Bitchiness in Blogging

This is going to be a really bad blog entry. Not because it is bad or unentertaining, but because I am going to look like the bitch I am. Okay, let's begin.

I absolutely hate one blogger, Leesa. I am not talking about having no self-love; this is another Leesa. And it is not Leesa's fault at all. Let me explain.

I like reading Stacey the Peanut Queen. She is witty, she is smart, she is a good read. But she already has a freekin' Leesa who always comments on her blog.

I have commented a few times – commented yesterday to this post. But I like to say little things, and this other bitch is already there. Leesa. And when I comment, things get confusing. See, the comment I made yesterday was probably attributed to the other Leesa – so if, per chance, I make a witty comment, the other Leesa gets the props – not me. You know, even talking about this gets me confused. Going forward, I think I will refer to her as bitch Leesa.

Well, bitch Leesa got credit for my comment yesterday. I am sure she did. Okay, to be totally bitchy, I will have to replay the post and response. The post is hilarious, about how freaking cold her office is – and she wants the maintenance guys to fix the temperature for her.

My response:

Peanut Queen, please let me summarize the possibilities:

(1) The maintenance people can do nothing. Results: no work for them, stiff nipples for you.

(2) The maintenance people can find the right knobs to turn, buttons to press, whatever it takes. Results: less time to read Hustler, some amount of work for them.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Let me know how it goes.

Okay, not Shakespeare or Bill Cosby, but I thought it was cleaver. And good or not, bitch Leesa gets all of the credit.

I guess I should also let you know (if you have never ever been to Stacey's blog), her comments don't have pics – so if you don't click on my name, you think it is this other chick.

Okay, to be fair, I just went to Leesa's site, and bitch Leesa has a very nice site. The overall layout is gorgeous, she is freakin' insightful and charming. Oh, she is such a bitch. Not only does she have the roll of Leesa on Peanut Queen's site, but she also has a really nice blog herself. Oh, how I wish I did not visit bitch Leesa's site.

And in defense of myself, I would just like to say two words, Day Two.

Bought on Ebay

Okay, I was reading something the other day – a woman buying a vibrator. Well, the vibrator was "out of stock." She mentioned that she could not find one on Ebay, and that statement sent a bad shiver up my spine. Which led to this post.

Things I would never purchase on Ebay:

Vibrator
If the vibrator was "seldom used", my original thought would be, "what is wrong with the thing." Now I have never used a vibrator, but from what I gather, with a couple of AA-batteries (or C-batteries, giggle, are there D batteries – or dreaming, car batteries?), you can replace your man. Well, except for squashing spiders and taking out the garbage, because after a few years of marriage, the after-sex chit-chat is, well, pretty pathetic.

This was the item that made me write this entry.

Automobile
I am not saying that you get good or bad deals on autos. But I know, every time I purchase an auto, I get screwed. And I am not talking about in the backseat during the test drive. To get a good deal on an auto, you need more data than the person selling the car. At an auto dealership, they have a heck of a lot more information than I have. And that is just with new cars. For used cars, which I assume are most of the Ebay cars, you need more information – was the car in a flood? What kind of miles did the car have – mostly city (read: hard) driving? In short, I know I would get the raw end of the deal.

Land
You can actually buy land on Ebay. Okay, I have never bought land, but if I did, I would think that location would be of primary importance. Plus, I have read stories of people purchasing computers on Ebay, and without reading the fine print, they were actually bidding on pictures of computers. Nice. Well, I think this scam would work with land as well. I like a pretty photo, but I don't want to spend a couple of thousand on a picture of land. Unless it was painted by Van Gogh. If that were the case, I would be in.

Paintings
I have actually looked at paintings on Ebay, and they are impressive. You can purchase paintings from the 17th century – with magnificent gold leaf frames – sort of on the cheap. Well, a few hundred dollars. And I can't imagine these paintings selling that cheaply. Plus, I don't trust the pictures. Not that people are deceptive, but I have taking pictures of paintings in the past, and the photos look nothing like the original. Okay, I may be an amateur photographer, but even famous paintings in books look different in museums than in books.

Computers
For those really smart about computers, you probably can pick up some bargains on Ebay. I am not that adept at computers, plus I like purchasing near top of the line computers and holding onto them for years. Never top of the line – because there is generally not good value associated with them, but with near top of the line, a few months on the market, then you can buy something that may have value.

There was a funny computer story about Ebay recently – someone was selling a monitor, and took a pic for Ebay. Well, the monitor was reflective, and the seller was, um, in the buff. Not sure if he was proud of his profile or dim-witted. I did not know what the monitor sold for – or if Ebay made him replace the photo.

Software
I have no pirated software on my home computer (or work computer, but I don't go to jail for stuff on my work computer). Some of the deals on Ebay look like the software is . . . suspect. For instance, "Copy of Windows 2000. For backup purposes only." Seems to me that if I had the original software and for some reason I broke the CD, the company replaces it for a nominal fee. Many companies do this. Why would I spend $50 on a copy that you can't register?

Or why purchase software from someone who probably loaded it on his/her machine, made a copy, and is selling it on Ebay? Seems unethical to me. Now I don't know a lot about licensure – each company has its own rules. It seems to me that if you uninstall, you should be able to sell/give the software away. If I have an audio CD I get tired with, I can simply give it to someone (as long as I don't have it on my iPod). Or a bookcase, I can sell after using it. Software to me doesn't seem too much different, but sometimes is. I prefer to purchase from a large company, register and use. And I have very little software. But the way, I have seen some low-cost software (Gimp, Open Office), and I tell you, it is as good or better than the commercial equivalent. That was not always the case.

Now, I don't hate Ebay – I really don't. I love looking for stuff on Ebay. But there are certain things I just won't buy there. Just like I won't buy drinks at fast food restaurants (for other reasons).

St. Patty's Pinch

I hate St. Patrick's Day. When I was a little girl, I was traumatized by the day. You know, wearing green, but not the right shade of green – and getting pinched by mean boys. Oh, how I hated St. Patrick's Day, until recently.

Let me explain.

I work in a city that takes St. Patrick's Day seriously. Behind Boston, it is a party on that day. And every St. Patrick's Day, our office closes because there is a huge parade that goes through downtown. You can't find parking, it is loud, it is almost not worth having the doors to the company I work for open. So it is an unofficial holiday, and normally, we take volunteers to keep a skeleton crew here. I volunteered for the skeleton crew.

And as I have implied, I don't like any of the festivities, so as I was getting dressed, I looked around for something to wear. Crap. Perhaps I don't like the freekin' holiday because I don't wear green clothes. I go for a flowery dress – spring-y, lots of pastel colors (which I rarely wear) and with some dots that look green, or is that turquoise blue? The only thing I really have on that is green is a pair of Jockey for Her green panties. As a constellation, I know I will be the only one at the office and that the day will fly by. Heck, I did not even shave my legs, so I didn't wear panty hose as well. Sort of a side benefit of not shaving, I suppose. As long as no one sees.

Anyway, I am at work for the day, and there is no one else there. I can hear a dull noise from outside – the parade starting. After about an hour, I hear the elevator tone. Someone is on the floor. Two minutes later, Ted arrives at my desk, needing to finish some paperwork. I look at him, and he has on this tacky tie, "Kiss Me I'm Irish." It doesn't go with his suit – but it is green.

He shuffles off to his office, and I continue to work. Ten minutes later, I leave my desk for the restroom to release my morning coffee.

As I return, Ted is at my desk, leaning over reading what is in my in-box. A clear no-no. I think, "nosy guy", and I sneak up behind him and pinch him on his ass. A hard pinch, on the cheek but closer to the crack than I originally intended.

He turns around, startled but busted.

"Oh," I apologize/lied, "I did not know you were wearing green."

"Look at you, Leesa, you have no green on."

"Yeah, Ted, but you can't pinch me because of sexual harassment! So my ass is safe from your fingers."

I did not know Ted well, but he knew I did not curse. I purposefully used the word "ass" to indicate that I was being less professional than during normal work days.

He turned around completely, and looked me up and down with a bit of lust in his eyes.

"No green on, Leesa.," he finally says, "but you pinched me and I had green on. There must be some sort of punishment."

I am not into punishment, domination and the like. That is not was I was after with my "ass" statement.

"Bite me," was the first phrase out of my mouth. I hate that phrase, but someone else at work uses it and, unfortunately, I picked up the phrase.

Ted smiles, and then nibbles me on my neck while pinching me in the butt. I was shocked and aroused at the same time.

"That," Ted said after the nibbling, "is for pinching me with green on."

What should I do next? Did I really want to carry this further? Right now it was flirty talk and pinching bottoms. Did I want to take things further, lift up my dress to reveal my green panties? A million endings to this story entered my brain. Was someone going to get off the elevator, ending what could have been a passionate encounter? There is a difference between what I want and what I should do. What would I do?

