Leesa's Stories

Marlo Thomas Tweets?

2011-08-01T04:56:00.000-05:00

I was reading a blog the other day, and it said something having a conversation with Marlo Thomas, then comma, a best-selling erotic novel writer. It seemed that Marlo Thomas started writing erotic novels. So I clicked on the link, which brought me to her Twitter account. Apparently the person who wrote the words were a bit vague, and the comma separated two idea; it was not their attention to attribute the "best-selling erotic novel writer" description to Ms. Thomas. Anyway, I clicked on a link from her Twitter account, and it brought me to one of her videos.

I had not seen Ms. Thomas for years (really just remember her in Free to be You and Me), and although I was unable to identify her with how she looks (she looks really good, actually, for a 73-year-old; I would have guessed she was 50 by her appearance), her voice has not changed at all.

The video went to another Marlo Thomas video, and another one. And I loved her videos. They made me feel like I was 10 years-old again, listening to someone tell me how to live my life. I don't know exactly how to explain it, but it was comforting. I felt like I was listening to her words on a record player (not a turntable), sitting on my twin-sized bed, floral colorful printed bedspread, the whole little-girl enchilada. I like feeling like a 10-year-old every once in a while.

After a while, the cue must have run out of Marlo Thomas clips, and I was snapped into reality by some other person – perhaps Tory Johnson talking about career advice. And I was not ready to put on a pantsuit and act like a grownup.

Speaking of women with interesting names (Marlo), I have a confession to make: I get Alanis Morissette and Avril Lavigne mixed up in my head. Ironic is one of my favorite songs, even though it does not make sense. And I really though Avril sang Girlfriend.

Don't pretend, I think you know I'm damn precious,
And hell yeah I'm the mother fucking princess,
I can tell you like me too and you know I'm right.

Having Your Cake

2011-07-27T06:10:00.001-05:00

When I used to blog – and I was fairly good at it – I would write first thing in the morning, and then check on the blog a couple of times per day, harvesting the comments like plump, juicy red tomatoes in the afternoon sun. I would respond to the comments, being oh, so pleased with myself.

When I was a little girl, we had a garden in the backyard. In late July and August, I would be responsible for picking the tomatoes. I would travel down each row, looking for the bright red treasures, sometimes exposed for all to see and sometimes hidden under two well-placed leaves. That is really what I enjoyed about the summer; finding the gifts, either easily spotted or well-hidden. The comments I would pick were so similar. I knew I could count on Deb, on Grant, on Ian, on some others to write comments. And then there would be occasional readers, unique readers, just different readers commenting on my words.

Now it is different. I write in the morning, and I read a few blogs after I write. I do this perhaps three times per week, knowing that I need to read others' writing to feel more connected. Instead of taking several hours per day, paid for by my employer, I now spend about 30 minutes three days per week. I still get to do all of the things I normally do, and then three times per week, I get to write a bit.

I am having my cake and eating it too, I suppose. Comments and tomatoes. No mention of cake.

Ode to a Vibrator

2011-07-25T05:20:00.003-05:00

Deb wrote something on Friday about stifling. And, well, it inspired me to write a few verses of poetry. When I was in high school, we had to write a lot of poetry – and since I hated it, I rebelled by making fun of many of the teachers in the school. You see, my English teacher was the advisor for the school’s literary magazine, and I did not want any of my words going in that thing. So without any fanfare, here is an original poem by Leesa.

Ode to a Vibrator

Oh, my three plastic egg,
So discrete and cute,
With a remote control that’s easy to use,
This “friend” of mine is a bute.’

I got you as a gag gift,
Accepting it made me blush,
Who knew you would become a welcome friend,
This fact you have to hush.

I don’t need to shave my legs,
I don’t need to brush my hair,
I just need to ensure the batteries are fresh,
Before I place you . . . there.

You’re always at my bedside table,
I am never ever in need,
You never say things to pressure me,
Into doing the deed.

I don’t have to be polite,
I don’t have to laugh at your jokes,
I don’t have to make coy suggestions,
Before you pleasure me with your electronic strokes.

You are designed for going out,
You are designed for playing an erotic game.
I can’t imagine bringing you to a bar inside of me,
For I am much too tame.

Oh, my AA-powered friend,
I don’t have to lie,
If I want you three times per day,
My actions don’t have to be sly.

You expect nothing from me,
You silently sputter and hum along,
I don’t have to wear a push-up bra,
With a matching, uncomfortable thong.

So while you don’t take me to dinner,
Buy me roses or other mushy stuff
You bring me something (cough) few men have,
And trust me, that’s more than enough.

Curse of 27

2011-07-24T18:34:00.002-05:00

I saw an article today by E! Online, entitled "Did Amy Winehouse Suffer the Curse of the 27 Club?". I really wanted to blast the statistics, but the article itself claimed that no more people died at 27 than at any other age. That would have been my point. The article also said that numerologists dislike 27 because the digits add to nine.

Have you ever noticed that numerologists are all about simple math? I mean, they deal with additions and subtractions, and translating letters into numbers (Nero = 666).

Well, I looked at the people who died at 36, taking the numerologists's perspective, and here are some of the famous people who died at that age: Lord Byron, Bob Marley, Marilyn Monroe, And princess Diana. And the weirdest thing about that the entries is that princess Diana is listed as "Diana Spencer, much-photographed glamorous blonde and Elton John song topic (July 1, 1961 -- August 31, 1997)." I would think princess of England and heir to the throne at one time trumps glamorous blond.

Tomorrow I will post an original poem. Be gentle.

Addictions

2011-07-23T06:24:00.002-05:00

The other day, I was talking with a girlfriend who has been recently separated. Well, her hubbie lost his job shortly after they got married (he is a hunky construction worker, 'nuf said), and he just did not really look that hard for a job. She has a good job, and so he stayed home to play WoW.

I could never get into Wow. Well, I have never played, but I have a feeling there is a learning curve, and I don't do well without instant gratification. I mean, I am sweet and all, but I don't think I could invest a bunch of time so that I would do whatever it is you do in WoW. I am assuming it has something to do with killing dwarfs or zombies or whatever.

And it is not like I am strong and don't have an addictive personality. I have never tried drugs, partly because if I ever did, I would be turning tricks for dime bags. I don't know what that means exactly, but I have heard it somewhere. Yeah, I get around.

Our society likes addictions – we say that we are addicted to chocolate, cell phones, whatever. I sort of see it, but it is hard to wrap my brain around having someone playing WoW being in the same category of someone who loses their child because they spend all of their time and money on cocaine. It just seems different, you know?

I have been incredibly busy right now - so I have not written. Sorry; please forgive me. I will try to do better next week. Am I addicted to blogging? I don't think so.

Dating Milestones

2011-07-18T05:48:00.001-05:00

When I started dating again, I began talking to several people about new dating rules. A near universal first rule is have your first date in a public place, for instance. And most of my girlfriends who are single suggest you decide how many dates you will go on before you are willing to have sex with the guy. That seems calculating, but upon review, that seemed to make a lot of sense. After really good kissing, I don't think logically and I might do things I would not do with a clear head. Most of my girlfriends (and a gay male friend) seemed to sleep with people at the third date. In fact, the gay guy said that if there is no sex at date three, he is on to the next person, no matter how much he likes the guy.

With that in mind, I thought it would be fun to have a list of dating milestones – this is taken from my memory of magazine and news articles, none of which I want to find right now. These milestones are not mine – but I will comment on mine, I suppose, at times.

First Date. Goodnight Hug. I read somewhere that 44 percent of first dates end in a kiss. Here is my rule – I won't initiate a first date kiss, but I will kiss all first dates if they make the move. And yes, I have wet and parted my lips when I wanted a kiss, but I thought the guy would not end the date in a kiss. It just fascinates me that 56 percent of first dates don't end in a kiss – I don't think I would say 'yes' to a date if a kiss was out of the question on the date.

Second Date. Goodnight Kiss. Although I will kiss on the first date, I assume most kiss by the second date. If I had a short kiss on the first date, if I say 'yes' to a second, the second date has a bit of French kissing.

Third Date. Goodnight Fuck. Here is where things get weird – on a first date, less than half of people kiss, but the most common date where people have intercourse is the third date. This makes no sense to me. I don't have a third date rule that some do. When I was in college, I did not have a lot of third dates (I said 'no' a lot on a second date request if I did not think things would progress, mostly because it interfered with studying. I would say 'yes' to all first dates because when I was in eighth grade, we had a Sadie Hawkins dance and a boy said 'no' to me.)

Forth Date. Interesting Date. For me, if any of the first four dates are not really interesting, I am probably not going to say 'yes' to another dinner- and-a-movie type date.

Sixth Date. Leesa's Goodnight Fuck. If I say 'yes' to a sixth date, I think things are progressing nicely, and although my Church does not agree, we end up fucking. And if he does not call the next day, the relationship is over. Yeah, I am a bitch, but I want a thoughtful man.

I could go on-and-on, but if I do, Deb may complain or sue me for trademark infringement. I mean, I have not seen what date number the anal sex, three-way or roleplaying dates are.

Dating Exhaustion

2011-07-14T08:33:00.005-05:00

I try to write on this blog on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and as you may have noticed, I did not write Wednesday. And part of this is because I have been dating so much.

I went out Thursday, Saturday, Sunday and Tuesday - three different guys, and two of the guys were first dates. I won't mention the first dates right now - both were dinner dates, and both were "okay." The men were nice, they did not do anything to embarrass me or themselves, and they were perfect gentlemen. Perfect gentlemen are not normally interesting to write or read about.

Anyway, on Date #3 with one guy, we had a long talk at the end of the night. It must have been about 1AM when we started talking - we had been kissing before. I let him know I was new to dating, and I was not interested in anything too heavy. I also said that sex was off the table because I have not officially divorced. He texted me the following day, so I figure the talk did not scare him off.

We had un-official Date #4 on Tuesday night. Well, probably unofficial to him, but when I shave my legs to meet someone, the time goes in the date column. He brought chinese food for dinner and we watched a foreign film (containing subtitles). Well, there is some backstory. I had to drop off my car at the shop, and I sort of wanted my date to go with me because he is a guy. Anyway, after chatting with the mechanic, the mechanic asked if we were together. He looked a little shocked, but he said, "Yes" with no further explanation. That seemed a bit forward, but comforting at the same time.

Anyway, we had dinner and the movie on the couch. A little hand-holding because well, just because. He had his warm hand on my knee, and I thought he was wondering how far up my thigh I would allow his digits to travel. The movie was confusing, and we started necking on the couch. He had actually, before that night, said that he wanted to watch a movie in, without making out. I think he wanted to let me know he heard 'sex was off the table.'

After the movie, we were making out anyways. And about an hour later, he was talking off my panties, leaving my dress on but pleasing me, oh, so pleasing me, downstairs. I let him please me for longer than I want to care to admit, and afterwards, he shyly asked "if I came." Not sure why guys ask that, but I wanted to say, "Fuck, yes, I had multiple multiple orgasms. Strong orgasms. Surprising orgasms. Fucking awesome orgasms."

I think he wanted a number, but I just smiled and shook my head in affirmation. I was blissful, and that's what mattered most at the time, and that's all he needed to know. He looked like he needed more, and I vocalized, "Uh huh." It was almost a whisper, and here I was, want-to-be writer, and this is how I answer.

I did not plan for this to happen, but now, this serial dater, this guy I know who likes to keep things light. He texted me later that evening, then a couple of more times the following day.

So far with these dating experiments, all I have done is say, "yes" to dates and say 'no' to sex or even grabbing my ass on the first date. Guys, I think, like for their women to say 'no' sometimes. At least, they stick around until they here a 'yes.' I think that is strange, but I think that's the way it is.

Team USA

2011-07-11T04:42:00.002-05:00

I don't watch soccer games because, well, for two main reasons: (1) I don't understand soccer, and (2) there is a lot of running around with few goals scored. That being said, it is Woman's World Cup time, and the Americans are playing right now.

Sunday, Team USA played Brazil, one of the powerhouses of women's soccer. Already Germany surprisingly lost, perhaps the best women's soccer team in the world. Some would say that Brazil was number two. Now they are out. But instead of guessing what Team USA's chances are in the semi-finals, I want to chat for a bit about the game. Or at least two different perceptions.

Again, I did not watch the game, but I Googled the team names to see who was winning. I got to FIFA's site (they are the international organization in charge of world soccer – the second 'F' in their name is football, what the rest of the world calls soccer), and they had the statistics for the game. In the second minute, the Brazilian's scored a goal in its own side, giving the American's a 1-0 lead. Then the Brazilian's scored a penalty shot goal and another goal, giving them a 2-1 lead. At that point, I was out in the yard, pulling weeds and trimming bushes. To me, it appeared as if Team USA did not score anything. I came back inside, showered, and then surprisingly found out that Team USA scored a last minute goal to tie the game in overtime, and then won in a shootout. My perception, just looking at the statistics, well, I thought Team USA was extremely lucky and should not have advanced. But then I read an article that put things in a new perspective.

The Brazilian's first goal (a penalty shot). Well, they missed the penalty shot, but the refs thought the Americans were not set properly, and they gave the Brazil team another change, which they converted into a goal (apparently the call the refs made is rarely called). And their second goal was a goal made when a Brazilian player was offsides. I never understood offsides, and apparently, on this play, the refs didn't either. The second goal that was a bit suspect. So some think the game should have ended in the USA's 2-0 win against Team Brazil. There was also a red card and yellow card penalty against Team USA that seemed excessive.

So the statistics and what happened in the game had two different perspectives. Whatever the case, Team USA now plays France. I am not going to watch this game either, but I am wondering if I should just read an article instead of relying on statistics. Or you can find the highlights, hoping that the camera catches an image of a hottie soccer fan.

Book Reading

2011-07-08T08:01:00.000-05:00

I was reading Karen’s blog the other day, and she is on pace to read 75 books this year. That is freekin' amazing.

When I was newly married, we didn't have a television, so after work, there was just sex and reading. I mean, we went to parties, went out, whatever. But that left a lot of time for reading. I read and read and read. At the end of the year, I estimated that I read 60 books. I don't really know how many I read, but I know it was more than one/week. I was a reading machine, though they don't make reading machines yet.

