're much more beautiful than the JCP Modle, but you get the idea.
I understand you tried to contact me, and I'€™m puzzled as to why since you don'€™t want to be friends. Or is it from the bracelet you gave me? (I still have it), 'œThat'€™s what friends are for.'. I guess I just don'€™t understand.

You should see my new Apt. WOW! Its basicly sound proof; which I was not aware of till I went out in the hall; but it'™s a one bedroom loft Apt. with a sky light and cathedral ceiling; it has two floors since it'€™s a loft. And I love it.

Right now I'€™m still psychologicly ill and taking no calls, just writing, and I'€™m staying at my parents till I feel safe enough to go back to the Apt. without delusions. I'€™ve done some Art and a lot of Poetry since I last saw you. Its really a shame I'€™m not able to share it.

If I talk with you, will you once again burn the bridges of friendship? You hurt me, I don'™t know why -€“ If it was about the kiss, I just wanted to.

One time long ago, I asked you if I could kiss you and you said 'no, because I shouldn'™t have to be asked.' This time you kissed me, and I kissed the way I do. That'€™s it. Lisa is pregnut again. Her due date is Dec 25. And Laura will be 3, Jan 2.

Anyway I'€™d better close, take care and write me if you need to, but think about what I said.

Love Almost Always
M---"€œ



I can'€™t recall now if I responded to this letter when I ha€™d first received it. I know we talked, but I cannot recall the details of which conversation happened when. I also feel consecratedly, intensely grief-laden that I am not required to follow the basic rules of proper netiquette and common decency by asking him if I could have his permission to reprint his words here. And that is because he's dead. He was young, in his late 30s, and he'€™s fucking dead now.

I think of M--- a great deal, especially when I am struggling and want someone to just hug me, or when I'€™m insecure and want to be reached out to by another person. When I see super-excellent cloud shapes I think of him. His heart was so big, so hurtable, occasionally hittable, filled with anger and an unsteady mix of '€˜don'€™t push me'€™ and '˜please push me. Harder'€™.

I cut him off. Completely. I extricated myself from relationship with him long after we broke off our relationship, including the engagement I never had the opportunity to announce, save for meetings with the ring designer in Des Moines to create an unique wedding band from a bracelet of gold and diamonds I found several years prior. But that'€™s another story for another time, that bracelet. After our breakup turned to friendship and then friendship turned to an indefinable something else we danced back and forth around; I made clumsy attempts to reconnect with him at a level I could bear but it never seemed to be what he wanted from me: it never seemed to be enough. He wanted me back; he wanted our relationship back. He wanted me to accept his apologies. He wanted to make up. He wanted to not be crazy anymore. He wanted me, a loved person who understood the scariness of occasional mind-losing, to hold hands when he was frightened.

I cannot take staring into the puckered superficial face of decisions I made toward the end of his life. I believe it is an unwise move to live the next section(s) of my life in an unexamined happy lala-world state, but the guilt I continue to bear feels so soggy, so heavy. It's like tasting a mouth-watering dessert ... a little is so good ~ too much is sickening. Yeah, the examination process of my personal accountability and my continuing grief is a little like that.

Today I'€™m so sorry. I hope there is a spiritual part of him hovering close by because I'€™d like to think that by my whispering these admissions now he can find a way to forgive me. I'€™m not sure what I would say if he was still alive, but I'm certain it would be a hell of a lot more than I did back when I knew everything; before he offed himself, centuries before George Carlin help me forget for an afternoon.

a twisted idea

McBeth.

...if you don't like the way your growth is turning out, consider changing your direction.

Flexibility

McBeth.

"But this is uncomfortable!" her student complained.

"Ahh, my dear you're trying too hard."
"The trick", the instructor continued, "is to become flexible enough with your daily practice here such that you will learn to bend without breaking".

Bare it and share it

McBeth.

After time had passed, she eventually decided to leave her heart on the outside.

She thought it might help others to have a visual representation of how much of the tender green she had lost but more importantly, how much she still had to offer.

It also was reported to have had a positive effect on her ability to withstand the wind and weather.

Medieval warriors in the data entry age

McBeth.

There was a time when knights slew the dragons, when damsels and lords fervently practiced each stroke in the 'courtly love' primer, when time plod slowly.

Now the dragon has risen up, taking the pointed sword into his wild webbed wing, jousting in a contest against no one for the prize of nothing.

Touche~

Dona Nobis Pacem

McBeth.