Okay, the above story is fictional. I thought it would work better if you thought I was blogging. Anyway, call me a bitch if you want to; maybe I want to be bitch slapped. Who knows. I was sort of running out of room and did not know how to quickly finish the story. Okay, bitch slap me if you like. Sort of like an unfulfilled tease.

---

Yesterday, I visited lots of blogs, mostly to satisfy my king. Anyway, I saw this movie, called Loose Change 2nd Edition, and it scared me. It could be completely made up, but some of the things made a lot of sense. I am not saying it is real or false. Maybe it doesn't matter. But I did want to mention it today.

And if this is my last blog entry, the government sent a squad to my work, identified by me streaming this video. They then manipulated Google to erase any trace of this evidence. The video mentioned is more than an hour in length. It may be all crap, but it scared me because it seemed plausible. Not likely but plausible. Sort of like fucking Ted in the office on St. Patrick's Day.

Science and poop

I heard something the other day that gave me pause to think – it concerned a student's science project.

Student’s science project finds more bacteria in ice than toilet water
In summary: A project entered in the Florida state science fair by a seventh grade student finds that ice at some fast-food restaurants contains more bacteria than water found in toilets at the same establishments, USA Today reports. For her project, 12-year-old Jasmine Roberts collected water samples from self-serve ice machines and drive-thru widows at five fast-food restaurants in South Florida and compared them with samples of toilet water collected from restrooms at the same facilities. Laboratory tests conducted with the help of a professor at the University of South Florida confirmed that toilet water contained “less bacteria than the ice 70% of the time” and that three of the five ice samples contained fecal coliform or E. coli bacteria. The professor from USF who assisted with the project says the findings are “not surprising” because toilets are routinely flushed, which clears bacteria, while ice often passes through hands and containers that harbor bacteria. He notes that consumers should “not be overly alarmed” because it takes far more bacteria than the amounts found in the ice samples to cause illness, but he advises people to make an effort to ensure that food and beverages are “handled properly”.

So a local government official responsible for food inspection had the following to say:

"Ice machines are part of the health inspections," Luebkemann said. "There are a lot of factors that have to be considered, like how accurately did she gather and test her specimens. Plus, comparing the ice to toilet water can be misleading because there are acceptable levels of bacteria for water."

Two things that I immediately thought of:

1. Acceptable levels of bacteria for water? Can you imaging wanting water dirtier that toilet water?

2. I am sure this grown up is sweating because of a little girl's science project. Sort of makes me giggle.

And when I read stories like this, after imagining ~Deb reaching for her gas mask and rubber gloves, I begin to wonder if we get too much information about dangers in our world. Mass murderers terrify me, but in the grand scheme of things, the odds of a mass murderer affecting my life directly (killing anyone I know) is very, very small. I have better odds getting laid by Orlando Bloom. And I don't live in California.

But after letting you know about this, I was wondering, what would cushion the blow. I mean, say, you are listening to this, eating your Burger King Whopper at your desk, sipping on your Diet Coke, laced with bacteria and fecal material. After accidentally spitting your Diet Coke concoction on your screen, what could you think of that would make this seem less gross.

For those of you with no aversion to anal play (and that is not me, you could think, "At least I don't know if my drink has fecal material in it. When I was tonguing my boyfriend the other night, I know I was licking poop."

Or, for those who like opera, you could think, "Holy cow. I like opera and drinking poop. I am going to hell." Okay, perhaps we don't have a lot of opera divas here. And opera is a form of torture, not a poorly constructed web browser.

I am trying to think of the positive spin to this story – perhaps we should stop frequenting fast food restaurants. Good for the waistline and you don't swallow poop. A win-win situation.

---

I think Mikey spends more time on the Internet than I do. Well, I sit on office e-mail, but I don't really explore much of blogland. Every once in awhile I do, but that's when I am bored. He wrote about a site that rates other blog sites, and when they rated his site, he did rather well.

I thought, what the heck, I will have them look at my blog (which they have done). And the review that looked at my blog did not like it at all. First, they mentioned that the template is boring – which it is. But I don't think they held that against me. What they did not like was the content. They gave one example of, admittedly, a weak post. And they are right. It was weak. But I am sure they looked at other posts. No additional contents. Basically I am someone, in their estimation, that tries to be philosophical, and fails. And, after being initially hurt, they are right.

I noticed a lot of people I normally read or occasionally read being reviewed. Although I can see how the reviewer got it right with me, some of the others are off the mark. Perhaps the people who run this site are just mean. Some constructive criticism, and some gratuitous criticism.

I mean, I have some funny posts, but because I post every day, some of the posts are crap. Heck, this one focuses on crap you drink at fast food restaurants.

Bitch Slapped by Merciless Minx

I was recently bitch-slapped by Mercilless Minx. Since I Talk too Much takes their reviews off of their site frequently or makes them hard to find - I can't tell which one - I thought I would post my bitch-slapping on here.

3. Leesa’s Stories

It’s the standard white Blogger template, so it’s readable with nothing special about it. The focus then is on the content. A lot of the posts are vaguely philosophical, which really annoys me. I’ve always hated philosophy. It’s way too much thought given to things that are going to happen regardless of your deep thoughts about it. Either accept it, do something about it, or move on. Some of it is a little thought provoking when it isn’t annoying me.

The post called “Technology”, however, just contradicts itself and makes me think this person is full of crap. It says if you buy something while listening to music from your iPod, you lose connection with that person (the cashier). Once is okay but all the time is bad. Why? They don’t know me, I don’t know them, we don’t care about each other. What “connection” is there to be had? I’ve got more important things to do (maybe even people I wanna do). Maybe I listen to music because I don’t want any connections with strangers. Then later in the same post she talks about email and how it brings you closer to your family when maybe you don’t really want to be. So let me get this straight. I should be spending more time talking to strangers than communicating with my family? Thanks for the insight. I’ll be going now.


I give it

Wondering about Latex

I walk to my office each day – not from home, but from a parking lot that is not exactly next door to the building. I don't mind walking; the weather is rarely bad.

But as I walk, I always pass one site that puzzles me – a single condom that has been walked into the sidewalk. When the condom was "new," I did not see it. I only noticed it after it was walked into the ground. Now I have lots of questions about this little piece of latex.

What events led to this condom being ground into the sidewalk?
Okay, this sidewalk is close to a college campus, dorm rooms – you know, young kids. Oh, crap, I am calling college students kids; sign me into the assisted living home right now. Back to the conjecture. My first thought was that after a late night, a young couple in the early hours of the morning were walking along, holding hands, kissing.

And then they noticed the moonless night, the starts out, and not a soul around. And these young lovers had an idea – not sure who really had the idea first, probably the guy. "No one is around – let me take you right here." Now they may have gone over to the bushes – no forensic evidence gives us a clue. It was probably in the spring, she had on a skirt, and she may not have even removed her panties. The lovemaking was fast, furious, and passionate. But it was probably very brief, the young stud shooting his load into the condom in short order. After coming, the young lass did not have the opportunity to share in the organism. As he was taking off the condom, she was re-adjusting her panties that were pulled out of the way and her skirt.

Great sex it probably wasn't. She was afraid of getting caught. When campus police patrol at 3:30 in the morning, they approach all young couples, copulating or not.

Okay, that was my first thought.

What really happened? Maybe some guy was looking at his wallet, and he had an old condom (unused people) – but he was worried that sitting on his ass all day for a month compromised the integrity of his "insurance policy."

I don't know what really happened, but I like to think about the co-ed straightening her skirt after a romantic interlude.

Who would purposefully walk on such a condom?
Okay, I don't know if the condom in question was used or unused. Regardless, who in their right mind would walk on such an object? Some would not see the object and walk on it. Those are the sorts of people who routinely clean dog poop out of their tennis shoes.

Then there are those who see the condom and stomp on it. Perhaps they have not got laid in awhile and are angry: "Son of a bitch. Some guy got lucky on the freekin' sidewalk."

Did you think I would be writing about latex today?
How many of you thought when you pulled this blog entry up – okay, now I need to read this page on a used condom on the sidewalk. Watching paint dry would be more entertaining.

I mean, if you are not the guy who nailed the lass or the girl who was bent over with such a lovely cock inside her for a brief time, why would you care? Because we are curious people, I suspect. Happy Monday!

Googling Rene Russo's Lingerie

Last night, hubbie was watching an old movie – Lethal Weapon. Or I thought it was – turns out it was Lethal Weapon III (not sure there is much of a difference). There is a line that is memorable from the movie – "Close is a lingerie shop without a front window." I will explain what it means shortly; that is actually not the point of the post.

Well, I figure my boycott of Google dropped their share price several points, costing them millions of dollars, so I thought, “What the heck, I will use Google to figure this one out.”