During the next year, I went to a talk on organization. It was a guy who talked about how to do things more efficiently. Towards the end of the hour talk, he said something about reading books. He said he wanted to read 100 books in a year, but adjusted to 50 books/year soon-there-after. And he said he met that goal by listening to books on tape while in the car.

I had two initial thoughts:

1. Are you freakin' kidding me? Listening to books counts? Does watching movies based on books count as well? Unbelievable.

2. Someone who works on organizing should have known that his original goal was way off. And we are listening to this guy.

It is summer reading season. Grab a book and a blanket and go outside and read! It will save baby ducks.

Tweet This

2011-07-06T06:17:00.000-05:00

I have not added a tweet since February 2010 - that is more than a year. And when I started blogging again, I did not really look at the design of my site. I did that so long ago, I suppose. I just started writing.

Today, for the first time, I looked at my site. I have been getting home really late at night, and so when I came to work today, I was so tired that I am just goofing off at the computer. It was the first time I have looked at twitter (lined on the right hand side of my blog), and I notice that it said I was comparable to three twitter profiles:

1. A keyboard player that plays songs for 13-year-old boys.
2. Some chick who is into Beetlejuice, tattoos and piercings.
3. Some geek who is into Apple.

Well, I just refreshed the page, and apparently Melissa Gilbert is like me now. Perhaps that is because Melissa Gilbert is responsible for 10% of all twitter traffic.

I don't think I have the energy to tweet 120 characters at a time.

Independence Day

2011-07-04T06:49:00.002-05:00

Like so many others, I am taking the day off.

One pet-peeve I have is that people call Independence Day by another name, "the 4th of July." I mean, do we call Christmas, "the 25th of December"? I don't know why we call Independence Day by the other name - is it that Americans don't remember when we celebrate our independence from the repressive King George III. I saw pictures of him in Schoolhouse Rock, and I can tell you, we are better off without that weak-chinned man.

Happy Independence Day!

The Debt Ceiling

2011-07-01T08:04:00.003-05:00

I have two guilty obsessions: (1) The Daily Show with John Stewert, and (2) The Colbert Report.

This clip cracked me up, but unfortunately, there is an air of truth in it. If you can't tell, I am taking the day off. Actually, I will not be around next week, and I wanted to write some stuff so that you won't know I am actually playing next week.

Kissing an Octopus

2011-06-29T06:24:00.000-05:00

I went out on a date last weekend. The date went well, and at the end of the date, I found myself at his place. We were just going to drop off the doggie bag at his refrigerator, and then hit a bar for a nightcap. Before any of you say, “He just wanted to get you into bed; that’s the dropping-something-by-the-house move”, yeah, I knew that. We had a drink at his place (an Australia Shiraz), and we continued our conversation out on his deck. He is cute, but a little timid.

I told him I was tired, and needed to get back home, and we kissed by my car in his driveway. I could tell he wanted to kiss me, and I figure one kiss and back home. Well, what I did not count on was that he was a really good kisser. After about a minute kissing, his hands started roving. And like most guys, he went straight for my ass. I blocked his move with my hand, grunted “n’t, nah” into our continued kissing, as we continued. After another minute, I suggested that we sit down for a minute.

The next hour, we were on the couch, kissing. Every ten minutes or so, he would reach his hand towards my ass and breasts, and I always countered. When I was a twenty-something co-ed, I hated guys who were all hands. This, however, was much more enjoyable. He knew his boundaries and tested them, normally after a barrage of wonderful kisses. I would make some comparison to hockey and red lines and icing, but I really don’t know enough about hockey to make the analogy work.

The point is that dating, even dating people who want things other than me, can be fun anyway. I mean, part of me wanted to do more than kiss, but the kissing was . . . awesome. Okay, to read the previous sentence correctly, you need to sing the word ‘awesome.’ And I don’t want the kissing to end. Sometimes when things progress, awesome kissing stops. And the roving hands was sort of hot, too. I mean, it was hot because all it took was some light pressure or a no-no groan, and he played nice. Now, I don’t know when he will call next (during the date, I told him I was really busy today), but he will call. I just have to figure out how to interact with him that does not lead to me losing my panties on a second date.

Versatile Blogger Award

2011-06-27T05:51:00.002-05:00

I’ve been nominated by the talented and music-loving Xmichra with the “Versatile Blogger Award” (pictured above)

This award is a way to give some virtual “shout-outs” to other bloggers you follow and whom others might not yet have discovered. People on my recently resurrected blog probably know Xmichra – she’s Canadian, so she misspells words like ‘color’ and ‘honor.’ And she knows more about music than I ever did.

The rules:

1) Publicly thank the award giver and link to them in your post.
2) Tell your readers 7 things about yourself that you might not have already.
3) Present this award to other bloggers whose work you enjoy and
4) Contact the honorees

On to the Nitty-Gritty:

1 – I love really good seafood, but I also eat at Red Lobster. I really like their rolls, but I hate their broccoli. Their broccoli is disgusting most of the time, and there is nothing else green on the menu. I don’t really know why I eat there, but I do, and I don’t tell others about it.

2 – I swore I would never dye my hair, and now, I dye my hair. I don’t know if I would dye it if I were in a happy marriage. It shocks me that I dye my hair; completely against all I believe in.

3 – I am not on Facebook. And until recently, I was not really on any site. Life is better, I think, when we avoid these sites (even blogging sites). Just my opinion.

4 – I didn’t know how to drive until I was 18 years old. I got a learner’s permit at 14, but I never drove. One week before entering college, I purchased a crappy car and got my driver’s license. I failed the driving test the first time I took it and passed the second time (my total amount of time behind the wheel by then was less than two hours. When I went to school, I drove 150 miles. I spent more time in the car driving than my whole life. When I drive now, I assume there is at least one similar driver on the street like I was at 18. Scares the hell out of me.

5 – When I was a sophomore in college, I saw one of my former professors in a bar and he hit on me.

6 – My first kiss with tongue was with my cousin. I did not French kiss anyone else for 3 years afterwards because it was so gross. I have a feeling I really missed out for those three years.

7 – I don’t watch much television, but when I do happen to like a show, it gets canceled soon-there-after. The latest show: The Unusuals.

And the Pay it Forward goes to:

And I still think so - He is a real writer, I am just a pale imitation. Sometimes I am not sure what he is writing about, but I love the meter.

Peace of My Mind - A few years ago, I would tease Leesa, since we share a name. She lives in a house where bears visit, and that is not just symbolism.

The Muse Wakes - She is a bit like me. She stopped writing for some time, then stated again.

Discombobulating Grant - Another writer. He knows more about the craft than me, but he hides it well by posting pics of young Asian women.

Smiling Through It All - I have read Karen for a while. She has a razor sharp wit, and I enjoy her posts.

Two of the five people Xmichra picked would have been people I would originally have had on my list.

TMI

2011-06-24T05:38:00.000-05:00

Too much information.

Okay, I was involved in two conversations recently. During the conversations, all I could think is, “you are just giving me too much information.” I will share the information to illustrate this point (and it doesn’t count for me – this information is not mine).

Plane Trip
I was recently traveling, and I sat next to a kind-looking woman.

First, I would like to tell you how I look for a seat (I fly Southwest Airlines, where there is no assigned seating). I actually like no assigned seating. The first thing I do is try to get a number that is in the high A’s or low B’s. Southwest, when you check in online or in person, assigns you a sequential number. You can pay $10 to get in the first 15, but I caution against it. Get the high As or low Bs. I like at least 1/3 to 1/2 of the plane full, so I get to pick who I am sitting next to. With assigned seating or low numbers, you don’t get to pick. And I pick a skinny person who is reading, if at all possible. That way, I get to use all of my seat and elbow space and I don’t have to hold up a conversation. Male or female, it does not matter to me at all. I am all about elbow room.

Anyway, kind-looking woman, after the plane takes off, starts talking with me. She wanted to talk about her kids. Both are early 20s and both work in the same Hooters. She shows me a picture of her daughter, and says, “She is so smart, and she said she would only work there for three months. She has been a waitress at Hooters for two years now.” Then she tells me about her looser boyfriends. Her name for one was “looser.” That’s what she called him. When I was dating, my parents were really nice to my loser boyfriends, because they knew I would continue to date looser boyfriends. Their disapproval was part of the attraction, I found out later. The same parents who were all about delayed satisfaction (eat your food before playing in the McDonald’s playground, for instance), wanted me not to date losers. I figure there must have been something good about them that was not good for me but satisfying.

If I had a daughter who worked at Hooters, I don’t think I would be bragging about it to strangers.

Transgendered Children
I was on a first date with a gentleman who had four children (two from his first wife, two from his second). Okay, I knew he was divorced before, but I didn’t know twice before the date. Dating at my age and most of the men have been married before.

Anyway, he tells me about one of his sons. I first thought the son was male, but it happens that his son is a 19-year-old transgendered female. Now, I don’t know too much about the TG world, but I did find out a lot on my first date with him. Well, apparently her measurements are similar to mine (I did not tell my date that).

During the date, he answer and talks on his cell phone, talking to the TG son, and apparently my date was dissuading the 19-year-old son from going swimming in a public pool. Apparently he wears men’s swim trunks – so basically it is a TG female swimming topless.

I have never really thought about TG issues, but I am not sure I would have brought up the issue on a first date. My head was spinning all evening, and I was a bit distracted. At the end of the evening, I knew little about my date and a lot more about his TG son. I don’t know if I like the guy, but I declined a second date because I figure it was easier to decline now than to figure out the whole TG issue at a later date.

I just think we share way too much information way too soon. And I am not sure why.

Tapped

2011-06-23T06:15:00.003-05:00

I was supposed to put something out yesterday, and I didn't. I am tapped out.

I have written a few pages this morning, but they are for a play, not for the blog. It is a children's play - part of something I am doing for some volunteer work. It does not really matter what it is, but I look at the computer screen and I am tapped out of ideas.

I mean, I could talk about the US being in the finals of the Gold Cup again - but how many people watch soccer between World Cups? Okay, in many other countries, people care about soccer every year.

I guess I am focussed on other things right now. Perhaps I should just finish up my non-blog writing. And then clean my kitchen.

Manners

2011-06-20T06:31:00.000-05:00

Alamo Drafthouse
A woman was thrown out of an Alamo Drafthouse theater for texting, and she calls up to complain. Obviously, the message she left on the theater’s voice mail made its way to a commercial for the theater to use to inform others that texting won’t be tolerated. I know, she starts out by saying she used the cell phone as a flashlight, but then she talks about texting. She probably used it to find her seat and then started texting.

Cell Phone on NY Train
Then someone catches a woman traveling on New York's Metro North train line telling train employees that she is too "well-educated" to be told to quiet down and not use profanity in her cell-phone conversation. Part of the conversation:

"Do you know what schools I've been to? How well-educated I am?"

"I'm sorry do you think I'm a little hoodlum?"

What do these two examples have in common? Well, I would say that there are two examples of grown-ups (why do they both have to be women?) who are not particularly well-mannered.

When I was growing up in the south, we learned a lot about manners. Some of the things were a bit silly – to pause before entering a building when traveling with a boy/man to give him the opportunity to open the door for you. Elbows not on the table. Placement of spoons and forks and the like. Manners seemed to be imposed by grown-ups in order to remind us that they had control over us. Again, that is a 12-year-olds view of the world.

But then it struck me. Well, actually, it struck me while reading a book by Miss Manners (Judith Martin). In the book, she said that manners have been established in order to make people feel comfortable. I paused before entering a house so that if the man/boy was so inclined, they could hold the door for me. The placement of spoons and forks – the hostess serves food and equips guests with proper utensils to eat the food. Table setting placement indicates which utensils to be used for which food. That way, you can be sure to have the salad fork for use with the leafy veggies and the desert fork for the delicious pie.

For the above examples, I have ridden on commuter trains, and most passengers chose to entertain themselves in ways that do not impact fellow passengers. Most of these rides are an hour or so, and people generally read, work on laptops, sleep and text. None of these activities are particularly intrusive. Please remember that a train is for transportation, and most trains I have been on are a bit loud/bright so that keyboard sounds/screen light is not intrusive.

As for movie-goers, people are at the movie to watch the movie. Clicking on cell phones, bright lights and the like are intrusive to the movie-going experience. The texter does say that movie-goers in other theaters don’t care about texting. Some do, and manners are set to ensure that people are comfortable with social interactions.

New technology has us thinking of what should be socially acceptable. Although not universally accepted, it seems to me that the two people mentioned above seemed to be rude. We are not trying to penalize people and extinguish their fun. We have to acknowledge a few things that seemed to be lost to my generation: (1) we have obligations to others, (2) just because something is legal does not mean that it is necessarily condoned in polite society, and (3) we should strike a balance between individuality and conformity – and conform when it is polite to others.

Pink Slime

2011-06-15T06:32:00.002-05:00

I don't know about you, but I have a few people who like to be "helpful" each week, and send me stuff to enrich my life. I get emails from people sending me phishing notices, virus notices, and even sometimes copies of police reports. Yeah, someone sent me an email alert from the local sheriff’s office - like I am not already scared of the world.

Well, someone sent me something the other day that was dealing with pink slime. I had never heard of it, but apparently a cable show (Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution) covered it – and perhaps it started the “helpful” emails. Below is a clip – please don’t watch this if you are eating lunch.

I don’t eat hot dogs because of fillers, I don’t eat hamburgers because I just don’t like them, but I will occasionally eat other things with ground beef. And the email – and the clip – really turned my stomach. Well, I am not sure if I want to change how I am eating, though I don’t think I want to eat ground beef anymore. It is not that all ground beef has pink slime in it, but 70% of it does. And how can you tell. I just wish the USDA would make places just tell us if the meat contains pink slime. I guess since the USDA seems to have a tight relationship with big food, sometimes USDA doesn’t act in the best interest of its citizenry. If you are a US Citizen, you can sign a petition here.

I don’t purchase ground beef to cook with at home. I normally use ground turkey, and when that is unavailable (which is rare), then ground chicken. And now I am wondering if there is pink slime associated with turkey. If anyone knows, an answer would be appreciated.