I have returned from a very spoiling, overindulgently delightful visit with a dear friend. She is so good to me and ranks high among the things I have worked, without hard work, to preserve as necessary and good in my life.

We spent part of an afternoon in the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. but I don't consider that particular visit a tourist gig. The emotional component of bigness, vastness, tinyness, frail and humbleness ... I don't tend to get centered from tourist stops: I do here.

AFK for a few days

McBeth.

Shiver me timbers, don't you chickadees worry - speaking of birds and berries and little animals that make themselves terribly difficult to photograph... of the three (meaning wrens, chickadees and sparrows, okay add yellow finches and one other sweet fat little bird for which I have no official name yet) the chickadee is by far the most nervous of the bunch. Flit flit flit. Nervous little critters, they are. Maybe they feel a keen connection to the mourning dove, who are now officially shootable for that ginormous shrimp-sized portion of meat they provide. Mourning doves are some of my mother's favorite birds and by proxy, mine. They don't provide much of a hunting challenge. Quit shooting them, let's just stop shall we?

Anyway, I'm heading to D.C. for a mini-vacation-that-isn't-truly-a-vacation from this very strange and interesting life of mine for a few days of indulgent attention paid by a close friend. I am insisting on National Cathedral time. Other than that? I could give a shit where we go or what we do. I like her, I like spending time together and we invariably get into mischief together. That's what spending time should be about.

I'm turning 38 on Friday.
Who'd have thought I'd live to see it?

There's something worth pondering over a few quiet moments at a memorial exhibit.

Be kind to one another and miss me just a little.

Sorry Everybody

McBeth.

I've been laughing and weeping (mostly weeping) while finding the most elementally important connection between myself, my fellow Americans, and the fellowship of humans really trying - HARD - to make purposefully peaceful loving caring decisions. Like not voting for Bush last week.

We didn't do enough.

Some of our ballots were either ranked less important or were not counted.

The implications of what seemed like teeny choices I did or didn't make? I am beginning to better understand the implications of my choices... they were huge. They were global.

I don't think anyone can lead a balanced life if she is only giving of herself or if he steals his energy from one important 'emotional' bank to feed another (i.e. never see the family in order to rabblerouse). But I can try to do differently in the coming months, and years until the next election.

Allow yourself to be open to forgiveness. And never hesitate to cop to your own fuckups, especially to the people who could most (along with you) benefit from your confession.

Absolution comes with a price, but it needn't be an act you disavow in favor of your fear.

Sorry Everybody

Hard Times Come Again No More

McBeth.

Let us pause in life's pleasures to count its many tears
While we all sop sorrow with the poor:
There's a song that will linger forever in our ears
Oh! Hard times, come again no more

'Tis the song, the sigh of the weary,
Hard times, hard times, come again no more:
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door;
Oh! Hard times, come again no more.

While we seek mirth and beauty and music light and gay
There are frail forms fainting at the door:
Though their voices are silent, their pleading looks will say
Oh!! Hard times, come again no more.

'Tis a sigh that is wafted across teh troubled wave,
'Tis a wail that is heard upon the shore,
'Tis a dirge that is murmured around the lowly grave.
Oh! Hard times, come again no more.

-Stephen C. Foster

A Relationship, in one act

Blight
uptight
polite
Height?
BITE!
~fight~
Smite
_fright_

flight

-->tight<--
contrite
might
night
light
bright

Quite.

'So Bob, do you like your job?'

McBeth.

"Vocation does not come from willfulness. It comes from listening. I must listen to my life and try to understand what it is truly about - or my life will never represent anything real in the world, no matter how earnest my intentions."

-Parker Palmer, excerpted from 'Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation

McBeth.

Antisthenes says that in a certain faraway land the cold is so intense that words freeze as soon as they are uttered, and after some time then thaw and become audible, so that words spoken in winter go unheard until the next summer. ~Plutarch, Moralia

Visions

McBeth.

I cannot find graciousness in my heart today. I can't breathe either.

My president, the man who appears to be the person who will continue to be in charge of my country for another four years, was willing to throw me - ME - on top of the fire as a sacrifice to appease the fears of immovable right wingers everywhere. That is unforgiveable.

I've been burned and have sustained severe nerve damage. I'm worried. I'm sick. I want my own self-contolled morphine IV drip because it appears that Nurse Bush certainly isn't going to be offering me pain relief.

new points of light

The sparkle of possibility

I woke this morning with a highly unusual thought. Even for me. Especially for me.
The first idea that came into my mind after my eyes sleepily opened was this:

This is a great day for a revolution.