I Googled it, and one of the first sites gave a detailed explanation of the bad guys using a lingerie shop as a front, blah, blah, blah. It was one of those question and answers where people pay other people to find the answer. Is it "Google Answers"? Since the boycott, I forget. Well, it turns out that someone paid for this answer, and it is wrong.

The right answer follows:

A cinematic Rorschach test: Please explain the following line of dialogue that is spoken by Det. Lorna Cole (Rene Russo) to Det. Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) in Lethal Weapon 3: "Close is a lingerie shop without a front window." Give up? You're not the only one. Lethal audiences are puzzled by Cole's taunt, uttered when Riggs admits he came this close to catching the bad guy. And even Riggs himself admits, "I don't get it."

So what does it mean? "Nothing," says screenwriter Jeffrey Boam. "It's a complete non sequitur. The (original) line was something like 'Close doesn't count,' or 'Close only counts with horseshoes.' Dick (director Richard Donner) is a fun-loving guy," says Boam, "and this thought just popped into his head. He said, 'Let's have her say something completely off the wall.'" Boam, who ; wasn't on the set at the time, quickly faxed Donner a dozen meaningless lines that began with the words, "Close is " Then the whole cast and crew started coming up with them. But the one they used came from Russo herself. "This is like some line from a Beatles song," says Boam. "I guess people are trying to figure it out."

Okay, back to my point. And it is not about Rene Russo and Mel Gibson rolling around on the floor (best part of the movie, by the by). It is that the Internet has a lot of misinformation being shared, stored and cataloged for others to find. Another point could be that although Mel Gibson is so hot, I could never be with him because he has better hair than me.

I mean, take this blog. No, don’t really take it, but take a look at it. I do very little research. I just type stuff in what turns out to be a suck-y word processor and some people read it. Okay, and I don’t mean anything negative by this, hopefully everyone with an average IQ can tell when I am off base (which may be most of the time). But, I think to myself, "why would anyone with an average IQ read me?"

I read from people who are smarter than me. Why read about people you already run intellectual circles around? That’s sort of like weight training with Pee Wee Herman. First, he probably can’t spot the weight you are benching, and second, he is a weird little man. Okay, I will admit it – I had to plant something about weight lifting in here. I went to the gym the other week, and hubbie wanted me to spot him. Luckily the bar did not crush his wind pipe when I failed to spot him.

I thought spotting looked cool, but as I was watching hubbie writhe in pain, I had a different thought, "I know nothing about spotting." The next thought was about bills and wondering if we mailed in his life insurance premium for the year.

I have bad news – no, the bad news is not that we failed to make the life insurance premium. Insensitive readers. The bad news is that he eventually struggled and got the bar off of his chest before it crushed any vital organs.

But the point, if you fail to find it thus far is this – don’t believe everything you read on the Internet. I will be taking off a few days, going someplace warm, and coincidently, this place has Swiss bank accounts as well. Hubbie is fine, really.

Pure Imagination and Pool Boys

If you want to view paradise,
Simply look around and view it
Anything you want to, do it
Want to change the world?
There's nothing to it.

These are words from "Pure Imagination", a song from the 1971 movie Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. Every time I wonder if I am doing good in the world, my mind races to this song. When Gene Wilder (Willy Wonka) sings the line “there's nothing to it” as he is plucking a hair out of Mike Teavee, I am reminded that we change the world every day.

This is an important notion – each day, every one of us changes the world. We may make it better or worse – intentionally or unintentionally – but we change the world. And I think most of us do this unintentionally. For instance, I got a really nice note from someone the other day, and it made my whole day. I was down, overworked, undersexed, whatever, and this little note made everything better. Was the writer trying to “pick me up?” No – and when I write “pick me up” I am referring to raising my spirits. But her note did make my day.

I have done a lot of soul searching lately – and might I add that it is hard work reconstructing oneself. Really crappy work, too. But I do ask myself whether I am trying to play it safe sometimes, not willing to risk things, get out of my comfort zone. I am overqualified at work – which means that I normally succeed at what I do. But I should be succeeding.

You know, I see the same thing with relationships – not mine, but others I read about. People seem to sometimes be playing it safe. And I am not talking about turning down some one-night stand who doesn’t want to use a condom because his penis is so big that it hurts him. P-lease. I have seen a sex educator put a condom over his head (and not the penis head, you people). Somehow, I wonder if someone would ever rob a bank with a condom over his head. “Officer, I did not get a good look at the guy. He was wearing a condom on his head, and, well, it distracted me. I just could not stop laughing.”

I mean, I know several people who have re-married the same person. Okay, I know one person (really), met another who was in the process of doing so (the re-marrying, not the re-divorcing). Is it because they were playing it safe (did not work so well, sort of like getting burnt twice on the same stove, and consoling yourself with “too much nerve damage to feel it the second time” or “I buy my burn meds in bulk anyway” or whatever).

Don’t you hate it when you get to the end of a sentence and forget what the sentence was about in the first place? If you write it, good ol’ MS Word can correct it for you. As long as you endure the freakin’ paperclip office assistant. What I want Microsoft to do is make a Spanish Pool Boy office assistant. Oh, and then I would never get any work done ever again. “Francisco, my office assistant, can you take your shirt off and conjugate this noun.” Talk about a dampened panties moment. Oh, my.

Okay, I have rambled on enough today. Francisco and I have work to do!

Technology

I often wonder about technology and if it is adding or taking away from our lives. Perhaps a little of both.

I mean, recently, I have seen so many iPods; everyone is wearing them, and a lot of people have them on all of the time. But when you have them in your ears, you are more separated from the world. The person at the cash register does not hear the music; you just give her your plastic, look at non-verbal cues, then put the credit card back in your wallet or purse. A transaction without a connection. Do this once, and it is no big deal. Do this all of the time, and you loose touch with others.

The other day, I was in a small restaurant, and I saw who I thought were mother and daughter grabbing a bite to eat. For the entire meal, they talked to other people on dueling cellular phones. You know, I don’t know if it is “cel phone” or “cell phone”. EB White, where have you gone?

Then I look at work presentations, all done with PowerPoint. I don’t know what PowerPoint does more efficiently: (1) kill a meeting’s energy, or (2) kill any sort of creativity. People are worried about font selection when their ideas are the things which need rescuing.

I am not saying we all pull a Ted Kaczynski and move to a cabin deep in the woods. Pretty soon lots of people would be mailing bombs to whomever. Sure, it helps the junk mail problem, but at a cost. And knowing hubbie, if the mailbox was blown up, it would take him weeks to replace the darned thing.

On the plus side, we can e-mail friends and family. But how many of us want to be closer to family? I mean, the cute nephews and nieces are either dribbling on their toys, not e-mailing Uncle Joe. And when they get old enough to e-mail anything of value, they would prefer to text message their girlfriends to see if Jason “really likes me.”

Yeah, I know, there have been huge improvements in vibrators. I read a blog the other day that told of a woman who got six big Os in one hour. I was about to type how they aren’t real Os, but even I couldn’t go there.

I have been told that housework is easier now. Seems just more confusing, with all of the different cleaning agents on the market. I can’t figure out what is good or bad to use. I guess what drives these questions (not the vibrator question, but the others) all deals with so much information. It is getting harder and harder to filter all of the information. And some technology seems to crush creativity.

I am not much of a photographer, but I imagine digital photography is revolutionizing this field. Most good cameras figure out lighting, aperture, F-stop, all of the things photographers had to know years ago. Now, an amateur with an average eye and a happy finger can takes hundreds of photos, and a few can’t help from turning out okay. I know a trained eye might be able to tell the difference, but most of us have untrained eyes.

I don’t know where this is going. I know there have been advances in medicine. But are we living better lives. Healthy baby boomers think so. I am not sure I do, though.

I am all for technology – but I don’t have a cel phone, can’t operate a VCR and don’t have cable. Not because the technology is evil. I just don’t have the time to apply a good filter for these things.

I tried buying a cel phone once. But I could not make up my mind. I think I will turn off the computer now. Oh, I forgot, I can’t. My work revolved around e-mail.

Unconditional Love and Musicals

Prata raised a point yesterday that talks about unconditional love. I have heard the phrase, but I have not felt unconditional love. Okay, I have a disadvantage. I don’t have kids. You see, I have seen others love their kids, and in some circumstances, they may experience something close to unconditional love. I have seen mothers, after hearing their children have killed lots of people, still love their children deeply. “I feel sorry for the victims, but I will be holding Jimmy’s hand until he is executed by the state.” I don’t get it, but alas, I have no kids.

I also know a woman who gets beaten by her boy (he is 16 and stronger than she is). She is concerned for her boy, but her love seems constant, even though he has put her in the hospital more than once. Unconditional love? Beats me – but please don’t beat me. Sorry, bad joke. Again, a foreign concept to me.