What really worries me that pink slime is just the tip of the iceberg. Am I eating better food than my grandparents? I somehow don’t think I am.

Reading Bad Books

2011-06-13T06:05:00.001-05:00

When I was in college, I picked up a book from the bargin bin. I remember the book's title well: Perfect Order. The book, written by Kate Coscarelli, was hard cover, the dusk jacket long lost, but the book was in good shape, except for a fat black felt tip pen mark along the book's bottom edge - the remnant mark.

I really don't remember too much about the plot line, but I remember it was the first novel I read and thought, "I can write better than this." Stephen King calls this "popping your literary cherry." It just occurred to me that someone may place this book on their favorites list - sorry if that is the case. The words used were predicable, the phrases over-used, and the characters were flat. There was some sex in the book - not Judy Collins sexual frequency, but more than I am comfortable with. I have nothing against sex - just that it should help move the story along, and these labored passages hindered the flow of the story. And some of the phrases did not make much sense.

Writers need to read bad books. It teaches you what not to do - what seems ineffective, trite, etc. And it also helps motivate you. Someone got a book published, and they wrote a real stinker. To be fair, I googled the book I mentioned, and the reviews are generally mediocre (scoring three of five stars).

Speaking of bad books, I just purchased a volume of poetry called Touch Me by Suzanne Somers.

I have not started reading it, but I really enjoyed Kristen Wiig reciting it recently. It is so bad it is good. I don't know if this makes me a bad person, but at this point, I figure at least I have not done anything terribly wrong with a twitter account.

Celtic Knot and Xmichra took up my challenge of writing Commencement Addresses. I was pleasantly surprised that someone attempted it, two someones. Please read their words - both really came up with something very fresh.

Meme: Commencement Address

2011-06-10T06:18:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, I discussed giving myself a challenge of writing a Commencement Address. I don’t really have many people who read my blog, but this meme is more for myself than for others. It is just a writing exercise I suppose, inspired by all of the graduation news I have seen recently.

Here is the body of what I might say at graduation (below). If you do this exercise, let me know, and I will read yours as well.

When I was younger, I thought life was all about balance. In actuality, a balanced life is a life that does not challenge you. Sometimes you need to focus all of your energy into one area of your life. I mean, we don’t bat an eye when a new mother and father focus all of their energy on that bundle of joy; we recognize the importance of being unbalanced at times. I was unbalanced in college as well – studied continuously for a few weeks around finals. Spent another week going out every night (it is harder than it sounds).

Read to enhance your life, not to escape from it.

Have sex (religious folks can insert “in a marriage/monogamous relationship”) to express love, to wash away a crappy day, because your lover looks happy, sad or indifferent. Have sex to say “there is nothing this good on television.” Have sex more than you would admit to your friends because it helps us connect with the ones we most love.

Skinny dip in a public pool at least once. You will be able to draw upon that experience later in life and remember it fondly. And if you get caught, the stories might even be better.

Don’t trade sex for food. Unless the food is really good. Or you think the sex will be really good.

Eat your veggies and learn to cook. Learn to dress up things that are good for you with spice. And add spice to all aspects of your life. It makes the bland palatable, and it makes the wonderful extraordinary.

Say “yes” to a date when you want to say “no.” Either you will be pleasantly surprised, or you will have funny stories to tell others.

Forgive your family even if you don’t think they deserve forgiveness. The relationship with them is worth more than any lesson you can teach them. And swallowing pride is less painful than not sharing their lives when you get older.

Change the batteries in your smoke detector every six months.

Drink red wine.

Laugh at children’s jokes, even if you don’t get them. Or even if the joke is about farts or poo. Seeing them join in the laughter is worth every bit of the acting you may have to endure.

Technology, once Fix-a-Flat was developed, has not improved our lives at all.

Don’t be embarrassed to purchase condoms. If you are single, it means you are taking responsibility for your sexual health. If you are a woman, just think of it is making a statement about not relying on a man to protect you in all aspects of your life. But never make love with a man who you don’t think will protect you.

Buy memorable gifts for your nieces and nephews.

Alcohol won’t solve your problems, but it does make those around you seem more interesting.

You will find yourself trying on a dress you can’t afford that looks awesome on you. Buy the dress anyway.

I guess I could sum up these thoughts with the following. We are only on this earth for a short time - make the most of it. Don't let fear keep you from being the person you are called to be. And share your talents with the world; your gifts were never yours to keep anyway.

Giving Advice:A Challenge to Myself

2011-06-09T04:55:00.002-05:00

I was shopping in a Target recently, and I heard one older mother criticize what I presume to be her son-in-law about an issue concerning a newborn child (grandchild to the mother). The son-in-law did not follow the advice, but she gave the advice in such a condescending, uncaring way that I was not all that surprised, even though the advice concerned the safety of the newborn.

A week or two ago, I saw a couple of YouTube graduation speeches - Tom Hanks and Amy Poehler. By the way, although I am still somewhat impressed with Ivy School graduates, I love the quote in Good Will Hunting: "See, the sad thing about a guy like you is in 50 years you're gonna staht doin some thinkin on your own and you're gonna come up with the fact that there are two certaintees in life. One, don't do that. And Two, you dropped a hundred and fifty grand on a fuckin education you coulda got for a dollah fifty in late chahges at the public library." I clipped the quote from IMDB - I don't speak or spell Bostonian.

Anyway, the Target incident and the recent commencement speeches gave me an idea for a challenge, well, two challenges.

The first one is a personal challenge - if I give advice, do it in such a way that I know that the advice is given out of love. That it is compassionate. That way, I know my true intent. If I am just being a "gotcha smart ass", it does not help the other person, and it pollutes my soul at the same time.

The second challenge is to me - and if you want to accept the challenge as well - for you, too. Write a commencement speech, and publish it on your blog. You can think about your audience (recommended) or not. But what would you say? What have you learned over your lifetime that you would want to tell a bunch of college graduates making their way into the world? And after you have read your words, are you still following them? I may try and bang something out by Friday. I actually hope that this comes easily . . . we should have these life lessons in an easy-to-retrieve place in our brains.

Oh, and if you do this, please point to these rules - or copy them in your post. Since this blog is all-but-dead, I figure all of my 5 readers would be better at starting the meme than me. I am not called to create memes.

Sweet Dreams

2011-06-08T06:07:00.000-05:00

The other day, Zephyr made a comment concerning "I wish I had a sex dream."

While I can't help out Zephyr specifically, I wanted to tell you a little secret about unlocking sexy dreams. It works for me, and it may work for you. Now I have not done this in a while, but it works every time I have tried it.

I start by drawing a very hot bath before bedtime. I imagine it does not matter what kind of bath salts (which I prefer) or bubble bath you use. The trick is to stay in the bath a long time. I bring a book into the bath; any book will do. The trick is to get really sleepy because of the hot water and the reading.

Afterwards, I towel dry, but instead of getting into my comfy PJs, I slip into bed. I normally don't sleep au naturel. And I drift into a deep sleep.

During the night, I always seem to have erotic dreams. In the winter, I did this nighttime ritual three nights in a row, and it worked each time. If you normally sleep in the nude, my guess is that this will not work for you. Who knows, perhaps it just works for me. But it works like a charm, and it can be wonderful.

Who needs a boyfriend when you have a hot bath?

Strange YouTube profile

2011-06-07T12:56:00.003-05:00

I sometimes watch YouTube - not for the cats, the drunk people falling off tables or the vloggers. I find old songs, and sometimes when the Daily Show makes fun of a video, I look for it.

Well, the other day, I noticed someone who signed my profile page. She sent a sweet note, but the note below was a bit upsetting. It said, "Great Channel lol". Okay, upsetting is not really the word. I was a little pissed. I don't really spend any time on my channel because I don't make videos. So I went to his/her site, just to see what a good channel looked like.

Well, his/her channel is a bunch of new age stuff. Most of the stuff on the site refers to J. Krishnamurti. Well, I had no idea who Krishnamurti was, so I looked for his site, or at least some article discussing the philosopher. After reading the stuff, I was still confused on what this guy believed. Here is a sample:

Freedom is not a reaction; freedom is not choice. It is man’s pretence that because he has choice he is free. Freedom is pure observation without direction, without fear of punishment and reward.

That is not the surprising part. The surprising part is that the background image is a repeating image of a woman (I have included a copy to the right of these words).

Someone who is all about interspection has the background of a hottie, and talks smack on other's pages. Just strange.

Speaking of strange, I got this sweet message from Katie in response to some constructive criticism:

Hey! I don't want you to think I took that song down because I was upset about what you said. I am doing a challenge with some friends where we have to write a song every week. And I haven't written a song since October - ie I cannot just summon up inspiration so I am really struggling. I agree with just about everything you said. (And so you know, this week's song is even worse.) But I will keep working at it - I promise. (:

Xmichra likes accustic versions of songs, and Katie just uses a guitar to accompany her voice. She also writes her own music. You ought to check her out. She is really good.

The Fine Print

2011-06-06T06:51:00.000-05:00

I sometimes purchase tickets from Fandango, and when I was waiting in line recently, I read the fine print.

The first part of the fine print states, “Your purchase guarantees your admission.” Then it talks about getting their 30 minutes early for the best seats, etc. At the end of the fine print, it concludes with, “The theater management reserves the right to refuse admission on this ticket by refunding the purchase price.”

So my question is, how does your purchase guarantee admission when the theater management can refuse admission? That does not sound like a guarantee to me.

I don’t often read fine print. When I have to install updates to software, I don’t read the fine print. A bunch of legal stuff pops up, and I think it sort of says if the software screws up your computer, the software company cannot be held responsible. I click okay that I have read and agree with the fine print, but if I even really read the fine print, I would not install any software or updates.

I remember so long ago when I got my wisdom teeth out. I was in college, and I had to sign a piece of paper before they pulled my teeth out. The paper was filled with “fine print”, but with medical stuff, they don’t call it fine print. Anyway, it said something about the possibility of them breaking my jaw. Now, I didn’t want my teeth pulled because of that, even though they stated crowding my other teeth. I really don’t know what people did before dentists. Perhaps they just had overcrowded teeth.

I have read a lot of fine print, but the older I get, the more I wonder why I read it. I don’t want to know that there are chances a dentist can break a jaw. Imagine having surgery? What does that consent-to-treat paper look like? I am sure I don’t want to know.

I mean, coffee cups have fine print that the contents may be hot. Motorboats say that you should not operate them when you are drunk. Fine print is not for information dissemination; it is to protect the company’s legal arse.

I still can’t get over Fandango. When is a guarantee not a guarantee? Apparently when you purchase a ticket.

Comparing Price Tags

2011-06-04T14:36:00.004-05:00

Xmichra does a Musical Revolution each Friday, where she shares music she has been listening to.

I want to do a comparison of the song Price Tag. Well, Jessie J originally released the video, but then some 12-year-old covered the song. Maddi Jane has a powerful voice for a little girl. The difference in thesong, as far as I can tell, is that she says "Dang" instead of "Damn."

I have started watching The Voice. The first two shows were the best - just dealt with the voice of the participant. Now they work on presentation, etc. For the two videos, obviously Jessie J has a more polished voice, and she sexes up the song. I just can't get over Maddi Jane's cover, though. I actually like the song better. It is less cynical, I suppose. More pure. But I just love the strong, not polished voice.

Learning while Driving – Not Procrastinating

2011-06-03T05:40:00.000-05:00

I have a secret: I listen to The Modern Scholar audiobooks. You can check them out from many local libraries. Most of their subjects are on CD media (older selections may be cassette tape-based; I kid you not) now, so if you have a CD player in your car, you can learn while you drive. That’s what I have been doing, and it is a bit relaxing. These audio books are really just recorded lectures, more or less. And it is a way to learn something you may not normally learn in the course of your day.

One of the books (lectures?) I heard recently was called A History of Ancient Sparta. I thought the ancient Spartans were interesting. I mean, in school, they said that the men would go and fight the wars, and the women stayed home, raising kids and making all governing decisions. Sounds good to me. Well, this lecture series really smashes my 7th grade image of this culture.

I learned lots about the culture – I still have a lecture to go, which translates to three trips to the grocery, and a longer trip up the interstate, I suppose.

One of the things I was thinking about today dealt with how its citizens worked out. The Spartans were very opposed to being fat – its citizens worked out year-round, the men basically needing to be fit to fight. There is some evidence that some workouts were nude. Adolescent girls worked out nude, and they were encouraged to make fun of overweight adolescent boys. It seems to have motivated the boys to get fitter, the whole point of the public jibes.

In middle school, I enjoyed physical education in school, but I was quick to avoid any after-school sports. I did not want the jock designation – hey, I was a kid, and that seemed important at the time. Anyway, if I lived in ancient Sparta, it would have been fun to work out and poke fun at the boys.

More than anything, it reminds me even in ancient times (about 500 BCE), the Spartans had people who procrastinated. I really think this “putting things off” really limits our happiness. Or our productivity. Or both.

Someone I used to read (Carrie Ryan, a NY Times bestselling author, even uses a derivation of the word ‘procrastination’ in the title of her blog.

I am not sure I will start writing a blog again, but I am starting to write.

A Beautiful . . . Toilet

2011-06-01T06:03:00.000-05:00

I saw an ad for a Kohler toilet that was so far from my reality that I was fascinated by it.

It about $6,300, it does a lot more than transport waste to the local sewer system. Normally I don’t suggest looking at a video when we can describe things with words, but if you want to be in awe, look at the video before reading further. Really.

The first think one notices is the design of the toilet. We are talking about a piece of plumbing that, at first, looks like a piece of modern art. Some sort of elegant three dimensional trapezoid. Press a button on the remote control, and the toilet comes to life. What originally worries me is that there is a remote control. If you misplace the television remote, and you have to use buttons on the television that’s not as convenient. If you misplace the toilet remote, you have to look for the darned thing, legs crossed. [Actually, there are auxiliary controls for the “basic functionality” of the unit.]