How often do I consider my days as such opportunities? Not often. But I wonder how I might be different in my own life if I did try to think of revolutionary changes I might help to make happen, even something so small as taking the initiative to say something kind to the people I can least tolerate. Revolutions come in mysterious packages, after all.

Another "wheelie" memorable point to my activities today will be that today - election day - is the day I had to figure out what to do about the thumb-sized hole in the rear passenger side of my car. I just paid for a new spiffy set of good tires earlier this year and wouldn't you know it, last night I managed to poke an impressive hole through the wall of one of them. Piss. Oh well, it's just a wheel.

For all that is good and just in the universe, I hope my revolutionary vote, and the votes of all disenfranchised, unhappy, unimpressed, lied-to, bitter, ready for something new U.S. citizens will be properly counted, that our collective revolution will speak to the rest of the world (who has every right to doubt and dismiss us as a collective collateral mess), that we can begin to have hope of new possibilities.

-isms abounding

I’ve been participating in a nine-week workshop on anti-racism, the main goals of which are:

• Work with other white European Americans to take responsibility for challenging racism and white privilege
• Respect the leadership of people of color in the community
• Work to end all oppression
• Practice and model respectful and accountable behavior in all our anti-racist work, especially in our families and circles of influence

The workshop sessions have included weekly readings, critical questions, individual, small and large group participatory exercises; videos, guest speakers and volunteer experiences as a part of the learning process.
Hard stuff, and worthwhile.

For my volunteer experience I chose the MEP (Money – Education – Prisons) Taskforce. Project Reentry, a MEP project, assists returned prisoners who are reentering the community who find themselves blocked from meaningful employment by lack of training, lack of experience or prejudice. There is a disproportionate number of persons of color in the penal system (Madison, embarrassingly, has the highest percentage in the entire UNITED STATES) and, according to MEP board member and professor Pamela Oliver’s website, within the first 21 months of release 50% of blacks and 37% of whites return to prison in Wisconsin. Yikes.

Project Reentry assists returning prisoners in developing their resumes and connects the returning prisoner with a developed list of available jobs. Project Reentry also calls each employer to ensure that they will hire felons, which doesn’t eliminate the personal accountability of the returning prisoner but it does help to reduce the number of added/unnecessary hassles for the person (who is likely already filled to capacity with dread, fear, anger, and mistrust). The anticipated outcomes of Project Reentry, according to an informational pamphlet, include “reduction of recidivism, lower numbers of people in both the Dane County Jail and the Wisconsin Prison System, and a healthier community where people are employed, sheltered and fed”.

My MEP work this week was to take the Job Services bulletin (20 pages with approx. seven job postings per page), call each telephone number listed and ask if each employer was willing to work with ex-offenders. Given that I was calling on the final afternoon of an unseasonably warm week as well as the Friday before Halloween when everyone seems to have an itch in their undies to bust outta work early, it was not exactly surprising that I had little success reaching many live people actually doing work at work.

One of the places at which I was able to reach a real live person – a company I hesitate to specifically name – was a transportation company (*two-syllable word that begins with the past tense of ‘lay’ and ends with the work that lawyers practice). The gentleman I spoke with had a brusque, purposefully harried tone to his voice once I identified myself and my purpose for calling. When I asked the gentleman if his organization was willing to work with returned prisoners his response was direct: “Oh, no no, we can’t be hiring felons. We transport children and other sensitive and at-risk populations”. I thanked him for the information and his time, and put the receiver back onto the telephone base. Then I flipped through some of the materials I’d been given until I hit on what I’d been looking for: ‘EMPLOYMENT RESTRICTIONS FOR EX-OFFENDERS’.

First of all, there are federal laws and there are state laws. Not all state laws are alike, but all state-led restrictions must comply with federal rules.

Some day when I’m really up for a rousing good time, I’ll try to list all the Federal no-no’s. There is a bunch. Specifically in Wisconsin an ex-felon maybe be denied, revoked or refused renewal of license for: private investigator, security guard, private detective, security alarm installer, and their liquor license (if convicted of certain drug-related offenses). Additionally there’s something called the Wisconsin Caregiver Law that identifies specific offenses that affect caregiver eligibility. But there’s also a provision for rehabilitation review of these offenders. (All that stuff can be found here).

So really, the gentleman who was having his horizontal corncob moment really was conducting business illegally: ex-felons who have not been convicted of crimes against life and bodily security or crimes against children have EVERY SINGLE RIGHT to apply for jobs, even at transportation companies who work with children and other ‘sensitive’ populations.