When I was getting married, I went through an Engaged Encounter, and if you were married in the Catholic Church, you probably experience the same thing. For Catholics, it appears that marriage involves conditions. Two, in fact: (1) mutual support, and (2) open to children. Neither condition mentions love.

Okay, I am a sucker for good movies. And this reminds me of a song in “Fiddler on the Roof.” Tevye (the main character) explains that even though theirs was an arranged marriage, his parents said they would soon learn to love each other anyway. The song that accompanies the dialog is “Do You Love Me?”. The very touching song ends with the lines:
Tevye: So you love me?
Golde (his wife): I suppose I do.
Tevye: Then I suppose I love you too.
Together: It doesn't change a thing. But even so, after twenty-five years, it's nice to know.
I really think that doing loving things for someone helps in fostering loving feelings. And that is what the song is about.

I am not sure love is an essential ingredient of a successful marriage, or if it is important, it is the most important thing. That is, it does not predict if a marrage is to succeed.

Unconditional love? Not sure I know what it is. But a good marriage – I can feel that in my bones. And it is not because hubbie buys me flowers when I least expect them. When he does this, he is opening up to me. When I give him a back scratch even though I am as tired as he is, I am performing a loving task, and it opens me up to being closer to him.

One can argue that my church is antequated, past its prime. That’s fine. What is nice is that people can choose their religion themselves, based on the shared views of the religion. Catholisism is not meant to be all inclusive. Inclusiveness has a price tag – one sacrificies meaning and importance for inclusiveness. Okay, you don’t believe in transfiguration? No problem. Well, then that diminishes the role of transfiguration in the Church.

Getting back to “Fiddler on the Roof.” I have seen an arranged marriage. The one is not a happy marriage – but they all were not tragic dramas. Take a look at “Fiddler.” Except for the fact that the Czar is throwing them off of their land, there is a happy ending. Well, not so happy. Actually, it is sort of funny, now that I look back on it, that I am using a Jewish example for this. But Judaism is the mother of Catholisism.

Marriage and Roses

In December, I met a man who was quite a bit older than me.He was buying flowers, more roses than I had ever seen one man purchase. In actuality, there were six dozen roses, but they looked like hundreds to me. Later that day, he was to get on a plane and travel to a distant city, where he was to meet his ex-wife, an ex of ten years. He would propose that weekend, and if she said “yes” again, their family would be reunited.

Okay, for me it is a very romantic story. But I am less than satisfied because I don’t know the ending. The man was middle-aged and I wanted to know more about him. I wanted to know what brought about the divorce, if perhaps it was a mistake. Why the man thought that the second time around, things would be different. Or perhaps he was different.

Is the dating world that scary that a middle-aged man would settle for what he had and lost so many years ago? Did he think he could do better, but couldn’t? Or, when he was taking care of his son, did his son remind him of his bride? All questions I have floating around in my brain.

Divorce fascinates me – as does marriage. Marriage means different things to different people. I am Catholic, and to be married is to be sewn together at the soul. That’s why divorce is less common among practicing Catholics. It is certainly not that Catholics are more pleasant to be around or more diplomatic or better mate choosers. It is that, ingrained in their heads is this notion of “’til death do us part.” Scary feeling.

Recently, Prata asked about marriage. I guess I compared the rush to get married so soon after college like lemmings falling off a cliff. No one needs to be married. But here we are, more often than not, and we get married. For all sorts of reasons. For companionship, for sex, for convenience, for 11,000 other reasons. Getting married doesn’t take much - $20 for the license, a blood test in some states, and a three-day grace period. That’s it. It is harder to get qualified to purchase a used car – and sometimes the car lasts longer.

No real point today. But I hope this man and his ex do what they need or want to be happy. If it includes jumping over the broomstick again, so be it. The roses will be wilted long before either says, “I do.”

Rubber Chicken and Lotteries

Not sure if you get this from my writing, but I am a smart ass. I have a biting sense of humor, and because I can figure out what drives who crazy, I sometimes use that to my advantage. Not often, but when I am in a bitchy mood.

For instance, even though I am on board with the concept of evolution, I have been known to say, "If humans evolved from apes, why are there still apes on this planet." Okay, my statement is wrong on many accounts – it is believed that apes and humans may have evolved from a common ancestor. Quite different. But that's not the point. I just want to tease, and not the sexual tease that I used in my youth.

Anyway, hubbie has a job where I meet many people that have high educations and huge egos. A common combination – and I would say a somewhat dangerous combination. So what do I do – I tease them.

Recently, there was someone – an actuary, I think – who I was having a conversation with, one of these rubber chicken dinner party events. The chicken was actually good, but to the left of me was this actuary. Well, I am not sure exactly what he does because it is so mind numbingly boring, but I do know that it is heavy in statistics. So here is, more or less, the conversation:

Leesa: "So, you know a lot about statitics?"

Actuary: "Sure."

Leesa: "You know what always puzzles me. Why more people don't play the lottery."

Actuary: "You have got to be kidding. Lotteries are for those who know nothing about statistics."

Leesa: "Well, the way I see it, there are two possible outcomes when you buy a lottery ticket. Either you win the jackpot or you don't. So you have a 50% chance of winning the lottery."

Actuary: "You have got to be kidding. Why don't you just buy two lottery tickets and guarantee a win."

Leesa: "Don't be an idiot. If you buy two tickets, you still either win or you don't. It doesn't change the odds."

The whole time, he thought I was serious, and I just wanted to tease him. Funny thing, is that after the conversation, he probably still thought I was some dumb brunette. But that was not the point.

Sidenote: Nikki, bless her heart, invited us to be part of a NCAA BB group (group id# 12076). After the first day of the competition, Rell is winning – but he picked Oklahoma to go far into the tournament, and they are out. I am tied for second after one day (I need to crow now, because my other picks suck).

The TV Alter

Okay, I admit it: I just don't watch much television. I don't know if it does not interest me, or I am too busy, or maybe I just can't figure out how to watch anymore.

When I was growing up, I can remember three or four channels. Things were simple – there is one dial that would get me four channels: NBC, CBS, ABC, and Public Television. Then, there was an independent channel available on the other dial. One dial was VHF and the other UHF. Okay, that is the technical part of the post.

I remember that I had to jiggle wires a lot to get a clear picture, but there were relatively few choices on television. Few choices make it easy to watch.

Fast forward to today, and there are some one million channels with about the same amount of decent programming available. And frankly, I don't have time to dig through the programming to find the good stuff.

Hubbie and I go out to dinner a lot. This is sort of like two restaurants that we enjoy, one having a very limited menu but everything is wonderful and the other having such a huge selection from its menu, but they miss on occasion. They hit, but they miss as well. That's sort of how I see television. And for me, it is easier to just not watch.

Not that this is a revelation. But I was reading in my living room last night, and I just looked around the room – and I wanted to move furniture. Okay, I direct and hubbie moves. But you get the idea. I have not changed our living room in a while, and I noticed that the dormant television is the center of the room. The other furniture is huddled around the television, yet there is no warm glow emitting from the TV.

It isn't that I dislike television – I occasionally travel for work, and in the evenings, I overdose on television. I will watch from 7:00/8:00 pm, and stop watching when I fall asleep in the wee hours of the morning.

When hubbie comes home this evening, I guess he will be moving furniture. But maybe I will wait until after the first weekend of March Madness.

Show me your brackets

Looks like it will be a late post today. You see, gentle readers, I have spent the morning filling out NCAA Basketball Brackets. There seems to be a national obsession with college basketball this time of year.

I am not much of a sports fan – but college basketball, during March Madness, has its appeal. Sure, you have the most athletic men in the country playing round ball. But, I could care less about that. You have big schools and small schools showing their spirit. Well, that is sort of cool, but you have that in College Football as well. For that matter, I think most college sports have the enthusiasm college basketball shares. But with college basketball, you have a one-and-done contest, where the winner takes all.

But when we talk about March Madness, it is as if the elephant is in the room, and most people don't want to talk about it. The reason that College BB – the big dance – is so much fun is because of Office Pools. And gambling for you degenerates. Some think tank has calculated the costs to business of these pools, and they are enormous. Billions of lost dollars from millions of lost hours. I was doing my fair share this morning (I don't want those PhD types in the think tanks to be wrong), so the post is late. Really late.

And I have a good shot to win our office pool – for honor only, no money attached to this one. Hear that, boss that may monitor traffic, or FBI that is looking for its own (we don't need no stinking warrants for wire taps) reasons. You see, it is not my vast knowledge of basketball. My fifth grade gym teacher taught me everything I know:

• "two points for a basket"
  
• "don't shoot granny-style when fast breaking"
  
• "personal foul on Leesa for pulling down Ted's shorts, that's no way to guard"
  
• "gym shorts make my butt look bigger than it is, honest"
  

Okay, the forth thing I learned years later.