There is an advanced bidet that has pulsation, oscillation and wave patterns. If you can adjust the angle, this would seem like a water-waster (think about it). There is an integrated air dryer (think of what you would dry after the bidet (really). The seat is heated, and you even have warm air that can be a foot warmer.

For nightly trips to the most expensive appliance you may have in your house, there are illuminated panels to guide your way. Of course, you can also play music that could help guide you as well. And, yes, there is a connection for your MP3 player. I could find no information if Brad Paisley’s Ode de Toilet is included in the sound system.

Speaking of toilet preferences, there are “user presets” so that each person can customize their unique toileting experience. Bidet on or off (and type of stream preferred); warming tushie/tootsie or not. Music preferences. Whatever.

Okay, I am not ready for this toilet. When I can’t figure out how to use a toilet, I am below the ignorant zone. And I can’t let a toilet do that to me.

Dream within a Dream

2011-05-31T06:58:00.002-05:00

I had the weirdest dream last night, and well, since it was extremely weird and disturbing, I can’t really tell my girlfriends about the dream.

Okay, this was the dream, and it is a bit confusing because I dreamt that I woke up (it reminds me of stories within stories, like some old Indian fables):

I woke up, then made my way into my bathroom. I looked at myself in the mirror – tousled hair, sans makeup, sleepy eyes. I looked lovely. I smiled, improving the image significantly, and made my way to the toilet.

I sat myself down, sleepily staring straight, and I began to pee. And it burned, like there was some sort of microbial battle occurring within my ureter. Or is it urethra? Darned high school biology. I think urethra is the one in this case – both are kidney tubes, so to speak. Anyway, first thought is STI, and in the dream, in my mind, I recall the last sexual encounter I had.

And the encounter, in my sleeping mind’s eye, was part of the dream as well. I remember the encounter well, me wanting him so bad and in such an anti-Leesa way that I did not want him to use a condom. Completely out-of-character, but that’s probably why I was dreaming the experience.

Then I woke up (in real life, not in the dream). The first thing I did was check the sheets, knowing that dreaming of peeing may have had some unintended consequences. My 600-count sheets were bone dry (pun intended), and I relaxed.

Then I went to the bathroom, looking at myself in the mirror. I smiled and made my way to the toilet and was almost afraid to pee. No burning – but no sex either. Just a real surreal morning. After getting back to the bedroom, the morning sun dancing in the clouds looked more like a sunset than a sunrise, and momentarily, I thought perhaps I slept through the day.

I spent the next hour searching through the Internet, wondering about how I should interpret this dream. Some things are better left alone, I suppose.

It should not surprise me that so many authors make videos. Meg Cabot was the latest I found. I have three books in my mind right now, and I am working on them. Next step is getting them down on paper. One will take me so much time to write (non-fiction), one is half-of-a-story, and one may write itself if I have the right mixture of time, rest, wine, and inspiration.

Fifth Business

2011-05-29T20:16:00.003-05:00

The first real post I wrote in three years concerned, of all things, opera. Of all of the subjects, I have thought about opera twice in the last 20 years of my life. Then all of a sudden, I am reading a book by Robertson Davies. Well, to be quite honest, it is the reason non-intellectuals like me know his name. It was one of the most celebrated novels of the early 70s. Yeah, before Harry Potter there was s All the President's Men and Love Story.

Anyway, the novel centers about Dunstan Ramsey, a retiring history at an exclusive Canadian school after 45 years. The present headmaster published a tribute to the teacher, and this novel is the teacher’s conversation with the headmaster to set the record straight writing what amounts to a defense of his life.

It is actually late in the novel when the character, Lisle explains to Dunstan who he really is, namely fifth business.

"Who are you? Where do you fit into poetry and myth? Do you know who I think you are, Ramsay? I think you are Fifth Business. Here are Mr. Davies wonderful words:

"You don't know what that is? Well, in opera in a permanent company of the kind we keep up in Europe you must have a prima donna --always a soprano, always the heroine, often a fool; and a tenor who always plays the lover to her; and then you must have a contralto, who is a rival to the soprano, or a sorceress or something; and a basso, who is the villain or the rival or whatever threatens the tenor.

"So far, so good. But you cannot make a plot work without another man, and he is usually a baritone, and he is called in the profession Fifth Business, because he is the odd man out, the person who has no opposite of the other sex. And you must have Fifth Business because he is the one who knows the secret of the hero's birth, or comes to the assistance of the heroine when she thinks all is lost, or keeps the hermitess in her cell, or may even be the cause of somebody's death if that is part of the plot. The prima donna and the tenor, the contralto and the basso, get all the best music and do all the spectacular things, but you cannot manage the plot without Fifth Business! It is not spectacular, but it is a good line of work, I can tell you, and those who play it sometimes have a career that outlasts the golden voices. Are you Fifth Business? You had better find out."

I look at my life - nearly divorced, not really wanting to date - and I wonder if I am a fifth business. I am not sure I want to be the heroine, the sorceress, the lover. Maybe I am the one who keeps the story together for others. I am the fun aunt, half girl, half woman. The one adult who will kick off her shoes and play in sprinklers. The one who tells stories of their parents; how their parents were not always all knowing and perfect. Love the saucer-unbelieving eyes.

Fifth business can be lonely business, even if it is a good line of work.

Die Walküre

2011-05-28T05:56:00.002-05:00

The Metropolitan Opera has these “live events” where they simulcast a production nearly monthly, and in mid-May, I attended my first live event. It was an . . . opera. I am not a big opera fan - I have only seen one opera live, and that was something of a field trip from elementary school. If I tell you the name of the opera, several of you (who am I kidding; this is an abandoned blog – no one will read it anyway) will discount the opera. Peter and the Wolf. Anyway, the opera this weekend was Die Walküre (The Valkyrie) by Richard Wagner. I was going to pretentiously write the name in German throughout the blog post, but let’s face it, cutting and pasting the umlaut is a pain-in-the-ass, and I like simple.

I knew the opera was in German (the title sort of gives it away), and most people have actually heard at least 8 minutes of the opera (Ride of the Valkyries). Elmer Fudd chasing Bugs Bunny introduced me to this piece of music, Fudd repeating the words “Kill the Wabbit” to this familiar tune. What I did not know could fill a book, but the two most important pieces of information were: (1) the production is actually the second of four epic operas which are part of the Ring Cycle, and (2) the Met’s production today was scheduled to last 5-1/2 hours (it took nearly 6 because of a technical problem with the stage).

I tripped upon this information as I was looking for a synopsis of the opera. I know a bit of German, but unless Brünnhilde is going to be singing about getting directions to the train station, or Siegfried about asking for the check after ordering in a restaurant, my German was going to be a bit limited. I mean, German is tough enough for me to get when it is spoken by people enunciating correctly. Have a rotund soprano belt out the words accompanied by a loud brass section, and I am a bit out of my league.

I really wanted to see this for a couple of reasons: (1) purely for the experience; (2) I doubt anyone I want to date would actually want to accompany me (most men are more interested with 300-pound linebackers, not opera singers with the same stature); (3) I could not imagine me having 5-1/2 hours of free time consecutively in the near future; and (4) lasting through the whole performance would be a challenge - sort of like waxing my legs, when I did not know the rules.

I won’t go through my entire experience, but I was shocked at the number of people who were at the theater. Ninety percent of the patrons were at least 20 years older than me, most people were either in a large group or were coupled up with someone, and nearly everyone in attendance probably knew more than I do about opera. I was surprised but a bit relieved to see subtitles during the live simulcast, as I could actually follow the story.

I am not entirely sure why I wrote this blog entry; I have not written in years, and this subject is not really something that I would normally have tackled. And I don’t think it is fair to say that I will be writing blog entries in the future. I saw that a friend started a new blog entry, and I felt encouraged to write myself. I am waiting for this feeling to pass.

Doing Fine

2011-02-19T12:07:00.003-05:00

I have not posted in more than a year. I am doing fine - just posted a story on a naughty site. Not a true story, but the start of the date was similar to a date I had recently. All the sex stuff is fantasy. I know, too bad. I am dating, but not having sex at all. I want to find me before letting someone else in. And sex without the hope of a connection seems shallow at this point in my life.

Happy New Year

2010-01-04T09:29:00.001-05:00

Just wanted to send a note saying two things:

1. Happy New Year; and
2. I will probably not be posting any more posts.

I am undergoing a very messy divorce and need to marshal my energies in order to get through the next few months. Not very entertaining, I know.

Peace to all. Sometimes fewer words are better than more words.

Editing Letter

2009-10-22T08:31:00.001-05:00

Lara Zielin, who is a young adult author (Make Things Happen: The Key to Networking for Teens, and Donut Days, first published novel) and YouTuber. Think John Green but not as popular. Since I am lazy today, I thought I would just throw up a video she made and uploaded to YouTube.

Of Doe Eyes and Broken Hearts

2009-10-15T09:10:00.000-05:00

Last week, I embedded a YouTube video by katethegreat011.

LarryLilly said, "Quirky person; interesting lyrics, a bit of personal angst."

Knot, a musician, added, "Same chord progression as that Goo Goo Dolls song 'Slide'. Refreshingly funny. Good voice. Ya, I'd do her."

But the most interesting comment was by Xmichra: "Love the chick below, she is like an oxymoron for the song she sings. She is cute and looks doe-eyed, while the song is bitter and realistic. Pretty neat."

Anyway, I think she struck a chord with some of us. Sorry for the pun. Well, anyway it is a bit strange listening to a cute young girl write with such angst. I agree with Xmichra; pretty neat.

When I was in high school, one of my best friends was a doe-eyed, brunette with straight hair. She was cute and shy, and well, easily overlooked in a class. She had this dimple on her chin, and that, along with big, dark eyes, brought me to thinking of her while listening to Kate, if that is her real name.

Oh, when I was in high school, I would use that phrase, "If that is your real name" a lot.

Fred, if that is your real name, please pass me the pepper. I was goofy like that, and I loved telling running jokes. Anyway, I had this friend who was sweet as can be, looked innocent and tried to go unnoticed in school.

The thing I remember most about this girl, however, is that she took a baseball bat to someone's car one day at school. I don't have all of the particulars (whether it was a wooden or aluminum bat, for instance), but there were two things that stand out in my mind: (1) unlike the movies, when someone takes a baseball bat to a windshield, the damage is not that impressive. (2) at that moment, I learned that people could act one day in school and a different way out of school.

I was a school friend of Missy's. We would meet before school and chat in the cafeteria before school started. Her mother dropped her off on her way to work, and I liked getting to school early. My parents would wake up insanely early. 4:30 AM. In Georgia, if you are going to wake up that early, it usually meant you would grab a flashlight and shine deer on the county roads.¹.

Missy and I would chat before school about all sorts of things. We gossiped about other girls, who broke up with whom, that sort of thing. But we also talked about teachers, and their relative fairness. We were both good students (As and Bs), so we enjoyed talking about school.

I saw her for 45 minutes nearly every morning when we were juniors and seniors, and I thought I really knew who she was. We never saw each other's homes; we were school friends not friends that saw each other after school. I got the impression from the mornings and some class time who she was. I never dreamed she could explode like that.

So when I hear "Kate" sing about all of this heartache, I wonder what is going on behind what we are seeing. Teen angst has always been popular, in part because teens (and I did at the time) think that everything is so important. Loves seem more rich, disappointments cut more deeply. Things seem like the end of the world, when they just make memories that will mellow with age, taking the sting out of the experience. When people say, "Still waters run deep," I sometimes think of doe-eyed Missy.

¹ For the non-rednecks among us, shining deer involved shining a flashlight in a deer's eyes, thus making them freeze. Then you would take your time and shoot them. Very unsportsmanlike. Oh, and very illegal as well. The venison tastes the same, however. Well, that's what I have been told.

Minimalist Meme

2009-10-14T04:20:00.000-05:00

That's Sassy has a meme I wanted to attempt. I have not done a meme in years, really, so this should be . . . painful.

The rules: (1) You Can Only Use One Word; and (2) Pass this along to 6 of your favorite bloggers.

Sassy did not follow the first rule. Go to her blog and shame her. Just kidding. Read her stuff; it is good.

1. Where is your cell phone? lost
2. Your hair? unmanageable
3. Your mother? kind
4. Your father? storyteller
5. Your favorite food? Asian
6. Your dream last night? Orwellian
7. Your favorite drink? X-rated
8. Your dream/goal? impactfulness
9. What room are you in? office
10. Your hobby? writing
11. Your fear? spiders
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? published
13. Where were you last night? bed
14. Something that you aren't? boisterous
15. Muffins? pistachio
16. Wish list item? contentment
17. Where did you grow up? Georgia
18. Last thing you did? giggle
19. What are you wearing? glasses
20. Your TV? unused
21. Your pets? digital
22. Friends? talented
23. Your life? spastic
24. Your mood? frazzled
25. Missing someone? family
26. Vehicle? non-hybrid
27. Something you're not wearing? bra
28. Your favorite store? bookstores
29. Your favorite color? Autumn
30. When was the last time you laughed? today
31. Last time you cried? yesterday
32. Your best friend? hubbie
33. One place that I go to over and over? restaurants
34. One person who emails me regularly? spammers
35. Favorite place to eat? Mall

This is really a minimalist post. I so want to explain these answers, but that is not in the spirit of this meme. For instance, I want to let you know my favorite place to eat is the mall, not for the food (Cajun Chicken), but because I love to people-watch. And the mall is great for people-watching.

And I pass this along to the first six people who leave comments - not that six will.

Belated Canadian Thanksgiving

2009-10-13T06:17:00.000-05:00

Well, I failed to celebrate another holiday: Canadian Thanksgiving, or as the Canadians call it, "Thanksgiving." (It was October 12 this year.)

I found this YouTube clip that describes the celebration – I will not ruin it for you, Ay.

Here is what I find remarkable about this YouTube channel: all of these shorts are directed by Ryan Rickett. Okay, that is not remarkable. What is, though, is who he has in these shorts: Ellen Page & Justin Long in this short (they are B actors; you can tell B actors because they give away their talent on YouTube). And Ginnifer Goodwin is in my favorite of these shorts, Crappy Easter. And Crappy Easter also has Lisa Nova, a YouTube persona. Anyway, it seems like the director has a bunch of semi-famous friends who like him enough to give away their acting talent for free.