I can understand the reticence of an employer to take what probably feels like an impossible leap of faith with a potential new employee. The thing is, they’re making the same leap with me, or with my law-abiding brother, or with my law-abiding neighbor as they’re making with someone who has been released from prison after a felony conviction (because let’s face it, we have a whole lotta shit that qualifies for felony arrest/trial/conviction anymore). What this employer is doing is wrong. It’s illegal.

At one point I’d turned around in my chair to ask for clarification from one of the MEP staffers. I told her about my telephone exchange and asked her if she could clarify the law and if the guy had legal backing to say ‘no’. She handled it coolly, shrugging her shoulders and saying only "Yep. Some people are going to respond that way. All you can do is move on to the next one".

I can only imagine the levels of frustration and anger returned prisoners must feel upon their release. They have a community who has alienated and fears them, a dismal job prospective and few housing options without solid job leads. My coworker, an ex-offender herself, demonstrated the calm so many other returned prisoners probably lack. Calm they desperately could use - the calm I suspect the rest of us have had the great privilege to never have been concerned about.

Imagine that.

Kissing Courage

McBeth.

"To me there is no greater act of courage than being the one who kisses first"
-Janine Garofalo

Amen, Janine. What bravery must swell in the heart of one who is enamored with another, bravery enough to overcome the nagging possibility of abject undeniable failure? In Western heterosexual culture the "Kisser" role has generally been assigned to the fellas. Where would we be without our fairytales of shining knights fighting valiantly for the hand of the fair maiden?

We'd be nowhere, that's where we'd be. We would have nothing on which to base girlish dreams, nor (for those of us who find fairytales offensive and demeaning) would we have anything to shove away from in disgust. Thanks, guys. I mean that sincerely - thank you. You may sometimes be purposeful pigs and you may not be fluent in clitorese, and you may occasionally be all the wrong kinds of inappropriate at the oh-so-very-wrong times, and you may also forget to shut up and just hug her when she is sure her ankles have sprouted an extra fat layer and three dark hairs have simultaneously relocated from her eyebrows to set up shop on her chin, but you certainly have your wooing work cut out for you. For that, you have my admiration and support.

I have recently come to have a far greater, far more uncomfortably close understanding of what you have been dealing with for centuries and all I can say is pucker up sweeties because I've got something juicy for you.

But first, let's talk for a moment. I mean, we don't know one another very well so maybe if we exchange pleasantries first we won't feel so awkward when I finally settle on that moment... that moment when I tentatively -but casually- extend my arm around you, when I press my freshly Burt's Bees-ed pout softly to your lips.

I've recently reentered the dating world after a long contented hiatus. Yes, I know, the same thought crosses my mind... What on earth was I thinking? I'm no slinking sex kitten. I got no game. I can't dance. Though my last partner and I split nearly two years ago I haven't felt deep urgent compulsions to leap tall buildings or swim oceans to impress anyone. Not one urge, which may speak more to a possible lackadaisical laziness on my part than anything else, but still, I think being urge-less says something.

What I have been feeling is lonesome. I've been missing the grown-up silliness of adults sharing 10 year olds' humor, the conversation and glasses of convivial jocundity poured by someone else especially for me. I've missed having someone search for and delightedly discover one of my secret sweet spots. I've missed curling up together. I've missed sharing details of my day. I've missed counting on someone. I've missed knowing I'm being counted on so I had better step my ass up to the plate because the show is ON, buster. I've missed teasing and teasing taken too far. I've missed hurt feelings, fighting and make-up sex. I want all of that! I want another adult who is mystified by me; I want to know one other person trusts me especially. I want to have a Certain Other Someone who thinks I am remarkable, who may be slightly alarmed but who is nevertheless willing to play my favorite bedroom games. I want someone special who I can come to trust with my ugliest secrets, someone who will trust me to share their ugliest secrets.

How about you pour me a glass of whatever it is that you have there in yours and we talk? Because darlin', you've undoubtedly been shot down more times than you have digits on which to count the failures and I need your counsel now. How do you DO this thing over and over? You're a walking talking miracle, that's what you are. Whiskey? Sure, I'll take five fingers and a dribble.