What I am counting on is some novice to win the office pool. Enter Leesa the Novice. And I am not talking about a religious novice – they are monks, right? I can't remember. I am counting on what the others in my office will attribute to dumb luck.

Now during football season, I have won more than my fair square of games. You know, you buy squares for 25 cents each (and SOB, you can't pick your own numbers, there is a drawing), and see what the score is at the end of the each quarter, and if your two numbers match the singles digit of the two teams, you win. Not money, of course, but er, um, the knowledge that you outmaneuvered everyone else.

So, after posting this, I am going back to my brackets. I have to do the Ladies side next. Enie meenie minie moe.

Footprints, shellfish and rabbits' feet

When I was a little girl, I would visit my grandmother. Her house was a bit small, but it was just her living there. I loved it because everything in it seemed old. The light switches were old, the fixtures were old, the carpets were old. Everything seemed like it was purchased in the 1950s.

One thing I distinctly remember was a framed poem; you know, the kind with a picture – and the picture was of the same thing as the title of the poem, footprints in the sand.

FOOTPRINTS IN THE SAND
Author Unknown

One night a man had a dream.
He dreamed he was walking along the beach with the Lord.

Across the sky flashed scenes from his life.

For each scene, he noticed two sets of footprints in the sand. One belonged to him, and the other to the Lord.

When the last scene of his life flashed before him, he looked back at the footprints in the sand.

He noticed that many times along the path of his life, there was only one set of footprints. He also noticed that it happened at the very lowest
and saddest times in his life. This really bothered him and he questioned the Lord about it.:

"Lord, you said that once I decided to follow you, you'd walk with me all the way. But I have noticed that during
the most troublesome times in my life,
there is only one set of footprints.
I don't understand why when I needed you the most you would leave me."

The Lord replied, "My precious, precious child, I love you and would never leave you. During your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then I carried you."

Every once in a while, I need to be reminded of this. I need to be reminded that during the dark, hard times, God is there. I find it interesting that people pull away from God at the tough times. Sometimes.

Some people use God as a rabbit's foot, saying, "God, please give me the wisdom to pick these six numbers for PowerBall. But we have been using God that way for so long – think of Moses, holding up his arms, rubbing that lucky rabbit's foot so his army would defeat the Amalekites. And we are led to believe that if Aaron and Hur had not been on that mountain, holding up Moses' arms when he grew tired, that the Amalekites would have been victorious. Not quite the same as picking those six numbers, but I see more similarities than differences (not sure if the odds were the same).

It is funny, though, because I get the impression that it matters little to God why we pray to him. It seems to be for our benefit, not his. And if stroking a rabbit's foot is the first step in your discernment process, I think it makes little difference. I mean, its not like you are worshiping false idols or eating shellfish.

So many letters, so little content

On my way to work this morning, I was thinking about what to blog about today. My employer would go crazy if he knew where my head was – or my heart was. I mean, he rents my time; when he pays me, I work and think about work. When off, I am not thinking about work. And truthfully, half the time when I am at work, well, other things go through my mind.

Promotions are not always good
Okay, I made a stupid move recently. Employer promoted me, and I accepted the promotion. See – before, I could do my job in about 2 hours per day. So on an hourly basis, I was making good money. The other six hours were mine. If I was more motivated, I could probably have performed some moneymaking activities to take advantage of these hours. I could rent out my desk – but you know, I think employer might have questions if they saw a "want ad" with the company number advertising the space. Also, when he saw someone else sitting in the desk every day, well, I am sure after some time, he would put two and two together, and at least figure out that it did not add up; I am not certain he would ever guess four.

I mean, the easiest thing to do is start some sort of online business. Not sure I am committed enough to sell stuff on Ebay. I would have to find crap to sell, take digital pictures of it, glow flowingly of the crap I want to unload, and ship the stuff. I hate shipping stuff, so this scheme does not play to my strengths.

Online porn? Nah, too close to blogging.

In short, there are no good moneymaking activities that play to my strengths.

But you know what, this is all water under the bridge because I took my $2K promotion. So instead of working two hours, I work six, and I get $2K for the other four hours. Project that out for the year, and I make $1.92/hour for those hours of work, yet I am working three times as many hours. This is sort of reverse leveraging my talents. Not a good thing.

Filler
Okay, if you have not abandoned the page yet, you may not know I have absolutely nothing to say today. I sometimes wish I did not have OCD, so that I could not post when the posts are going to bomb. But instead, I drive traffic away from this site. Good think I don't care what most people think.

Bad URLs
In January, I found some URLs that probably should never have been created. Well, it is not that they are porn sites that try and trick people to visit (when the Internet was still fairly new, how many of us visited the White House at whitehouse.com (intentionally no link), and instead of going to the White House's site, you went to the other White House's site (some gay porn site).

Well the following sites have really bad URLs:

http://www.whorepresents.com
Which is it, "who represents" or "whore presents"? You know, whore presents "guy with the biggest shlong" or "guy spewing on whore breasts. No, this is a site that focuses on finding who represents whom. Like I trust a site with such sucky PR to find PR people.

http://www.penisland.net
Okay, I was hoping this linked to Penis Land. I really was. I theme park full of phallic images, rides and statues. What an awesome girl vacation – talk about lay over! But alas, it is for Pen Island, a site to purchase pens. And, yes, they are surprised that someone has started vulgar spam that uses their domain. Imagine that.

http://www.therapistfinder.com
Now, is this "the rapist finder" or Therapist finder"? And if I had some real sexual dysfunction and needed a therapist, would this URL just scare the crap out of me?

http://www.molestationnursery.com
Why would "Mole station nursery use this URL? I mean, are you catering to pedophiles who enjoy gardening? This is one of those that you just don't want to think about.

Mission Accomplished
Sadly, I have done it. I have written an entire blog entry and discussed nothing. Ironically, also, I have noticed that many people have been talking about the lack of substance in blogland lately. It seems I have added to this minutia today. I blame this on the school systems – seems we blame everything from the teenage pregnancy rates to gun violence on our schools. Might as well blame this as well. Oh, and let's pay our teachers a pittance as well, because we know that children are our future. Oooops, guess we are already doing that.

Great Grandma Iva

Supplemental post for a very interesting blog entry.

Okay, you know I rarely post twice on one day. This is one of those days. Please visit Monica's site to read an interesting article. It is sad, because it talks about the death of a person. But it also has the words to a Des Moines Iowa Register article. Very interesting.

I tried posting a reply, but you know, it is one of those MSN sites. Maybe they have a beef with blogger/blogspot.

Are you there God, It's Me Leesa

Like I mentioned earlier in the week, I am getting a few e-mails from a few people. And I try to respond. I mean, for $30, I have mailed back worn panties. Not sure why Joe wanted them. But with a debit card number and expiration date, I pretty much send Joe what he wants.

Crap. I started off on this really serious post, and I have gotten less than serious.

Anyway, more recycling follows. Here is what I wrote (in italics), and I want to add to it.

I don't dislike hearing from you – we just have very different perspectives. Sometimes it is like a chasm which is two far to cross – you can't take two jumps, if you know what I mean. Funny thing is that at the exact moment of me typing this, you mentioned your lack of hearing God on my blog. And that's the chasm I am talking about. Now this doesn't make me a good person or you a bad person. That's not the point. It is more like trying to explain sight to a blind person. A completely foreign experience, when both the sighted and the blind are not necessarily good or bad.

God is extremely personal to me. And some of my thoughts and beliefs come from my love of God. Not just my belief in Him, but my love of Him. And when I try to explain this to someone who does not have a similar belief, it is very hard to explain.

But sometimes differences in people's past makes discussing certain issues difficult. Without shared experiences, talking can be more difficult. I wonder, at times, if this is the problem with Peace Talks. Different sides, growing up in different cultures, can't effectively communicate.

But this is getting way off the subject.

One of my favorite books is written by Judy Blume (catch the title similarity?) – and nearly every girl growing up when I did read and loved that book. About a girl during puberty and what she was going through. And I think all girls going through puberty ought to have a direct line to the Man Upstairs, don't you agree?

I have heard God referred to as a crutch. After shaking my head and knowing the person just is on the other side of a very deep chasm, I ponder the statement. Does the person mean that God supports? God aids? God helps? Then perhaps God is a crutch after all.

A Prayer Away from Healing
On a totally unrelated topic. ~Deb is coming out with her first book. It's all about our illicit affair. No, I mean it's all about ... hmmm. Well, instead of me re-hashing what is already said, visit ~Deb and read about it for yourself. A Prayer Away from Healing. Personally, I will wait a week for Amazon.com to carry it – I would rather have Ms ~Deb in my hot little hands than an electronic copy (the version available this week).