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

Paranoid about Comments

2009-10-12T08:52:00.000-05:00

I have been absent from blogging for a while. I have also been absent from my Google mail account, where blog comments find themselves. And while cleaning out that inbox, I found a lot of chatter regarding one of my older posts, entitled Temptation. And when I see someone comment months afterwards, I normally think they Googled something and landed on my page, because even if you have 1,000 pages of crappy posts, Google sometimes sends people your way. Of course, I thought these posts would discuss my incite, but they didn't.

The posts, and there were a bunch of them, were in Japanese. I placed a few of the posts through a Japanese to English translator, and none of the comments had anything to do with the original blog post.

My immediate reaction, of course, is that some branch of the Taliban is using my blog in order to communicate back and forth. You see, they are crafty bastards. And none of them speaks Japanese, probably, so American intelligence would easily dismiss Japanese comments on a second-rate blog. Freakin' brilliant, those bastards.

I imagine that those bastards are using some translation software, then they have code books or whatever, and some comment about seeing a girl walking out of a restaurant is really code for strapping explosives to your body and entering the (insert country here) embassy.

Okay this is totally ridiculous, but it sort of makes me think it is a great idea for a screenplay. Not one I would ever write, but a screenplay nonetheless.

If I fail to post tomorrow, I am in Guantanamo Bay.

Connections

2009-10-09T07:04:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I shared a Richard Le Gallienne poem on my blog. And today I wanted to share how I first heard the poem. The story is a bit more convoluted than one would imagine.

When I was in elementary school, I had a record player. Me and my friends would put on records and bounce on the beds to the music. One of the 45s was Island Girl by Elton John. Then in high school, I was at a garage sale and saw a an LP by Elton John. I was not a huge Elton John fan, but since the LP was 25 cents, I figured I would spring for the vinyl.

The album was called Friends, and it was not until I got it home that I found out it was the soundtrack to a movie called Friends. Yes, before there was the television show, there was a movie. The shortest track on the album was an instrumental piece with two young voices, reciting the poem. And a few of the words were slurred, but I remember listening to the song/poem. I can even remember, on getting my first turntable, listening to the song in my dark bedroom, the only light being the red and white light on the turntable. A beautiful poem.

Years later, I saw the movie in a Blockbuster and rented it. My husband was out of town for the week on business, and I needed something to pass the time. I am so glad he did not watch this film. I found the movie in IMDB, but I don't remember much of the plot. All I remember is two naked teenagers in a cottage, and eventually the girl/woman has a child. Certainly they were of age to make the movie, but I think they were supposed to be 14-1/2 and 15 years old in the movie. It was weird, bizarre, and it left me feeling a bit violated. Oh, I think it was supposed to be a French film, but it was released in the UK.

Still, it is a beautiful poem.

Dirty Shoes

2009-10-08T23:06:00.001-05:00

This is a new performer on YouTube. Her lyrics are disturbing, original and interesting. Oh, and she has a nice voice. Just thought I would give her a plug.

National Poetry Day

2009-10-08T08:44:00.001-05:00

Today is National Poetry Day. I looked up to see if their was an official site, and here it is. And you know what bothers me about this website – it is a dot uk site. I mean, which country invented poetry? I mean, the most famous poet of all time is William Shakespeare, and he is American, right. Oh, crap, he may be from another country. Well, I heard about him in my American school's English class. Hmmmmmm.

Well, then the limericks that we have all heard. "There was a man from Nantucket." Certainly the origins of this is American. Nantucket is in Massachusetts, right? Oh, Nantucket is actually named for a city in Ireland? And limericks are Irish as well? Holy crap.

I am beginning to think that it may be unpatriotic to celebrate National Poetry Day in this country.

All kidding aside, one of my favorite poems – I enjoy the images this poem instills.

I Meant To Do My Work Today
by Richard Le Gallienne

I meant to do my work today,
But a brown bird sang in the apple tree,
And a butterfly flitted across the field,
And all the leaves were calling me.

And the wind went sighing over the land,
Tossing the grasses to and fro,
And a rainbow held out its shining hand--
So what could I do but laugh and go?

Twitter Novels

2009-10-07T14:34:00.001-05:00

When I was in high school, it seems like there was a chasm between subjects. What was Language Arts in elementary and perhaps middle school became Literature. American Literature, English Literature and World Literature. Okay, I was kidding – in the 1980s, Georgia schools did not care about world literature. But you get the idea.

And with changing from language arts, where we would read short stories and write a bit, now we would have to read entire novels and remember certain aspects of the novels. That is when I first was aquainted with small, pamphlets, black and yellow, which probably saved many a lazy student. They were called Cliffs Notes, and instead of reading several hundred pages, you could read forty pages, learn not only what happened in the book, but also what it meant. Alliteration, themes, comparisons to other similar works, it seemed to be a cheating way of getting through the great novels.

I was fairly poor growing up, and I had no money for Cliffs Notes. I actually had to read the novels. I was not even bold enough to rent the movies and just get the gist that way. I figure the English teacher probably formed questions based on what was in the book but not the movie. And that fear helped me experience great literature.

I remember reading The Great Gatsby, and my English teacher would almost blush at some of the passages. The subtle sex was lost on this teenage girl. I knew nothing of sex, and the code words F. Scott Fitzgerald used to describe the trysts in his novel.

The other day, I thought about Twitter, and wouldn't it be great to tweet about novels. Instead of the 40 pages of black and yellow, I would attempt to summarize novels in 140 characters. Quite a challenge.

I mean, we have gotten into this frenzy, where no one has time to do much of anything. The students reading Cliffs Notes in high school have more to do than ever. Might as well condense what they need into 140 characters.

I remember laying back on cars, parked in fields, looking at the sky and just watching the clouds. That was a memory in high school – and in college, drinking beer on parked cars in a drizzle before a thunderstorm. Just chatting, sipping and killing time. No computer, no cell phone. Nothing to interrupt life. And I think that is disappearing, slowly . . . or quickly.

I think I will call this Twitter Novel. It kills a bunch of characters, but that's okay. It will take less time to type out the novels.

My first foray into this new experiment:

Twitter Novel, Ulysses: If you fit the Odyssey into one day, 16 June 1904, add a newspaper office, a brothel, a funeral, and public houses, and stir. Nora Barnacle, you should be so proud.

Another Argument for Healthcare Reform Debunked

2009-10-01T06:32:00.002-05:00

Someone (I suspect someone working for a political party) answered my short missive on healthcare yesterday:

Leesa your point is valid to a degree, however the debate is not simply that health care costs have increased it is that medical insurance premiums have increased some 119% over the last decade while wages have stagnated or fallen during the same time for the vast majority of Americans. According to the The National Coalition on Health Care www.nchc.org, "Employer-based family insurance costs for a family of four will reach nearly $25,000 per year by 2018 absent health care reform." This is only for those who have employer based medical insurance.

Those without any insurance (which are rising) have only Emergency rooms or go without treatment as options. Of course the oldest and the poorest have Medicaid and Medicare so they are covered.

I appreciate your opinions on this issue, but cost increases are not solely due to advances in medicine and without some restructuring it will eventually bankrupt the country.

Thank you for your blog

Mike - NC

This brings us to another argument: look at Medicare/Medicaid. They provide healthcare far cheaper than traditional employee-based health insurance.

Hospital systems basically have three kinds of payers:

1. Those with health insurance. Most people with health insurance have one of just a few types in a given location. Some people refer to this as "Big Blue", as Blue Cross/Blue Shield is the biggest payer in many locations.

2. Medicare/Medicaid. These are government-paid claims. For certain locations, Medicaid goes by a different name, if the state subsidizes Federal money. Anyway, people have cards and the government is billed for the care.

3. Self-pay. These people don't have insurance and pay out of pocket. Most of them don't pay out of pocket; they just receive the care, and avoid the bills. These include members of certain religious sects – Amish and Mennonites, for instance, who believe that they should care for one another. The thing is, none of them are invasive radiologists or cardiovascular surgeons.

So hospitals get money from these three sources, and I have heard arguments that Medicare and Medicaid are so good because they are cheaper than health insurance. Well, traditional health insurance helps pay for Medicare/Medicaid and self-pay patients. Hospitals don't turn patients away – and even though most Medicare/Medicaid patients cost the hospital money on overall care, they get enough so that they take the patients.

A boring technical area of healthcare finance is dividing the cost of care into fixed and variable costs (they do this in all sorts of businesses and teach this at business schools). Generally, if your last customer covers variable costs, it makes sense to take the customer. And that's what hospitals do.

Traditional healthcare coverage is paying partially for the fixed costs of the Medicare/Medicaid patients as well as all of the costs of its uncollectables.

I am sorry that Mike did not leave a link to his blog, or I would have explained this to him.

In short, I believe that the healthcare issue is very complex, and we have a bunch of simpletons that have not even read the language of the bill. Even their staffs have not read the various bills.

And think of another thing – part of doing this is to bring the 46 million health insurance. Many of these people have made a choice not to purchase health insurance. They would rather purchase a big screen television than to purchase health insurance, perhaps because they have little assets to guard (yes, when I first got health insurance as a healthy 22-year-old, I almost did not get any because I had no assets). I decided for myself to get health insurance, not because I was altruistic, but because the $25/month (catastrophic only health insurance) guarded against me having to file for bankruptcy.

Tomorrow I will write about something more interesting.

Rise in Healthcare: Hollow Argument

2009-09-30T10:28:00.000-05:00

I have been listening to the healthcare debate with some interest. I mean, this proposed legislation may be the most expensive entitlement program in the history of the United States.

One of the key arguments is that healthcare expenses continue to rise faster than other goods and services. You know, that argument may or may not be a good argument for the healthcare bills currently undergoing review.

Consider this simple example: When I was a child, I knew someone who injured his foot while mowing the lawn. The foot was badly injured, and because of the extent of the injuries, the foot was amputated. I was chatting with an online friend whose husband was badly injured in a similar fashion, and he is undergoing several reconstructive surgeries. The foot will be saved and functioning. And this summer, I was on a ship, doing the tourist thing. They were talking about the various compartments and what the sailors did in the compartments. One of the things they showed us was a saw, used in shipboard amputations in the 18th and 19th centuries.

It occurs to me that we have made stride in the healthcare we can expect. Two hundred years ago, two strong male nurses held you down while a doctor quickly sawed off the limb. And most of the time, you survived the ampulation. There was no anesthesia, antibiotics and the like, and so the whole procedure was relatively cheap. Twenty years ago, unless you were in some of the best medical centers in the world, you received anesthesia but the foot still was removed. You received antibiotics and your chance of survival was near 100 percent. And the procedure was more expensive. Now with the vascular surgeons and graft specialists, specialized drugs, etc., you are much closer to being made whole, after several surgeries and physical therapy. And the cost rises. But the number and quality of services also has risen.

When people talk about prices rising, one has to consider that over time, the nature of services or goods may change as well, and just looking at cost increases is not the way to go.

Oh, and besides, if you want to talk about escalation of prices – why is that a primary reason to get the government involved in the first place? We live in a free market, and we don't want to trust a free market.

I am not saying we should or should not support healthcare reform. What I am saying is that price escalation should not be listed as a reason in any politician's position paper.

Keeping Routines

2009-09-29T14:30:00.001-05:00

These last few months, I have not been happy. I mean, I have been happy on occasions, but overall, the word "happy" is not a word I would chose to describe myself.

My world has been turning up-side-down, and it is not for one thing in particular. A bunch of things. And you know, when I have been jostled, one thing that happened is that I no longer had routines. We would have a couple of nights a week that I would prepare the same dish. I had been doing this for more than ten years. No longer.

I had been waking up and going to bed at the same times. No longer. It is much more regular that I wake up in the middle of the night, remembering a vivid dream, and then I would question what I thought reality was. And I have not been working out. And I have not been doing anything with regularity, including writing this blog.

I wonder if keeping certain routines are important for happiness.

Popular Songs

2009-09-28T16:33:00.001-05:00

When I was growing up, I listened to Casey Kasem on the weekend. Depending on the city you were in, depended when they ran the syndicated show. It was called something like American Top 40, and I think he counted down the top 40 hits, according to Billboard. Perhaps it was something else; I don't remember. The voice of Shaggy was the final word as to what song was popular on a given week.

He would tell the world of his mostly teenage audience not only which song occupied which spot, but how many spots certain songs climbed, as well as vignettes about some of the artists. I would pull for my favorite songs, listening to every word. Time just stood still during his program.

Well, I found the Billboard Top 100 today. And, holy crap, you can see who is in the top 100, as well as listen to most or all of the songs. For someone who is no longer cool (and cannot be trusted according to the hippies of the 60s), this is sort of interesting. I can't get into many of the songs of today, but it is an interesting diversion.

One interesting thing about Casey Kasem is that there was a rumor he was Islamic. Well, he is of Lebanese Druze heritage (which is too complicated for me to explain in my blog). It is generally considered an offshoot of Islam, but it has some interesting twists. I can remember some parents who were scared of Kasem, because they thought he was brainwashing American youth at a time where we were trying to repair relations between Israel and Egypt.

Recent History: Football

2009-09-25T18:56:00.000-05:00

Think about good football teams. Storied football teams. Look at this list:

California
Florida
LSU
Michigan St
FSU
Georgia
Maryland
Penn State
Texas A&M

What if I were to ask you for a team that has more national championships than any of these teams. What would you say? We know about USC, Texas, Oklahoma, Notre Dame, Michagan, Alabama, Ohio State. But there is one team that might surprise you: Georgia Tech. They have won four national championships to three or less for the teams listed above.

But more shocking than that is that there are a couple of schools who have won more national championships than any of the schools I have listed: Princeton and Yale. Oh, and Harvard has won its share as well, most of which predate World War I. Anyway, just a little fact I tripped on the other day. Just goes to show you that we focus on recent history. This, of course, pertains to more than football. Today, I am just illustrating with a football example.

Crazy People

2009-09-18T09:33:00.002-05:00

Earlier this week, I heard about Yale grad student Annie Le being murdered by lab technician Raymond Clark III. It was all over the news, and I am sure you have heard something about it.