Now let me tell you, there's someone I kissed; or nearly kissed, or soon will kiss. I will, I will! I've only begun to understand the other side of this predatory hunt. You see, I've been prey. I liked being prey. Well, I didn't LIKE being prey - being on the receiving end has a tendency to leave one seeing the reflection of a promising but bloody porterhouse in the mirror, but there are definite advantages to laying back in defenseless repose, feigning disinterest, begging for gentle mercies. Prey relies on a different set of tactics to complete a successful hunt.

Now here I am, sitting here with you, three fingers to the wind with two to the air, telling YOU what the chase is like from the aggressor's perspective. Now ain't that something? Haw!

Now this one, she's something. Really something. You probably already know this, but the cherishable ones, I think, are the ones who don't think they are. Hidden gems. It's not my job to make someone see their worth, but I sure can see it if it's there, and when it is there - oh my yes. The eyes, the smile - oh my yes. Now I'm beginning to understand what it is that you must be seeing in beatific winsome glances. I kissed her, you know. It was just a soft kiss on her cheek, but I meant six years worth of please let me catch up in that kiss. I called her while driving home, to tell her that I intended not to aim for her cheek the next time. She laughed and blushed across the telephone lines and though I was mystified how I possibly could find the courage within myself to follow through, I think about her eyes, her smile - oh my yes. So I am learning what you also have had to learn, that I can aim with delightful accuracy the next time.

Pluto square Pluto: Which category?

My Pluto must be woofing up one helluva storm. I noticed an email on a local listserv yesterday, someone who had moved from NYC to a small sleepy community nearby was asking for suggestions on where she could go to get moving helpers for an impending move to the Mad City. She mentioned she was a writer (my thinking: could be good, something possibly in common/could be bad - tons of books) and something about her plea spoke to me. I emailed a response, offering the services of McB & Son Moving Co. (I think our motto could be "We're not professionals but we grunt like the ones on TV") and asking for details. She called me this morning. Life happens this way. I should not be surprised that it does - that it has and continues to - but I am and it does.

While making arrangements on the telephone today, we got to talking about sun signs. She asked me about my moon. I had the internal smartass response ready, begging to snark 'I gotcha moon right heah', but all things thought need not be all words spoken, and we continued talking about astrology. She pointed me to Astro to get a very specific-to-me personal read based on my birth date, time, and location. Here's a portion of my 'forecast':

1 October 2004 until 21 November 2004: This is a period of general regeneration, which may not be entirely pleasant. Most of us are attached to the past whether or not it is good for us. And this influence will root out precisely those elements of the past that are not good for you, even those aspects that you have forgotten about. Problems that you may have lost track of entirely but which are still working unconsciously in your life may reappear and become active now, usually but not always to your detriment.

This influence is associated with forces for change that are inherent within the hidden depths of things. Therefore you should not blame the unpleasant changes that occur now on circumstances or persons in your environment. Look within yourself to see how the groundwork for the present is laid in the past.

Many things may be destroyed at this time, and the destruction will be ruthless if you defend them with rigidity. The action of this influence upon unyielding entities is particularly harsh. Therefore you should simply allow the things of the past to fade and allow the future to be born on their ruins. If you can do this, the potential for positive change is very great.

This influence may also increase your concern about the creative and regenerative processes within the universe and cause you to become interested in the occult. However, certain aspects of the occult, such as magic, are best avoided during this time, because the energies involved will be difficult to control now. Although your conscious mind may be in control at first, you are likely to find that entirely unconscious forces within you have taken over and are running you completely. This can have disastrous consequences.

You may also get into severe power struggles with people who are trying to prevent the changes in your life or who are trying to expedite changes that you are resisting. Look very carefully to ascertain which category they are in.

The Inner Rigidity in me has to warn you: If you're the bully who plans to get in my way these next few days, I'd step aside if I was you.

There are just a few more days left in this section of the reading and I'll likely post the next piece (which I haven't read - that's like cheating by skipping chapters in a book to get to the next bodice-ripping scene just because the inane commentary about what Miss Maisie served up for dinner seems so ho-hum blah. IF they didn't have dinner they'd die and there'd be NO bodice-ripping scene at all so DEAL WITH THE DINNER and the best part will come eventually!) What was I talking about anyway?? Oh, yes. Life changes. Whether or not you believe in astral phenonema, if you are a close friend who knows some of my revealed inner workings of late, you might find this Oct/Nov reading for me eerie. Chilling even. (I don't know, DO you?) It's not like I knew what it was going to say ahead of time, not like I planned to mindfully leap into some new stuff and make some of the changes I've decided to make knowing, even subconsciously, that some report said 'blahblahblah, you will be doing this you mindless drone' and so I did it. I did it, THEN read about it. oooooOOOooooo

You're not doing anything particularly important right now (oh come on, you know you're not) - go over to Astro and enter you details. They don't ask you to register, they don't even ask your last name or address, isn't that kind of them? I'm really interested in knowing if your findings are as creepyaccurate as mine seem to be.