Here is a side note. Okay, a disclaimer, I know little about cause and effect, but ponder this. ~Deb's significant other (I like to call her M) read the book, loved it and then they had hot sex. Look at the potential cause and effect. Read the book. Love it. Have sex with hot ~Deb. I am not saying that this works all of the time, but let's say 6 people have read the book, and of the six, one person got the hot sex with ~Deb. I would say that average is a lot better than one would have going clubbing.

Just a thought.

Sit-coms, God and Beaches

Okay, I admit it, I am spent. The post I wrote yesterday, while fun to write, was enormously taxing. But it was a labor of love, or vanity or both. Hard to tell.

This morning in the shower, I lost myself. Not literally – I mean, I would have left a trail of drops that would have been easy to follow back to the shower. I mean, I was thinking about things, all kinds of things.

My mind drifted to situation comedies, or sit-coms. When I was growing up, most of the television was either sit-com or drama. I can't remember much more, besides 60 Minutes. I know, you are thinking, how can this 21-year-old hot babe remember that far back. Just read on, smart ass.

With sit-coms, you have to suspend belief are they just aren't as funny. I mean, if you were a rational person watching Gilligan's Island, you would be screaming at the TV set every episode, and what fun is that? And Three's Company, please. How real is that. As real as Third Rock from the Sun. Hey, that happened to my cousin. He rented out his place to dorky space aliens.

Anyway, I think it is helpful to suspend our beliefs every once in a while, perhaps that's the whole point of vacations. Well, I have a friend I have been writing – she is having a hard time, and I have thought that she needs some "me time" to do the same. Women need a day at the spa like men will need the first weekend in March Madness. I know hubbie thinks he could still play point guard for Georgia Tech. Talk about fantasies.

Well, again, I will recycle part of a letter for your reading pleasure. I know it is cheap/cheating, but I tend to reveal more when I do so.

I have been thinking about you lately. I thought about you this morning while taking a long shower – my mind was drifting to several things, but you and your marriage kept popping back in my mind.

I would say the first three months of hubbie and my rebuilding was so hopeless. We would talk to the therapist about the same things, argue at home about the same things, cry over the same things. I don't know why it got better – but I don't think I was doing anything differently. Perhaps hubbie finally got the realization that if it doesn't work out, we would have a messy divorce (is there any other way to divorce?), and then he would be on his own. Perhaps my cheating ass was better than some ass he would have to find, romance, and eventually win over. I really don't know what went on in his noggin, and I probably did not want to know. Who knows, maybe he "evened the score". I doubt it, but it could have happened.

You talked about wanting God to intervene in your life. I think God intervenes all of the time but we just don't know it, cant see it. We don't listen close enough to hear him. We have all of this background noise going on, and we don't pay attention. Myself included.

There have been few times in my life when I have actually heard God – no doubt in my mind. And it was so calming – when I figured it all out. Okay, by a few, I can count them on one hand. It is a rare occurrence for me, but I have so much crap going on in my head that it is hard to hear anyone else. Sometimes I think I would make a terrible person with multiple personalities – all of the other personalities would get pissed that I am drowning them out with my own thoughts. Then they would go haywire, and the next thing you know, seven people are missing from the neighborhood, and I would wake up one morning wondering why my feet are muddy and my favorite kitchen knife is missing.

Babe, I have no answers. When I think of you, all I have is more questions. I do know, from what little I know, you are incredibly strong. Sometimes going out to play with the dogs and the kids is the best thing for us, even if we want to travel to some beach where wearing as little as possible feels so right.

Well, here is to everyone finding a little bit of fantasy, perhaps taking your thinking cap off to just appreciate the world around you.

Blogger Academy Awards

The Academy Awards were this weekend, and while many have commented on the awards themselves, I would have thought more blogs would be giving their own awards. A little late, but I offer you my own Blogger Academy Awards.

Best motion picture of the year
Not sure I could give this award to only one blogger. So I will give this award to two different bloggers, one male and one female. The female blogger is Shannon, and she deserves the award because of the pictures of her on her blog. It seems like every other comment she makes on my blog has a different picture associated with her profile. And she takes such lovely pictures. In fact, recently, she took some really nice pictures of her, um, pussy. Cutest pussy I have seen in quite some time. You see, she got a new member of the family, a cat. Boys, what did you think I was talking about?

For the Male Picture of the Year, the award goes to Joe. Forget HNT (Half Naked Thursday), Joe gives us "The Week in Pictures" every Friday he is not jet-setting it across the country. The premise is that he takes funny pictures and makes up captions. Really, pee-in-your-panties funny. He even allowed mere mortals to try their luck with captions one week. Really, really funny.

Honorable mention goes to Mark. His blog is a real picture blog, not with the naked kind either. Real artistic pictures. My favorites are of snow and winter (B&W). I don't like the cold stuff in real life, but it is really nice to look at in a picture. And he knows about aperture, F-stops, lighting, all that camera stuff. I know, some people will "catch lightning in a bottle" every once in a while, snapping a great picture. He knows the technical stuff and is much more likely to take a wonderful picture. So he wins the Technical Achievement Award for his picture. You know, the Academy Awards Ceremony that happened before the other Academy Awards Ceremony.

Performance by an actor in a leading role
For his very unusual blog, I would say that Ddot wins this award for sheer volume of comments. The Academy Awards seems to be a popularity contest anyway, and who is more popular than Ddot? He was nearly eliminated from competition by his own IT department, which tried to filter the Internet sites he could reach. And we all know what that means, little Miss Leesa and her smut don't get through. Plus he can't post.

Performance by an actor in a supporting role
For his job in setting up Just Walking, the award goes to Prata. We thought it would be fun to start of collaborative blog to write a story; we called it doodling. And prata was the main reason for this – supporting so many others. Now, we have only had about ten posts to date, but it is a fun experiment to be part of. Anyone interested should go over there and make a comment in the comments section. Prata will respond.

Performance by an actress in a leading role
The winner of this award is Monica. I get the feeling that Monica is a supporting role kind of gal, but deserves to be a leading role lady. The only complaint I have is that she uses a blog hosted by MSN, and more than half the time, I can't post a response. Darned IT folks blocking me. They know I say bad things about Microsoft, and they lock me out.

Honorable mention would go to Goddess. I love just reading her, listening to streaming music, wondering about this chick. Her prose is so poetic. I introduced Ddot to her – one of my achievements in blogland. Plus she is a Southern woman, and I tend to see things similarly to her.

Performance by an actress in a supporting role
For this, the award goes to Georgia Peach. And this has little to do with her blog as well. Her blog is funny, sometimes serious, sometimes just a cool place to hang out. But she supports so many other bloggers, giving them encouragement, revealing parts of her life that many of us would want to remain hidden. You know, the parts of your life when you are growing up, making mistakes. Okay, I have a soft spot for GP, you know that, but she has made some wonderful comments on others' blogs.

Adapted screenplay
Okay, in the Academy Awards, this is one of those awards that does not have the glamour. But this is an important award for me. The Oscar goes to our very own ~Deb. If you read her, her best posts are her stories. Oh, how I love her stories. Funny stories, touching stories, stories that matter. At least to me. Now she comments well as well, but she is at her best when writing. But what can you expect from a professional writer.

Achievement in visual effects
The Oscar goes to Video X for some of her posts. VX has a way of painting a picture that you don't forget. To this date, I remember her story about her peeing herself while on a trip with so many witnesses.

Original screenplay
Okay, this award goes to someone who probably wants to be a recluse. Touch tushie. The award goes to Muse. Musie has had such an original life. Thus, she wins this award. I absolutely love the way she writes. She also won a Hottie of the Month/Year award – and I can't remember what the site is. Sorry. But that is just icing on the cake. She writes what she feels – and take it from a gal who sometimes shields my most personal thoughts. That is hard to do.

Best live action short film
I am not sure if Kathi still reads me, but I love reading about Kathi's life. Her life seems so real, so American Pie lovely. She has handsome boys, a sense of humor and gives us a glimpse into the sanity that is her life. If you want to live vicariously through the life of a normal person, visit her. Okay, I think I have officially offended all of the other award winners. Crap, crap, crap.

Best foreign language film of the year
This is one of those awards where the winner ran away with the award and hid. The winner goes to Grant, who has such a different voice. Not a good voice or a bad voice, but a terribly unique voice in the world.

Honorable mention would go to Trappend In Colorado. Just yanking his chain – since he works for the Department of the Interior, I figured it would be ironic for someone working for that department winning a foreign award.

Best animated short film
The winner is Mallory. Ms. Mallory writes about all sorts of things – nice short entries about chemical stuff, finance stuff (when the CFO or whomever steals tons of cash), occasionally wonderful family stuff. Really interesting, very different stuff. And I pretend to understand by saying stuff like, "I understand that more than 80 PSI will cause stress fractures in the . . . ." I am a complete fraud.