After a few days, the police mentioned workplace violence as being the motivation for murder. A letter penned by university President Richard Levin stated: "Mr. Clark has been a lab technician at Yale since December 2004. His supervisor reports that nothing in the history of his employment at the University gave an indication that his involvement in such a crime might be possible…."

A big case of CYA.

Can you imagine an employer say publicly "We have employed this person for five years, and we knew he was a crazy guy. Please sue the university for its lack of judgment."

Now I am not saying Yale did anything wrong – just making a bit of a joke.

Years and years ago, I worked for a university system. And I remember some scary guy working in the same building. I got a bad vibe from him, and I avoided him. I did not get on an elevator when he was already on the elevator; that sort of thing.

Women need to trust their instincts. Instincts, I believe, are part of human evolution. Primates are scared of snakes – that instinct, while it does not matter for most snakes, keeps one alive when running away from the poisonous ones.

I am not blaming Annie Le for getting herself murdered. Not at all. I imagine, though, she felt threatened in some way and did not act on those feelings. Perhaps not trusting everyone is the wrong way to go as well. It is difficult to know who to trust and who to avoid in elevators.

By the way, I lost two images recently:

Failing at Social Networking

2009-09-15T08:14:00.001-05:00

I have been neglecting my blog. I know I have. Web logs, or Blogs, were one of the granddaddies of social web communities. The Video Blog, or VLOG, followed. Then Twitter, and so forth.

Well, I got an email from Biz Stone in my inbox the other day – not that Biz and I are close, but there was a change to Twitter. Anyway, I googled him, and found his Blog (last updated in April 2008) and LinkedIn profile. He has less than 200 connections on LinkedIn (not a lot for LinkedIn whores).

Anyway, one of the leaders in social networking, and his networks suck. So I guess there may be hope for me.

Chillin' to "Sweet About Me"

2009-08-26T04:46:00.001-05:00

I don't normally listen to "popular" music. Well, that is not really true, I suppose, but the music I most likely am to listen to was first performed in the 80s. It has more to do with when I started listening to music and less about the quality of the music. I am a tragic compilation of my circumstances. And I find myself apologizing for it, only when I think about it. Luckily music is about much more than thought; it is about feelings and even hearing songs during significant events. Sure, we remember where we were when JFK was shot, but we also remember what was on the turntable when we first had sex.¹

I heard a song by Gabriella Cilmi recently, and the sound is haunting. It reminded me of Cat Stevens. Not that she sounds like him, but the sound is unique, and so was his sound. More than that is that she reminded me how much fun it is to just listen to music. And in the hectic world of ours, just kicking back and listening to music can recharge the soul.

I also think it is interesting that the song that reminded me of this is called, "Sweet about Me," and the lyrics say that there is nothing sweet about her. Well, reminding me of the magic of music is oh, so sweet.

¹Okay, I was not alive for the JFK assassination, but that seems to be the event people most remember. For me, it was perhaps the shuttle explosion. That event cracked the illusion that the world was safe and fair.

Almost School Time

2009-08-19T07:26:00.000-05:00

We are less than two weeks away from school starting. I was reminded of this from a VLOG I saw this morning. Two things come to mind: (1) not having children, I don't really know when school normally starts; I just observe changing traffic patterns and figure it out, and (2) because I have not been posting blog entries, I have not really been reading blogs or watching an occasional YouTube video.

In the video Hayley says that for most, high school is not as advertized; that it won't be the best years of your life. Well, I will admit it is not like the movie Grease. Okay, again, two random observations: (1) why did all of the students in the movie look like they were in their mid-twenties; oh, because they were old, and (2) I did not realize until years later that in the lyrics of one of the songs had a dirty word in it; I would not recognize p---- wagon until years later, when I saw a high school production of the play. You can't have a Christmas tree on school property, but you can sing about . . . oh, nevermind.

I thought about high school, and remembered it was really great. Sorry, Haley, but going to your locker to see if your boyfriend placed a note in the locker like you directed him is a good memory. So is selling ribbons before football games, wearing bizarre outfits on certain days, and avoiding physical education for extracurricular activities. It seemed mostly good to me. Memories of heartache, backstabbing bitches, zits and homework fade over time.

But then I thought that elementary school was wonderful, where the biggest decision of the day was white vs. chocolate milk (and rarely we would have the choice of strawberry milk, a truly vile liquid). Walking in straight lines in complete silence seemed more like a game than an imitation of Hitler's youth organization. And science had no real debate. There were nine planets, for oceans, and we did not even talk about global warming. A place where boys were not smart enough to be deceptive, where teachers seemed like teachers and not discipliners.

Middle school seemed cruel. I had some wonderful memories from middle school as well, but I also remember hearing about fights after school, rumors about the first girl who lost he virginity and became very popular with the boys, where people were expelled from school instead of a note going home to a parent. Middle school was all about puberty, about forming cliques, about figuring out how everyone is different.

I look at elementary school through college, and I can't help but grin. Sure, every event seemed more important than it really was, but now, as an adult, do we make things less important than they really are? Well, in a few weeks, traffic patterns will change. For bright eyed children, they will be making memories they will remember for all of their days. Lucky ducks.

Healthcare Debate

2009-08-17T04:34:00.000-05:00

I have been listening to the healthcare debate for some time, and it seems a bit ridiculous on all sides. Some not-so random thoughts on the subject . . . .

New Legislation will Cover All. The media has said there are 46 million uninsured Americans. One thing that the media fails to ask is, "Yeah, but do these 45 Million want to have insurance?" After college, there was a time where I did not have health insurance. I could have had it, but I chose not to have it. I was young, healthy and I had no assets to protect. Why exactly would I need health insurance? And I am sure many Americans are thinking the same thing. Sure, there are some people who don't have health insurance because they can't afford it, but most have looked about how they spend their money and have decided to do other things with their money. Health insurance was not that important to them.

Sure, society as a whole pays for this. And sure, if healthcare was truly free, this would be great. But we are just shifting costs.

New Legislation will Reduce Healthcare Costs. I don't think it is the government's job to reduce healthcare costs (and the Dems are talking about efficiencies and cost reductions). I mean, as long as the government is concerned with the costs of products for me, why not work on reducing costs of my iPod, computer, car, and so forth. And someone may say that the government already manipulates food prices (we pay farmers not to grow certain crops), gas and oil prices (the government's strategic oil reserve impacts prices; so do our foreign relations), and now prices for automobiles (cash for clunkers will pull automobiles out of the market, and also increase demand which should make prices go up).

New Legislation will Make Healthcare More Efficient. See above. I am not sure it is the government's business to make any industry more efficient. The government did not enact child labor laws because the twelve-year-old factory workers were inefficient; they did so to protect children. And I am not sure I want some government bureaucrat tell hospitals how to be efficient. Think about it: the government is telling us that they can make something more efficient. When you think of government, is the word "efficiently" the first thing you think? Probably not.

New Legislation contains Death Panels. This is one of the coolest aspect of the new legislature. The phrase "Death Camps" sounds efficient, spooky and something that would lend itself to reality television. I can see this now: in order to underwrite the new healthcare legislation, the government will allow one station to televise these death panel reviews. The only problem is that these words aren't even in the legislation. I mean, we don't think these words are in the legislation – most legislators have not read it, and neither has anyone else. Someone can read Harry Potter in two days, no problem, but cannot real legislation that will have a trillion dollar difference to our government budget.

Even if I think we should reform healthcare now and have the government involved, I am not at all confident that our elected officials are smart enough to do this rationally.

Being Offline and Personal Economics

2009-08-15T12:33:00.006-05:00

I have been "offline" for a long time. It has really been months, with one little post that filled the gap for those months. And when I posted the blog entry, I intended on started to write again. Guess what, I didn't start writing again.

I wanted to write that I was involved in some international incident, that I was denied internet access until former President of the United States Bill Clinton rescued me and my lesbian lover after months of captivity. But that is not what happened.

I wanted to say that my house was attacked by aliens that placed transceivers in humans to control them, but that is not what happened.

I wanted to say that I was finishing up a book about mitochondrial DNA synthesis, and its applications on sheep duplication, thus ending the worth's wool shortage. But that is not what happened.

I guess not one thing happened. A culmination of things, but the biggest one is that I am doing a bit more work at work. What the heck were they thinking? I wrote about work and pay and how promotions are not necessarily a good thing. A ton more work for $2K a year is not my idea of a good deal.

Anyway, I have thought about writing, and then I thought about the relative value of my time. We do this all of the time, you know? For instance . . . .

When one decides to take a long bath instead of a ten minute shower, you are deciding to spend time out of your day for a bath. And there is probably a reason behind spending that additional time.

Sex can be the same way. For married people, if we wanted, we could have sex until we could not walk anymore. And there probably is a reason we don't have sex all of the time. Remember when you were first married? Or first sexual in a committed relationship? How often was the sex? Well, maybe it was very often. There are lots of things to do, but the satisfaction from sex outweighed doing the dishes, even if you hated dirty dishes. Or later in a relationship, it does not have to be about sexual gratification. If you and your husband are trying to get pregnant, perhaps you had sex all of the time (during the right times) to try and get pregnant. Even if you did not enjoy the sex - and sex for babies gets old really fast.

"Honey, don't worry about foreplay. Just get it over so I can vacuum the carpet."

Yes, vacuuming the carpet is more enjoyable than baby-making sex if it is six months without no pregnancy.

I guess I am getting a bit far afield, but I enjoy the whole "economics" view of the world. There was a book that was popular a few years ago called Freakonomics, and I enjoyed it because it talked about this sort of thing - well, not these examples or even this logic, but it gave me ideas that I now use in my thinking. There have been several other economics books that have been popular as well. I know it sounds like driving an ice pick into your eye would be as pleasant, but they are interesting ideas.

Anyway, from time to time, I have ideas and I have wanted to express them on this blog. Because I have not really been around much, I have just thought "Eh."You know, giving a non-committal utterance.

Two things have happened recently that have been pushing me in a different direction: (1) I got a note from a very popular YouTube person (I know, gag me; but she also has a blog and she can really write) and was touched by her words, and (2) someone with sexual addiction is communicating with me and I am revealing my experiences on the road to recovery. I wrote about it here and here and probably other places. My blog was a starting point, but we are chatting about tools to use to get away from the bad behavior.

Above I mentioned an interest in economics. My job has nothing to do with economics, but I enjoy the thought process - do I spend my money on X or wait and save for Y. And more close to home, do I spend limited time writing a blog or writing a book. Well, all of this time away from the blog was not spent knocking out the first two riveting chapters of a book. It was spent doing work (which I derive only modest benefit from, aside from my paycheck) and spending more time at lunch.

Anyway, I miss writing and may start to write again (and you don't have to believe I am starting; I won't until I see if I write some more). I hear items on the news, and I just want to write about them. I experience something weird in an elevator, and my mind starts writing the post. So I have missed this forum, and I have missed writing others. Perhaps, perhaps, instead of walking to the coffee shop two streets over, I will write an ill-conceived blog entry for a few to read.

This has nothing to do with this post, but I have been dabbling in an online strategy game based on the seedy side of life. But the game is really more about economics than sex and violence. I don't get into the role-playing, really, but I enjoy figuring out how to spend limited time and energy in the game to maximize the gains (money, experience, and other gains). I am not recommending the game, per se, but if you want to check it out, it is located here. And if you think the game is just a way of having some sexual gratification, you will be disappointed. There are a few steamy photos, but they are not that erotic (e.g., they don't do anything for me). They would embarrass you at work more than anything. Oh, and they are not Asian women, so Grant, you would not like it. You know, there are probably a bunch of erotic photos, now that I think about it, because users can create a customized signature page, and they can be quite crude. I play with the images turned off in my web browser (sex addicts do that, you know), so I sometimes forget about how most see the game.

Megan Fox

2009-07-16T12:04:00.002-05:00

I just don't get the deal about Megan Fox. I first heard about her (and wrote about her, too) when there was some discussion concerning the new Wonder Woman. She is in consideration for the role. Then I was looking at YouTube this morning (I have not really seen YouTube, other blogs, etc., recently), and saw an original song about Megan Fox. It just seems that the world is focusing on her, and I can't seem to understand why.

I looked her up on IMDB to get the name of the movie everyone has seen her in – The Transformers. I also saw that she was friends with Amanda Seyfried (who was great in Momma Mia). When I think of Amanda Seyfried, I can't help but hearing the Billy Joel song Allentown in my head. I heard she was from there and have since associated her with the Billy Joel song. Talk about neurons that have been misfiring lately.

I like trivia, and as far as Megan goes, this is what I got from IMDB :

Ranked #2 on the Maxim magazine Hot 100 of 2009 list. (she was #16 the previous year)

She has a quote from William Shakespeare's 'King Lear' tattooed on her right shoulder that reads: "We will all laugh at gilded butterflies."

And I saw some other random facts, none of which explains why people really think Megan Fox is all of that. I even watched an interview, and even after watching that, I still don't get it.

This makes me think about Farrah Fawcett, and because of the fractured media we now have, I don't think we will see someone as iconic as Farrah. I mean, everybody, from four to ninety-four probably had heard of Farrah, and a bunch of them talked about what she was doing. I mean, when she was divorcing Lee Majors, it was not like people think, "Do you remember where you were when you found out that Farrah and Lee Majors were divorcing." But it was big. Right now, if I met Megan Fox on the street, I would not know it was her. Even if she said she was an actress, my response might be, "Oh, you are that girl on Friends, right? The one that married one of the Arquette men."

I just hope Megan Fox's car doesn't turn into some demon robot thing that tries to kill me.

The J-Bunny Addition

2009-07-15T00:03:00.003-05:00

Okay, I will admit it, I have not posted . . . this month. Not a single post. And then I thought I should go back to something that Grant, sort of a Zen Master of the blog world once said. "When you don't have an idea, post pictures of J-bunnies." Well, the first time I read it, I had to figure out what a J-bunny is. I am still not entirely sure. I thought it was a Japanese woman, fairly scantily dressed, but you know, most of the images from Grant are not of Japanese women. There are Chinese, Korean, and other nationalities as well. So I am not entirely sure what the "J" depicts.