Oh yes, after you've pondered yourself into a corner, come back here and let me know what you've discovered? Let's quietly puzzle it out together.

sing your heart out

Think karaoke. Yeah, got the picture in your mind's eye? Fun, hunh. Good singing, slightly erratic singing, goofball singing, costumed singing, practiced or unpracticed, comletely unprofessional fun. Even the worst of us can be a karaoke star.

Now, lets ramp it up, baby. You know you want to. Instead of a music track as your backup, throw out the tape player and add a band. A professional live band. A bunch of music nuts playing for the delight of whatever can happen when they're backing up unpracticed unprofessional karaoke singers.

And there you have it: Gomeroke.

As the single (slightly nervous) Gomeroke virgin in the new group of pals I was hanging out with, I responded to 'are you gonna get up and sing?' with various versions of 'no, haha', 'um, I don't think so', and 'helllllno'. How ridiculous that I permitted my self-consciousness to be allowed out for the evening with me.

I haven't been out socially in ages; the reasons are numerous, tangled and perhaps slightly ridiculous but it means that once I do go out I feel myself let it out. Alllllll out, even with new friends who I hope to impress. I say 'fuck inhibition, this is great!' and let life happen. There's no way one can just sit there during a group sing-along to 'Ruby Tuesday'. It's impossible or your money back.

L. brought us all bobbing bat headbands in honor of spooktastic Halloween. A smattering o' caribou feathers, two long spiralled metallic pipe cleaners protruding up on either side, with sparkleball-bellied bats hovering above, glittery wings flashing and catching the lights. I brought some glow in the dark necklaces to share, extras from my overexcited expenditures at the party store, when J. wanted a couple of rave-ish toys for himself and a couple of friends for a school dance. (me: you can't just get ONE each, lets buy sixteen!)

I brought shower curtain rings, but try as I may, I couldn't think of any sensible public decorating ideas for the curtain rings (though I did consider a few potentially interesting naughty uses). They were actually an extra set I'd had at home that I'd brought along for K. who just recently moved into a specTACular new apartment - fab-fab-fabulous but missing the shower curtain. The truth is, one day I may find myself with the opportunity to use K's whirlpoolish deep-dish bathtub (why? I'm not sure but it could happen) and well, a bathtub needs a curtain, right?, and a curtain needs rings, right?, and that's just the way it is so quit asking me these questions already - don't you have something to be reading?

Among his other stellar performances, P. did a head-banging rendition of 'The Devil Went Down to Georgia' - complete with a violin solo done by the band guy standing behind P. (band guy reaching his arms around P's shoulders, placing the chinrest on P's left shoulder and the both of them getting violinfunkadelic. L., or rather her alter-ego Heidi Ho, captured Grace Slick with adept sneering growl.

A fella from the State Journal was there (though I'm not sure why), happily snapping away. My attention was paid in measure of drool and covetous thoughts... great digital camera, expansive lenses and multiple flash setup. Wish I could have seen the camera details better but I didn't want to be unseemly and follow the poor guy around asking dumb 'whassat? what does it do? how does this work?' questions. It made more sense to me at the time to compliment his nice haircut and leave it at that. Now? I'm not exactly sure what I was thinking, but I guess the compliment worked because I did not tackle him for his equipment nor was I asked to leave.

When I returned home last night I immediately sat down to look through the song list, writing down preferences, speculating which of them I'd forget the fewest amount of words if I was to lose my place on the lyrics sheet.

Because next time? I'll sing.

Cosmic Cups (subtitle: 'and lordy, do they overfloweth')

McBeth.

Breasts are meant to be adored.

If there's a chance one or the other of yours aren't (but you wish they were), tassle them.

~or~
Flash them.
Treat them.
Serve yourself dinner on them.
Draw pictures on them.
Comfort them.
Encourage them.
Glue-stick bows onto them.
Draw smiley faces on them.
Read stories to them.
Play with them.
Nurture them.
Write poems in their honor.
Name them something fabulous.
Take a picture of them.
Dress them up.
Dress them down. Way down.
Talk seductively to them.
Kiss them for luck.
Temporarily tattoo them.
Permanantly tattoo them.
Pinch them.
Pierce them.
Make 5 minutes of your day for them.
Figure out their good touch/bad touch.