Achievement in makeup
Okay, I would guess most of the ladies would guess this one. And the winner is Mike. I just like to tease Mike. Probably because he seems to enjoy making fun of himself. But he recently was reviewed by a blog site and it turned out rather well for Mikey. He has a wonderful blog, and if you don't already visit him, don't. I just don't want to share. Actually, you are sharing with ~deb, his virtual significant other. And it makes me a tad jealous.

Of your name is not on this list, consider this: this is a list of award winners, and it sometimes is better to look upon them than to win one yourself. Besides, if you win such an award, you have to find a place for it and dust it regularly. However, I have been told that they make excellent doorstops.

Glimpse of a Marriage Saved

Recently, I was corresponding with someone. I have probably written more e-mail in the past two weeks that I have written in six months. I just don't write many e-mails. Now I get a lot of e-mail, and most of it is from very helpful young ladies, wanting to show me their ta-tas as they pay their way through college. Now I am all for supporting local college co-eds, but $12.95 per month to be a personal friend of some 19-year-old seems a bit excessive to help these gals. Business majors, I guess.

You see, I start talking about things of substance, and before the paragraph is over, the paragraph contains "barely legal gals" and their bare breasts. What, before the diversion, I was saying was that I have been corresponding with several "blog buddies." Okay, three. But several sounds so much less reclusive. I am a hermit. Really I am.

Anyway, I was talking with one about marriage, and I thought I would clip the majority of the quote for today's entry. This does three things out of the ordinary for me: (1) it recycles words I have already written, (2) it gives you more of a peak into my personal life, and (3) I use a curse word that I normally do not use.

Without further ado, here is today's installment.

You asked, more rhetorically than not, if I will ever understand this thing called life. Sometimes that is why I think we are here on earth – with the sole purpose of discovering life. Or is that soul purpose – because the more I live, the more I think about God. Not sure if that falls into your "religion" bucket. I think there is a difference – religion deals with not only the spirit, but the Church, the organization, the politics. And when you leave all of that other stuff out (even the music, some of which is enchanting), I think the rest is important, comforting, loving.

But I don't think you have to have a belief in God to have a good marriage. It helps me through some of the tough times, but more so the times when I have friends and family die around me. I have, unfortunately experienced many losses lately.

How did I figure out how to fix my marriage? What a difficult question. At first, I was not sure it could be saved. Hubbie and I had several weeks of arguments. Not regular arguments, but "knock down drag out" arguments. Violent, not-loving arguments. Not that we got physical, but we said such hateful things. Once afterwards, we were intimate, and when he fucked me, it was like he was taking out all of his frustrations. I finally got the term, "fuck the shit out of her." Goodness, I hurt for a while.

But then things subsided. We could have not hated for too much longer – it takes so much energy. We either were going to split (something I actually thought would have been easier) or work things out. And I had help – a therapist and drugs. And being medicated, though probably necessary for a while, was awful. It made me feel no pain for sure, but I had utter apathy for things.

Hubbie and I had a conversation, a series of them. He told me he sometimes hated me for what I had done, but he wanted to move forward. I said I wanted to commit the energy to working things out, and when things got hard, I continued to re-affirm my desire to have a better marriage.

And our marriage was in trouble way before I started fucking around. It was apathy – I was married to someone where we fucked once per week and the rest of the time we were like brother and sister. And that sucked. I mean, the romance was out of our marriage. And neither of us cared enough to get mad at it.

We sometimes get back to that apathy – for a week or two at a time. But one of us kicks the other in the butt, and we get back on track. Is this the best way to have a marriage? Is it worth it? I think it is. I mean, I think it is important to grow, and I am growing as a person. Love is an action verb, and sometimes it is tough to love my hubbie. It is not the romantic notion I grew up with, but I also believed in the tooth fairy when I was a little girl. Sometimes you have to change your point of reference, your view of the world.

I don't know if any of this makes any sense. Frankly, it doesn't have to. It seems to be working for me. And it may not work for you. To sum up all of this, I can think of some works from Shakespeare (Much Ado about Nothing, Act 5 Scene 2): "Serve God, love me and mend."

Am I happy? Most of the time. But the sad times, the dips, remind me that I am usually happy, of the peaks, so to speak. Ah, fulfillment? Am I fulfilled? I don't need a man to be fulfilled. Not sure a marriage, even a good one, can provide fulfillment. Now, I know my hubbie assists with some things that make me more content. And he helps me on the discernment process, even if he does not realize it. He can be a real a-hole, and I love him, in spite of himself. That helps me become a better person.

So a long winded answer to your primary question is that I seem to have stumbled (with the cheating) and then stumbled on a way to help me save my sick and fading marriage.

You know, I think I am going to post the core of this letter on my blog. It may be trite, it may be good advice. Regardless, it may be able to encourage another to work on things. Not every marriage is worth saving, I know that. But I believe, in my heart of hearts, that it is the work we do on ourselves and on assisting others, that really makes a difference in the world.

I started writing this letter in answer to your questions, and in the end, I found something I was looking for.

That's it, except for the little lesbian pleasantries, the nuzzles, the smut, the massaging of bodacious ta-tas. You see it was too long to include all of those tantalizing remarks in them. Okay, they were never in the note. But if you want to, you can re-read the note and add in the remarks. Makes it more fun.

Confessions Part Two

Last week, I made a confession – and that confession was that I was a bibliophile. VX, of course, wanted something more. Perhaps she wanted me to confess that I make cakes out of the box – just add a little pudding and they taste like they are from scratch. Or got my boobies licked by some hasher. Not sure.

So I looked back, but not too far back, to find some dirt on me. You see, if I went way back, I could reveal all kinds of things. But those events trickle out every once in a while. What did I do recently that was embarrassing? Last week I was looking at ~deb's site, I think it was last week, reading along and someone came up right as I scrolled to a picture of boobies. Some woman massaging her own breasts. Thanks, sweetie. Completely mortified. But that is not really a confession. More of an embarrassing moment. "Er, boss, I was looking for breast examination sites; looks like I got something totally different." At least that's what he would be putting in my employee file if it was my boss.

Crap. Do I really tell you some deep, dark secret?

Okay, here it is. I had a girl crush last month. Not one of those crushes where you lick boobies under a drunken stupor, either. That would be on some other woman's site. Again, I am not going to be listing any names.

And I know my loyal readership (Mike). Mike will assume that it is ~deb. Just because she is so hot, so nice, has wonderful lips, beautiful eyes, humor. Okay, hose this girl down. No, it is not ~deb.

This woman I have never met. And I feel bad about my little crush thing. I mean, she doesn't comment or read my stuff. But I read her blog. And occasionally comment on her blog. I mean, I am not planning on leaving hubbie for this virtual crush babe. And I don't masturbate to her picture while thinking of what I would like to do with her.

We started e-mailing a while back. Nothing hot and heavy. Just polite stuff. And I wanted to write erotic stories with her as the main character. She is my fantasy mistress. And, quite frankly, it is a tad embarrassing. Here I am counseling others to be less romantic, more into reality, and I am wondering what perfume she wears. Weird.

I would blame it on the drugs, but I don't do drugs. And I haven't even had any of my little psychotic helper drugs in quite a while. I was not sad or depressed or anything when I had my little girl crush. Just an overwhelming feeling of euphoria.

And that's how "falling in love is." Not that I was in love. But "falling in love" is smoke and mirrors. It is not real. If I were to get some really bad illness, my hubbie would be by my side, helping me through it (as long as he did not have to see too much blood). He is sort of a wuss when it comes to blood.

So here is my confession for VX. I guess VX and Mike are my audience today. And this was just prattle for what was in my brain. It is not like I tried to increase traffic, talking about "mutual masturbation", or using such phrases as "touching her breasts as she let out a soft coo", "kissing her softly, letting my tongue slowly explore her warm mouth." Oh, my now I need a shower.

~Deb's Dating Service

~Deb's Dating Service
I was reading ~deb the other day, and she is starting her own dating service. One of her friends, Tamar, needs sex bad. I mean, one of her friends needs to find someone. Well, needs is probably a little strong. She wants to find someone.

Funny how people find one another. There is a movie I have not seen in quite some time, When Harry Met Sally. Interspersed through the movie are couples (actors?) who talked about how they met. Most of the meetings seemed to be chance meetings. Romantic, wonderful … Hollywood. Okay, I am a mush.

How simply romantic it would be to meet someone by chance – "you know, I really don't meet people from the Internet, but I just had a feeling." I met my hubbie by chance. But I am not telling the story – and, no, I wasn't working at a strip club at the time. Nor was I a hooker – I was giving it away at the time.

Love and Marriage
You know why I think most people marry? To have someone else observe their own life, who has a stake in the matter. To be able to bitch and complain, pour champagne in a glass when things go well, lend a shoulder when things go poorly.

I am so happy I found hubbie when I did. I am not sure I would be any good in today's dating scene. But I read about Tamar, about others, and I think to myself, "I wish they could find someone."