I have blamed my absence on writer's block, but that is not entirely truthful. If I was writing a novel, I might develop writer's block. Either that, or I would write a hundred pages that would have to be cut out later, as it is distracting from the core features of the book. My problem is not that I don't have anything to say. My problem is that I read what I am writing, and I think, "Eh, that's not really that important." Sure, I can put it in a blog – no trees are being cut down, unless there is some executive that asks his secretary to print and coordinate web sites he is interested in. I know, it sounds farfetched, but I knew someone who sort of did this. Granted, it was more than 5 years ago, but it was very satisfying (until I realized the executive makes 10 times what I do).

Getting back to J-bunnies, I thought I would try and duplicate what Grant has: blog entries entirely devoted to J-bunnies. And it is harder work than you might think. The first thing I wonder is, "what do guys really want to see with J-bunnies?" I have not a clue. So I decided to let Google help me out. Google ranks pictures, web sites and news articles by popularity. The article may not be factually correct, but it is what people want to read. I can get behind that. Anyway, I have found my first J-bunny pic and will paste it somewhere in this blog entry. Who knows, maybe people will read this because of the picture. I know that thought is furthest from Grant's mind.

I have actually had some personal issues that have taken some time – two separate health-related issues, extra time needed at work, some projects at home. All of the things going on in my life have one thing in common: they require me to spend time on them. So I have not gotten around to blogging. Anyway, I thought today, the day that people are seeing Harry Potter and all, I would make a non-Harry Potter-related post. Oh, if I mention Harry Potter, did I just screw up? Yikes.

Anyway, enjoy the J-bunny. I am just now getting the hang of finding these sorts of pics. I may not be up to Grant standards yet.

Not Uncool; Not Dead Either

2009-06-26T04:36:00.000-05:00

~~Two~~ Three Thursdays ago, Grant wrote, "You haven't posted in a week. You're not dead, are you? 'cause that would be uncool."

News of my death has been greatly exaggerated, hence the title of this blog entry.

I have not blogged in more than two weeks. Okay, it may be three weeks now. Well, I have tried and tried and tried to write my next post. And I have failed on all of my attempts. And then it occurred to me why I can't write right now: I have writer's block (how about that, using the same sounding word so close to one another; another sign of writer's block, perhaps).

And I sort of feel bad because I am writing to say that I am not dead – I have always hated reading those posts. Plus, Farah Fawcett died between my last two posts. So did Michael Jackson. So you see, lots of people have died recently, so you would be totally correct in assuming that I have died as well. Though I don't have Farrah's famous nipples or Michael's famous dance moves. I mean, really, how many of us did not want Farrah's hair or to be able to dance like Michael Jackson. I can remember practicing to moon walk for weeks. If I was a productive member of society at the time, I would have been in an office, doing the moon walk, I am sure.

Oh, but back to talking about me. I have writer's block and I am not dead.

I wrote a Twitter message – I mean, even with writer's block, I can type out 140 characters.

Then I read one of the previous paragraphs – I normally just type out stuff and don't even read it, but with writer's block, the process changes. Anyway, I talk about Farah's famous . . . and Michael's famous . . . . What a lack of a real adjective. I mean, of course, if we know about it, you and me, you on the other side of the world, perhaps, me in Georgia. That would sort of define famous.

Part of me just wants to delete this message – like I did the last two messages, but you see, I have writer's block and I am not dead, so I need to place something out there. Having writer's block sort of sucks. I mean, I have been known to write about any damn thing that pops into my head, but this does not really work right now. I can't decide if I have nothing in my mind right now, or that my filter is just working on overdrive. I have not a clue.

Me, I want red hair. I don't have the complexion or the guts to dye my hair red, but I want red hair. I think hair color should be sold with other helpful items, like something that would give me freckles as well.

I was watching a YouTube video, and instead of saying, "Wow, I like that song or voice," I am thinking I would kill for that hair. I can't sing, and so I sometimes fantasize about being able to sing. Or having a magic lasso would also be so cool. Can you imagine red-headed Leesa walking in a car dealership with a magic lasso, asking about the real gas mileage of the cars on the lot? Of going in a GM dealership and asking what kind of car they drive. "Hey, you get employee pricing on your cars, and you drive a Toyota. Don't tell me it is your wife's car. I have a magic lasso."

I have not brought myself to read the comments on my blog either. Well, I read Grant's comment. But that was weeks ago, and I started writing about it, but you see I have writer's block. I guess I should go to Walgreens and see if I can find something to cure my writer's block. I mean, there are drug companies that sell herbs to cure all sorts of things. Hell, they sell mushrooms to cure cancer. Why can't some company deceive us about a cure for writer's block, too? I mean, writer's block is mental, right? I mean, how hard is it to add a few herbs to witch hazel, and sell it as writer's block remover? That's all I ask. Oh, and to have red hair, a superhero lasso, and not to be dead.

Late Night Conversations

2009-06-04T09:59:00.001-05:00

When I was growing up, we would spend time with the grandparents. The family was sort of big, so I did not get that much time one-on-one with my grandmother. It wasn't that she did not love me; it was just the numbers did not work in my favor.

Well, after dessert and showers (with an extended family, showers take over an hour for the kids alone), we would watch a little network television. Actually, there were a lot of nature shows on PBS, as I recall. Then people would start going to bed. Interestingly, the parents would go first. Then the kids. Grandmother and me would be the last two up.

We would sit in large comfy chairs for hours, just talking. Now I cannot remember what we talked about, but it was so nice to have her undivided attention. Grandmother would ask questions, listen, and talk about things she remembered when she was growing up.

She had an even voice, and late into the evening, all else would be quiet. To be in a large, comfortable chair, most lights off in the house, just breaking the night with conversation. Those are the things I remember about my grandmother.

Blah Meter

2009-06-03T12:15:00.004-05:00

I have been feeling a bit blah lately. You have probably seen it in my "just hit the damned submit button" posts. Yeah, there have been a few of them. I have been feeling blah, but I really was not aware of it. I would say, "I am tired" or "I have too much to do." I am a fairly positive person, so it is hard for me to say, "I feel blah."

And then I thought to myself, I should find other measures, that are not directly related to my blah-ness, that would be an indicator for me. Sure, I might not describe myself as blah, but if I always do something when blah, I could just look for that something. So then I thought, let’s see if I can look at my personal life for signs of the blahs:

Loss of interest in normal daily activities. I am so spastic, that I sometimes looks interest in daily activities, but it does not mean I am blah.
Crying spells for no apparent reason. I always have a reason for crying. Others may not be aware of it, but there is always a reason.
Problems sleeping. I sometimes sleep a lot or a little for no apparent reason. Not a good indicator.
Trouble focusing or concentrating. All the time. I think that has something to do with my brain chemistry.
Difficulty making decisions. I would be a terrible CEO. I can make any sort of decision with little data or understanding of the problem. Sort of like a politician.
Unintentional weight gain or loss. If you intentionally eat a quart of ice cream but don't intend on gaining weight, does that count?
Irritability. Just a part of my personality when I deal with incompetent people.
Being easily annoyed. See above. These signs are starting to piss me off.
Loss of interest in sex. Pass.
Unexplained physical problems, such as back pain or headaches. I am talking about the blahs. I am not crazy.

Well, you know, none of those signs can tip me off to the blahs. So I looked and looked and looked. And you know what is an indicator of the blahs for me, "number of items purchased from Ebay." That is it, plain and simple. It may have been shopping in general years ago, but it has changed.

You know, men are the big hunters, with their guns being some giant penis they point at what they want. Don't say this doesn't make sense. Women, those of us without a chronic penis envy fixation, don't see what is so special about hunting. We may say it is cruelty to animals, but deep down, we don't want to point artificial penises at animals. Just too close to bestiality for my taste.

And shopping in a mall for me is akin to deer hunting. High powered penis-gun just blowing away an unarmed large mammal. Ebay is more like hunting flying animals – squirrels, ducks, quail and the like. It takes either skill or dumb luck to bring those animals down. Same thing with Ebay purchases.

So the next time my Paypal account is overused because of Ebay, I have got me the blahs. I heard alcoholism cures the blahs, though. Or maybe I am confused. You see, I have trouble focusing.

And listen, I was kidding about bestiality and hunting. I am from Georgia, for gosh sake, where you will see deer fastened to the top of wood-paneled station wagons outside of Wal-Mart when they are in season.

Running into Classmates

2009-06-02T11:43:00.001-05:00

I got an email from a high school classmate (let's call her Becky), and it really shocked me a bit. We were in a writing club together in high school. She was a very talented writer, and I was in the club because I wanted the extra credit for senior English. We published a literary journal, and Becky's work was all over the place. I imagine she had 1/6 of the pages in the journal. She wrote poetry, short stories, Haiku, all sorts of things.

Because of our last names, we were in the same homeroom throughout high school, and the only time I really got to know anything about her was in that literary club. You know, when you are in homeroom for only 15 minutes at a time, and there is nothing but disseminating information to people throughout the year. Then, senior year we spent two afternoons a month, sometimes more, working on evaluating writing talent. I always thought I was a bit more objective about evaluations. None of my friends submitted to the magazine, and I didn't even submit (until the advisor made me). Many of the pieces were about teenage angst. Some were raw; most tried doing things that they would be ill-advised to try. Talking about love, death, longing, all from the memory of high-schoolers.

In reading Becky's email, I was surprised to find that she did not do anything with writing. She has her own small company, and she is an artist. She did not graduate college (she dropped out after a year), though she graduated high school with honors. She has studied, but mostly with small seminars and the like.

I have seen her art, and it is beautiful. It looks like a mixture of impressionism and folk art. Not sure how else to explain it. The thing is, she was considered the most talented writer in my high school, and she does something that has nothing to do with writing. I am sure the biggest tramp while I was in high school put her tramping skills to good use. Why not the writer?

I guess part of the reason I don't try to reconnect with people from my high school is because I don't want the carefully crafted image I have of them to change. I thought I knew these people; sort of like some of these writers thought they knew about love, life, and angst. And I knew in which direction their lives were heading. I just don't want to know that the skillful writer became the artist, the tennis star is selling shoes, the brainiac who breeds dogs. Not that they are not worthwhile professions, but they are not my vision for the future.

Temptation

2009-05-30T00:42:00.001-05:00

I could not sleep tonight, so I crept into the computer room, logged onto an email account, and found an email I had to reply to. It was someone who asked for my advice, and I don't know if you can tell, but I love giving advice.

The letter and response triggered a memory of mine, a painful memory that I am not sure I have ever explored in my blog. Those of you who have read me for a while know that I am married and I strayed in the marriage. Completely my fault. I was a broken person, and I did not even know it at the time. I wrote about my screw-ups here and here, and if I searched my blog archives, probably a dozen more places. I write because it is cathartic, because it is on my mind, and because I want to be that lighthouse warning others of the rocks hidden below the turbulent waters of sexual gratification.

In most of my missteps, the other guys had been unfaithful many times before me. I "dated" married men because it was cleaner – no messy break-ups, mutual discretion. There was one relationship, however, that was different. I tempted him, again and again, and I enticed him to strayed outside his marriage.

I was the other woman, and I destroyed a marriage. Before me, they were a very loving couple (I knew both of them and wanted what she had). And when I said I destroyed their marriage, I don't mean they divorced. They stayed together, but that beautiful marriage that everyone admired was no more. I remember very clearly that he called me a bitch afterwards – I remember where I was standing, what I was wearing, and what I was thinking (it was not nice or Christian). I think if I was not so wrapped up in my own stuff, I would not have tempted him. We can all say that the two of us were consenting adults; at the end of the day, I tempted someone who made his own bad decision. Had I not practically thrown myself at him, there is no way we would have loved. After all this time, had I the opportunity to undue something (anything in the world), I would wish that I had not pursued that man.

When Bill Clinton was caught lying about not having sexual intercourse with that woman, I could understand that as president, he would have been tempted nearly daily. I mean, you are one of the most powerful men in the world (and power is such a turn-on), and fifty million women are going to throw themselves at you. And I am not naive enough to think Monica was Bill's first dalliance.

I think I will go to sleep now, to what I hope is a dreamless sleep.

Blah Days and Open Windows

2009-05-28T10:01:00.000-05:00

I did not post yesterday. The day sort of got away from me, and by the end, I thought to myself, "Eh, I don't want to post."

After I got home yesterday, I took a nap with the windows open. I was asleep for a couple of hours, and I was groggy all night long. Sort of a blah ending to a blah day. But the traffic noise, with people coming home, reminded me of some summer experiences.

Okay, the rest of this post is not work safe (but since it is all text, you can leave now and no one will be the wiser). I was debating whether to write it, but I thought, eh, why not.

My aunt and uncle had a summer house in a small town a couple of hours from where we life. Every summer, we would travel to the house and spend time there. It was for lazy summers. We would bike ride in the mornings, and by 10:00 am, it started getting hot. We would come in for lunch, and lunch took more than an hour to finish. Lots of people making sandwiches and the like, eating potato chips (something we were not allowed to have regularly during the school year), making Kool-Aid.

After lunch, we would watch a soap opera, and then all of us would nap at 1:00. Since there were so many in the house, I would sneak out to the detached garage. There was a one room studio off of the garage, and I would sleep there.

When I was sixteen or so, I would have the window open but lock the door. I had just learned the art of pleasing myself, so I would slip off my shorts and panties and begin to finger myself. I would think of boys I had met that summer, fingering myself and listening to the occasional car race by on the country road nearly outside the window.

I would lick my finger, than let it work itself, slowly at first, and then faster, and I would always end up quivering after an intense orgasm. I don't know if it was listening to the traffic, the thought I might get caught, or just the guilt of a Catholic girl in the summer heat. Whatever it was, I enjoyed those pre-nap rituals.

Afterwards, I would put my panties and shorts back on, and I would unlock the door and drift to sleep. And sometimes I would wake up with the blahs, if I slept too long. But it was summer, and after another bike ride or a stroll through the woods, my head would clear and I would return to my family. And no one knew about my little fingering sessions. In fact, I forgot about them until hearing the sounds of the cars coming home from work yesterday reminded me. The mind can sometimes connect dots that are not normally connected. Traffic and an open window. Who would have thought?