Whatever you do, never ever underestimate the power and zest of a breast.

The Amazing Item: Crotch Detail

McBeth.

If there's one thing I've always wanted to say, it's this:

Oh yeah? Oh YEAH?? Well YOU can just kiss my sequinned sweet spot!

Three Stooges (or, how to make two, two TWO photo hits in one)

McBeth.

Welcome to my bed. From left to right: Fidget, Artemis, Puppy.

For the second installment of 'name your photo', I snapped the first thing I saw when I woke this morning as Pippa had requested (and the specific subject matter was due to a specific reason - I had been pinned into position while sleeping, without knowing, when these three crept into my bed and established their nighttime dominion between my knees. Now I'm flexible and all, but this 'three cats 'tween two knees' thing is sorta pushing even my best extendability).

Happily, I've also realized that Bakerina's suggestion that I snap 'Someone, human or animal, in sleep' also worked as an apt descriptor for this photo. Well, mostly. Nearly. Two-thirds of the subject matter was sleeping (I was whispering curses at Fidget, the awake one, for sticking a claw into my belly (When I woke I'd tried to sl-l-o-o-owly inch myself out of my own damn bed so as not to disturb THEM, and I get a claw in the belly for it. Something doesn't add up there).

red on red (or: der no der, rorrim ni gnidear fi)

McBeth.

The signs are there and clear: cuddling creatures boring their way under the covers during sleeptime, poking wet noses toward one extra layer of warmth. Ladybeetles layering themselves optimistically on building siding (and doors, and windows, and ...) with the slim to nil chance that SHE will be the one who makes it inside for the cold months. More children wearing outwear not for fashions' sake but for actual wind-breaking capabilities. My green fuzzy cap has come out of its biannual retirement.

People, perhaps unwittingly, have a sense of the impending big sleep coming upon us. Mattresses and box springs by the score are making their way to dumpsters and curbsides all over the city. I can only assume that newer and better are replacing them. Comfortable hibernation materials are a necessity of winter, yes.

After a day of sunshine such as was given us today, I feel regret that winter is breathing down our collective necks. I'm not ready. I don't want it! I want at least five months more of crunching leaves and the smell of burn piles (perimeter of the city only, please. I'm a fantasizer but I can obey that stupid law), University football games and the strange fruitbasket upset that attends ... no, I'm not just quite ready for winter.

Sand and Water

McBeth.

All alone, I didn't like the feeling
All alone, I sat and cried
All alone, I had to find some meaning
In the center of the pain I felt inside

All alone, I came into the world
All alone, I will someday die
Solid stone is just sand and water, baby
Sand and water, and a million years gone by

I will see you in the light of a thousand suns
I will hear you in the sound of the waves
I will know you when I come, as we all will come,
Through the doors, beyond the grave

All alone, I heal this heart of sorrow
All alone, I raise this child
Flesh and bone, he's just
Bursting towards tomorrow
And his laughter fills my world, and wears your smile

All alone, I came into the world
All alone, I will someday die
Solid stone is just sand and water, baby
Sand and water, and a million years gone by
-Beth Nielsen Chapman
(to hear realstream, follow this link: http://bethnielsenchapman.com/?inc=albums&alb_id=348#2807)

dats the fact

when you wish upon a star...

McBeth.

...makes no difference who you are
anything your heart desires will come to you

Sometimes wishing is enough. A wish can be a powerful tool to guide and point a person toward some ultimate place of being.

There is a bumper sticker I came to hate - and then, to slowly deeply appreciate - after the end of my most recent romantic relationship.

The sticker read: "Hope is a good companion but a poor guide."

There is a personal accountability missing in wishes and dreams. Wishes don't generally include thoughts like 'I wish I would work my ass off to create a successful business (or relationship or outcome)'. Wishes usually come in the I Dream of Jeanie form where some empowered Other Being blinks, wiggles a nose and makes it so.

I'm a usefully lazy person. I do lots of creative things with my nonmoving time. I have pages full of wishes and hopes and dreams. I am more and more aware of the unlikeliness of any of those coming to fruition unless I do my own blinking, wiggling my own nose, making my own wishes so.

I'm an excellent blamer. As many pages of dream lists, I have pages full of excuses, reasons why some particular thing just didn't couldn't hasn't worked. Boo hoo for me. My life is so hard so sad so complicated too tiring. I'm the High Priestess of Rationalization. (Try me sometime. I dare you.)