You know, love is a madness. You simply fall for someone. But being in love, and being able to marry, those are two different things. To successfully marry, you have to be willing to sacrifice. You have to be willing to accept an "of the rack" hubbie when hungering for a custom-tailored one. And many of us girls don't want to sacrifice for who people are. We want to make them "better." Change their nature.

And I am not talking about turning the other cheek when hubbie is banging the neighbor. I am talking about letting him watch the football game, knowing that black tie evenings are a sacrifice he is willing to make, how cooking the meals doesn't diminish your importance. I have heard that "women often love women who are unworthy of them." It is a saying that has the ring of truth, but I don't believe it. I believe that, for the most part, women marry their equals. Men do the same. We might not see it as so, but our values and theirs are different, and frankly, it is only the married couple's opinion that matters. Well, there are some extreme cases, but we won't go there.

When I was a 23-year-old "old maid," all of my friends were trying to fix me up with people. My friends reminded me of lemmings jumping off the marriage cliff. You know, get the degree in May and get married to the college sweetheart in June. I remember going to so many weddings right after my degree. I thought they wanted me to marry because they wanted me to suffer the trials and tribulations along with them.

I chose to wait.

But now, I think they were just happy and wanted me to experience a similar happiness.

I have lots of virtual friends here, but three stand out as guys that are available and seem like they want to find their soul mates. Again, there are probably more, but at this instance, I can think of three.

1. Ddot. He was the first person I read and liked enough to link to. He lives in the DC area, which means he may live in Virginia or Maryland or the that little diamond we call the District of Columbia, wedged between the states. Funny thing is that Virginians and Marylanders don't like one another. I don't know if they can't stand each others smell or what, but that would be an issue that Ddot could not overcome. He is sexy, smart, shy and funny. And some would call him conceited. I think he is a very complicated man – his blog, which may be endangered due to his local IT department, is a mixture of humor, politics and race relations. With a side of Michael Jordon worship. And when you take a look at his blog, 96% of his readers are attractive women. Grant, Rell and Arson are the exceptions.

2. Joe. He does a weekly picture show on his blog. Not any HNT, but on Friday, he has goofy pictures and writes funny captions. More than once, I nearly wet myself when reading his blog. He is really funny, and from his writing, it sounds like he is a true romantic. Which can be dangerous at times, but he lives in New York City (and the cabbies are dangerous as well there). He may not be at a good "relationship place" right now. Hard to tell. But when you read his posts, he seems so sweet and sincere.

3. Mike. I hesitate to add Mike to the list, as he got married to ~deb, in a blog wedding. But since ~deb still is living with her M, I am not sure this counts in real life. Okay, the downside is that he lives in Wisconsin. I don't even know where that is – somewhere near Canada and no beaches, I think. Again, he is humorous, and is in touch with his feminine side. That's what attracted ~deb, I am sure.

Please note that humor is part of all three of these guys. And that, according to ~deb number two, is real important (see here for the blog entry).

Or you could get a dog. But you can't fuck a dog. And those who disagree, well, let's not go there. I am not copying ~deb's dating service, first because none of these guys is asking me (sorry in advance, sweeties). Second, because – well, crap, it looks like I am copying ~deb. But my point is more about finding someone and less about measurable outcomes. Not that I don't want these stud muffins to find their soul mate, but I am not hopeful. And I am sort of mad at Mike because (1) he married the ~deb babe (jealousy is a bitch), and (2) I was going to write about Subway today.

Squiggly Wiggly
Now I have two squiggly Deb's reading me every once in a while. We all know the ~deb from New York. Well, at least I am very familiar with her. She is very talented and I think she also has a good heart. It seems she does, at least. And then there is a new squiggly ~Deb, a Dr. Deb.

I wrote some dribble today. It started out in my brain as funny, but when I put fingertip to keyboard, I failed. Guess I will try again tomorrow. And it is too darned long.

True Confessions

My fingers are trembling as I begin this post. You see, I am preparing to bear my soul. My heart races; I brace myself. I wonder what others will think of me after I make this confession.

Oh, my.

You see, I have an addiction. You see, I am . . . oh, crap, I don't know if I can go through with this.

Deep breath.

You see, I am a bibliophile. I said it. I love books. Not just reading them, but owning them as well. My compulsion started in college. I had experimented with books recreationally – with my friends – but now I had to purchase books for class. And I also, as fortune would have it, I fell into the wrong crowd. I had friends who enjoyed going from bookstore to bookstore, binging on "Book and Paper" shows.

Pretty soon I was buying books instead of beer (guys will buy the beer). And I knew it was becoming a problem when I started purchasing books by category – not just poetry, but my own brand of eclectic poetry. For the bibliophile, books are like drugs or alcohol. I have a book of poems written by an English clockmaker – that seems to be a kind of micro-brew. I tasted his words, and while curling up with that early 19th century book, I know that few have tasted those words on one's lips in Georgia. It's not great poetry, but it reminds me of Robert Burns' "Ode to A Louse" (not the quality but the strangeness).

And when I felt dirty, I got into the heavy stuff – romance novels, the crack cocaine of the book world. You can start a romance novel on a Friday night, and by 10:30, you feel the effects – the warm feeling "down there," the emptiness one feels afterwards, and the shame of polishing off the paperback in an evening. Oh, the shame. Now that I have written that, perhaps romance novels are like junk food more than crack cocaine. Because of the guilt and emptiness. Still a vice.

Then there are certain classics – like Moliere. They are like the port wine of books. It is something I enjoy, but as I am reading it, I know there are subtleties that I miss. There is humor lost on a 21st century gal. Plus, like a good port, I can sip and put it down, not needing to finish the bottle.

When I started collecting the same book but different imprinting, judging the bindings, scouring for first editions, I knew I was hopelessly lost in my addiction. Hubbie and I are childless and we don't have cable, so when he is not pawing my privates, we read in bed. And when he is romantic, he reads my poetry to me. Goodness, he is my co-dependent spouse.

Dr. ~Deb, a new reader of mine, probably has some experience in addiction, but probably not this particular addiction. I know I have a problem, but I just don't want to stop. I like the feeling I get when lost in a book. Or just looking for books in an old bookstore.

I have a problem. I am a bibliophile. And I (sob) can't help myself. I am so ashamed. But the books feel so good.

Human Resources

Okay – apologies first. I am going to say some not so kind things about Human Resources, and I have a virtual friend who is part of this HR racket. Sorry in advance.

Okay, I will admit it. I hate human resources. I really do. And I want to tell you my experience with HR and why you should hate HR, too. Okay, hate is too strong of a word on Ash Wednesday. That's why you should be miffed with HR too.

Every once in a while, I need to interact with HR. Re-sign up for health insurance (yes, I suspect they really want to drop people, and that's why one has to re-sign up every year), change W-4 dependents, whatever.

First, if you have a question – who do you call? Well, we have a fairly extensive intranet, and so you can hop on it, and look for anyone by name. I know my HR person's name, and so I type it in and, I don't get any name or number. When you query me, "Leesa Lovelace" (not my real name, my porn name), you get my phone number. When you call our operator, you get my number but not my HR person's number. Nice.

So then I query the department. So I type in Human Resources, and I get this reply:

Benefits COBRA/Audit/Billing Chief Human Resource Officer Compensation Employee Assistance Program Employee Relations HR Management Systems HR Records Management International Services: Immigration & Visa International Services: Non-Resident Alien Occupational Health Services Organizational Effectiveness Payroll Records Management Recruitment Services

555-1000 555-1000 555-1000 555-1000 555-1000 555-1000 555-1000 555-1000 555-1000 555-1000 555-1000 555-1000 555-1000 555-1000 555-1000

All departments have the same number. Nice. Not a phone tree either. A real person answers every phone call, and then connects you to someone else.

Here is my experience thus far with calling HR. Remember, I know the name my HR person (some people don't) – and so when I call 555-1000, I ask for the person by name. And then I get disconnected. I call again. Busy. Call again several times, and finally get the HR main number to ring. And ring and ring and ring. No answer.

I call an hour later, and get the main number to answer. Nameless, faceless person – who never identifies herself. She transfers me again, and I get someone else. They tell me to call back to 555-1000.

And when I eventually get through, the person on the other end always has to look something up and call me back. And they never do.

Actually, there is someone from HR in our building, but since they are "Recruitment Services", they cannot help me. Ever. HR people where I work are very nice but not helpful. Which is probably predictable, because their workloads are light. Barriers that they put up make sure that very few requests for information, action, whatever ever get through.

Occasionally I have to complete paperwork, and I have learned that anything that goes through inter-office mail to HR is lost. Everything. The HR person in my office will not take anything from us that are not "Recruitment Services"-related. So I hand carry things to HR. Thanks, Human Resources.

Oh, well, I better get back to work. You see, I don't work in HR.