I get what I expect in the end, and if I continue to make excuses, if I continue to pardon my own choices I'll be right where I'm sitting in another 20 years. I don't plan to let that happen. But scared? You bet. Afraid of risking? Hell yeah.

What do you wish for?

They grow up so fast

McBeth.

A family of knives once lived on the pleasant side of town. Mother knife had her child's tip corked at a very early age, as all the other mothers had done with their own offspring, to keep the wee lad safe. After all , the world was rife with fearsom dangers: pointy toothpicks ready at a second's notice to plunge into an eye; rusty nails coated with disease begging to implant themselves into the freshest barest foot. Mother knife couldn't bear the idea that her child, unaware of his own potential, may inadvertently bring harm to himself.

One evening, after dinner had been cleared from the table and the boy had been given his sink bath, Mother attended to his bedtime needs, lovingly wrapping him into his sheath.

While she dried him the boy looked up into his mother's eyes, studying their shine. He did love her so -- She was greater to him than Venus rising from that goofy shell. Nobody was as luminescent, as brilliant, as sharp-witted as his mother. And nobody loved him as much as she did.

"Momma, can I ask you something?"

"Yes, of course", his mother replied as she adjusted the last tie on the bow she'd wrapped around his waist.

"Um.. well, first you have to promise to not get mad."

Mother knife laughed warmly, "of course I won't be mad darling, you can ask me ANYTHING".

"Well, um, all..", he stammered and fidgeted. "All my friends are starting to make fun of me. They're calling me baby-slingblade. But I'm NOT a baby! So ummm, what I want to know is umm ... can I get my cork removed?"

Sleepover Party

McBeth.

They begged and begged. They wheedled.

Finally, finally - their parents caved.

That Friday night the knives slept overnight at their friend Winey's place. The little ones bunked up together for security (even though they told the bigger blades they weren't scared).

Of course, there were a few problems. That pampered primadonna Pamela Chef brought her own sheath, just to remind the rest how much better she was than any of them. They all stayed up far too late watching a fabulous slasher film, leaving them feeling rusty and worn the next morning.

But they really did have a fabulous time.

Sharp Gals

McBeth.

Even knife girls go in pairs to check their makeup.

And sometimes they'll share their secrets with one another out of earshot of the boys.

Edgy

McBeth.

Pippa had suggested a photo of cutlery. You ask, I deliver.

After giving it a few days' worth of brainstorming I had good clean fun playing with knives and I'll add a few of the picture results as I go.

Thanks for the idea, Pippa. I'm simmering a few ideas wrt how I want to try to snap the next few subjects. Stay tuned.

Gentlewomen, start your SAD lights

McBeth.

I think it's safe to say you're a real Wisconsinite when you confidently drive with car windows and sunroof open on October nights. The cool weather isn't the least bit affecting if one wears her warm woolen cap and she turns the heater just slightly up past 'low'.

I was lucky enough to find a local gentleman selling his few-year-old SAD light recently. He'd placed the ad online back in August, heard from a smattering of interested takers but nobody did that final (and somewhat important) 'show up and pay for it' step. I came across the ad a few weeks back. Thinking I was far too late and far more than a dollar short, I emailed the gent anyway figuring 'hell, the worst that'll happen is that I'll get an email from a fellow down in the dumps person emanating some charming Eeoreyish 'ooOOhhhhwell, the light's gone, the same thing that happens to all the good ones, they just up n'leave you, sigh'.

Turns out the fellow was a former coworker. Though the term is used loosely we both were paid by the same employer. I have to wonder if it wasn't just the workplace. ooOOhhhwelllll.

He told me the lamp never seemed to help him a whole lot, so I asked why he'd kept it for so long. Turned out his cat loved the thing and he felt good about making his cat happy so the light stayed. For the cat.

I think that's a story about a therapy modality having positive results despite the formal application of close-minded rules.

So I am the new owner of a used and alternately-effective SAD light. YAY. Yay? ahem. YAY!

This might sound stupid but uh, this is one damn bright light. I've been sitting in front of it for 1/2 hr. to 45 mins. the past two days. I believe it's too early to start peeking for signs of change after so short a time, but I sure the hell need to turn up a few other lights after I turn the SAD light off or I can't see ANYTHING after the room returns to its former darkness.

So as the autumn skies begin to drift us into sleepy winter snowflakey hibernation, my SAD light and I will be keeping one another company here at the desk.