All Twittery Inside

2009-05-26T05:30:00.000-05:00

Okay, I finally don't get Twitter. I thought I got it at first. Twitter was like a blog for lazy people; you know, people who could only string together 140 characters at a time. And these twitter people had to have a little more self-involvement than bloggers. I mean, with a blog, there are no instant gratifications.

In Twitter, all you have to do is follow a few people, and every once in a while, someone follows you back just because you followed them. Guess that is the same with some bloggers. I don't totally get this tit-for-tat reasoning, but it is alive and well.

For me, I read tweets when I am bored. And it makes me . . . more bored. Not sure why I am still tweeting, but I am. I am reading more than tweeting, but if you want to follow me on tweeter, please do so. And I have been baffled at some of my recent followers . . . .

Then someone by the name of Gary Vaynerchuk (self-proclaimed description: Wine guy, host of Wine Library TV. Video blogger and Businessman that loves people and the hustle) added me. What interest would a wine guy have in my little life?

And I got a newbie, Dr. Robert Rey, from Beverly Hills, CA. I have convinced myself he is not a plastic surgeon, trolling for middle-aged women in need of boob jobs. On the one hand, I guess I should be flattered that he thinks I have the money to travel all the way across the US in order to get silicone baggies inserted under my breasts. On the other hand, hey, he is dissin' my boobies. Does using "dissin'" make me sound pathetic and uncouth, even for a middle aged woman?

And now I have a band follower, We Shot the Moon. I am not sure if they are a really lame band that plays a lot of Hearts (the card game), or they are delusional marksmen, shooting at the moon without actually hitting anything (we hope). I went to their MySpace page, and I like their music.

I also have a new suspended account, Shelli11Kelly3. Every ten or so subscribers are these suspended accounts. I guess I am lucky enough to get what may be spam accounts. I think Twitter should give a trophy for the account with the most suspended accounts following them. Then perhaps John Mayer would win an award. Oh, other than all of his Grammies.

I started listening to/reading ScriptGirl. I can't tell if she is fake or not, talking about script sales. But it really doesn't matter if it is real. Just that you think it is real.

I have been trying to write 5 times per week, and I have figured if Tuesday or Thursday is crap, that's okay. Just moving the needle, so to speak.

Memorial Day

2009-05-25T04:38:00.001-05:00

Very rarely do I blog on my day off. With blogger's scheduled posts, however, it makes it a bit easier, I suppose.

First, I have seen many links to the following organization this Memorial Day: Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

And my first thought is, "Do people know the difference between Memorial Day and Veteran's Day?" Memorial Day is to honor people who died while in military service. Formerly known as Decoration Day, a day established to decorate the graves of fallen Union soldiers (I don't think there were different branches of the military back then), the day was expanded and renamed after World War I to honor all who died while serving in the military. Time did a story on the origin of Memorial Day recently as well.

It seems to me that as Americans, we blur the lines between Memorial Day, Veteran's Day and Patriot Day. Maybe even Independence Day. Who knows? Living near several military communities, I have had to learn a few things:

(1) Soldiers do not equal all people who serve in the military.
There are airmen (men and women in the Air Force), seamen (men and women sailors), marines, soldiers (those in the Army), and coasties (I don't know the real term, but they are known as coasties around here). There are two other uniformed services in the US: United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Corps, but they are not part of the armed forces (the first 5 mentioned).

(2) Er, oh, crap, I don't know anything else.
I was going to make a list of all of these military things I have learned, and I completely lost my mind. Or at least what I was thinking about.

Also, I am not sure what to say on Memorial Day. I mean, saying "Happy Memorial Day" seems to be inappropriate. It is not solemn enough. All I can suggest is that people take time to remember those who have fallen in all US wars today.

Not So Random Friday Post

2009-05-22T08:36:00.000-05:00

I normally, at least for the last dozen or so weeks, have done random Fridays. It is a way to get certain ideas out of my head and onto paper. Ideas that don't deserve an entire post. I don't want to do this today.

This morning, I was reading blogs. And one blog had a cover of Mad Magazine (I never really understood the fascination with Mad Magazine; probably a Y chromosome thing) with a UPC symbol. Well, I made some comment that this symbol reminded me of a sit-com episode where they were trying to decipher the UPC symbol. I thought it was an All in the Family episode, and so I performed a Google search. I got bored before I could confirm this, but I did see Episode 209 of another show that did they did an All in the Family spoof that dealt with APC symbols.

What interested me more than figuring out the sit-com was that we live in a world where so much is online that it is a breeze to research almost anything. I mean, you won't get "the answer", all of the time, but you can get an answer.

When I was in school, we used card catalogs and books. Books and card catalogs don't really allow themselves to link to other resources. Sure, there are cards in the catalog that give a hint of a link, "see XYZ", but they don't directly link to other sources. With the internet, there is so much to link to, and you physically don't really have to touch any source. Your 1s and 0s touch the sources 1s and 0s, and you get an answer.

Another blogger linked to a Madonna video the other day. I often wonder if she did not wear cone's shaped bras, would we think she was more of an important artist.

Of course, I could easily Google Madonna to see 12 little-known-facts about the singer/artist in two minutes. Oh, and I could also see her videos, most of them. If it were still 1978 I would spend several hours in a library, not see any videos and perhaps find some of the same facts. Maybe.

I don't think we fully appreciate this.

Book-Reading Ideas

2009-05-21T01:36:00.002-05:00

Those who have been reading my blog for some time know that I love to read. I think a lot of bloggers are readers. I mean, most are would-be authors. Even if they only tell themselves in the darkness of their rooms. And people who want to write generally like reading as well. Some are narcissists and just want to put their "important thoughts" to paper, but most read.

I just finished reading a book, written in the 60s. It took a bit longer to read for a few reasons – (1) I was in the middle of three books and was spending my time divided between the books; (2) the book literally took my breath away as I was reading it – I think I was inhaling the pages (literally, not figuratively). I wish the books were made with better paper; (3) with great literature, I like to really have the words and phrases dance around in my head. I don't mind spending the time on a good book.

There are some great books I have not read. For instance, I want to read Ulysses (James Joyce). The book was written between 1918 and 1920 (it appeared in a periodical; too lazy to look up the name of it). The book is a modern-day Homer's Odyssey. I first was curious about the book after seeing it prominently displayed in Godspell. My favorite part of Godspell is one song. [Robin Lamont sings this song.] When I was younger, I wanted to be part of the 60s (before I really knew that drugs were involved in the 60s). Anyway, even though Ulysses was written so long ago, I envision the book as part of the 60s.

I also wanted to read All the King's Men (Robert Penn Warren). Again, I think of this book as read by people in the 1960s, but it was written in the 40s. Many think the main character was based on Huey P. Long, colorful governor of Louisiana, something the author always denied.

Every time I see a book in a movie, I wonder about the book if I have not read it. Not sure that is normal. Same thing in a bookstore. If I see an interesting cover, I want the book. I have lots of books that I have not read, because I think to myself, "I want to read this," and there is not enough time in the day to read all of the books I want to read.

Well, I really don't want to write today. I want to read.

You've Got Moxie

2009-05-21T00:49:00.004-05:00

I was looking up some information on someone I know. She writes for Moxie Post (an independent media production company). But you go to their website, and it is nearly not there.

The first bit of news that they posted is an embedded video clip (courtesy of PETA). I am no marketing person, but this really does not look good. I mean, yeah, the vegan getting out of the pool makes one want to give up meat (get it, male genitalia = meat, she is hot, so it could turn a woman lesb . . . crap, if I have to explain it, maybe it is not that funny.) Oh, and if she looks familar, she is Alicia Silverstone (I got that from the goveg.com site). ~~I don't really know who she is - maybe the daughter in TV's Married . . . with Children.~~ She was in Clueless, The Crush (as the psycho stalker), and Blast from the Past (opposite Brendan Frasier). She was in an aerosmith video, too (thanks, Xmichra).

Fifth Grade: Let's Play Today

2009-05-20T12:54:00.000-05:00

There are days that I look outside and I wonder why I ever left fifth grade. I mean, my whole life after fifth grade has been okay, but nothing could top that year.

There were things in fifth grade that were awesome: I had my first boyfriend kiss. I had kissed other boys, but this was a boy that I wore down. At fifth grade, girls were interested in boys and boys were interested in boogers. Well, to be fair, the boy I liked was a complicated lad; he also liked fart jokes that he highlighted with the use of armpit noises.

Another awesome fifth grade fact: I was lead syncer in an all girl band. We mostly rocked to Abba songs, and there was four of us. I was Anni-Frid; Björn and Benny were girls as well. None of the boys would sing with us.

Yet another awesome fifth grade item: no pregnancy scares, no STD scares, barely any kissing. But it was all good.

A final awesome fifth grade tidbit: I could be good at science, and they guys kinda liked it. If I liked frogs, I was Ms. Popular. If I knew the state bird, I was queen of the classroom. Last time I didn't have to hide my candle under a basket.

I don't want to do my work today; I want to go outside and play.

A Closet Geek

2009-05-19T08:59:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I was told that I am a bit of a geek. And my first reaction is, "I am no geek." And then I reflected over my experiences.

When I was in high school, I took a class called "Computer Science." I don't remember much about the class, other than whatever we programmed in the class, I could do more quickly in my head. The first computer program just displayed "Hello World" on the screen. The second one printed the same phrase on a dot matrix printer. I learned about loops and how to use them to perform the same task a number of times. I also learned that I was not very good at computer programming (it was in Basic). There was one other girl in the class, and she understood computers. I am sure she is some executive in a computer-related enterprise by now. The boys in the class were very helpful. I am not sure I finished a program on my own, well, after the first program. And I am using the term program very loosely. About half of the lines of code were comments. Fairly geeky.

In college, I started using a computer as a sophomore for word processing. I knew people who would make computer cards, program and the like, but it did not interest me one bit.

I knew people in the dorms that would watch old tapes of Star Trek. That was not me. I did not get Star Trek, and I never would.

I remember going into chat room – the first one I saw my whole family was huddled around a computer, and I could not keep up with the number of conversations going on simultaneously. I think there is an art to that sort of thing, and I didn't have the talent. Plus I did not have the cash, as it cost $6/minute for access. Prodigy was the name of the service. I was exposed to this geekiness, but I did not enjoy it or really participate in it.

Fast forward to a few years ago, and I started this blog. At first, I just hung out my 20 or so erotic stories and began looking around. I had toyed with the idea of writing more erotic stories, but since I don't write them very often, the blog would be sparse.

And then I started to write.

My blog looked like any other blog, where the person involved did not know much about HTML. After a few months, I wanted to customize my blog. I had to learn about certain HTML elements. I wanted to hyperlink to other blogs, so I had to learn other HTML elements. Seems like I am getting a bit more geeky.

The thing is, I did not want to be a geek. I just needed the skills in order to make my blog look the way I wanted. A geek? Me? Nah. Although I don't mind knowing a thing or two about computers. I just don't want to attend Star Trek conventions. And the cool thing is that there were geeks before there were computers – think about building ham radios.

Can't Sleep

2009-05-18T09:42:00.000-05:00

I started writing this early in the morning – about 1:30 AM – and then drifted back off to sleep before I finished it.

I saw the following poem on a blog this morning:

Jean-Paul Sartre
Shopped at KMartre
An early-morning startre
Was good for his heartre

And the only thing I could think is "What wonderful literary artre!"

This weekend I had a few social engagements. I was making small talk with other adults, and there is something I tend to do that I need to change: I wrinkle my nose when people are reading literature I deem unworthy. I don't tell these small-talkers I disdain the literature they choose to read, but they can read it in my face. Damn nose-wrinkle. I guess I could Botox my nose and loose all feelings in my nose, but that seems a bit extreme.

I heard they are doing a remake of Footloose staring Hayden Panettiere and Chace Crawford (okay, it is a rumor). I don't remember much about the movie – except for a shirtless Patrick Swayze (or was it a sweaty Kevin Bacon). I remember the soundtrack more than the movie. Swayze was in Dirty Dancing. Duh, I can't remember my hotties anymore. Speaking of hotties, Hayden Panettiere is that vegan who can't be killed (the show called Heros; I have not been following the show, so who knows, she may even have been destructible by now). A co-worker of mine loves Heros, and I would watch so that we could talk about it. Spending an hour watching a show seems to be time ill spent, if it is only so one could converse with someone else.

I woke up from a dream about Al Qaeda. Apparent, I had special dream powers, and I was dreaming about Al Qaeda missions. It was all so very Cassandra-ish. I reported my dreams to the authorities and they laughed at me. Then the dreams came true and they started hunting me, figuring I was in on the plans. I was all screwed up though, because I was dreaming about India instead of Afghanistan.

Weird dreams. Weird thoughts.

Well, it took me nearly two hours to get to sleep. It is official, no work will I do today. I wish there was a couch in the conference room.

Random Friday #37

2009-05-15T08:30:00.005-05:00

Wasting Time
Someone sent me a link that showed some strange architectural structures. I thought they were really cool and all, but I did not want to send them to anyone else because it would look like I did not do any work all day. Son of a gun.

Don't Say Anything Bad about the Kids
Someone at my work is an idiot. There are very few things that you should not say to another human being. Calling someone's kids a brat is one of them. My co-worker does not understand the concept. In her own words, "I don't know why my neighbor won't speak to me. I mentioned in passing that her child is a bit of a brat, and she has not spoken to me since." I don't say bad things about people's spouses because I figure, if they sleep with them, they probably are a bit protective of them. But someone's own children? I think we are programmed to smite people who say stuff about our children. So why in the world would you call a child a brat, even if they are exhibiting brattish tendencies. (Yeah, brattish is probably not a word, but it should be.)

I give children a pass on most things. If they are brats, the parents probably had a bunch to do about it (I learned that from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a ground-breaking film on child-rearing). Also, aren't children trying to figure out the world? I mean, if I found some high schooler peeing in my yard because they were drunk, I might chuckle. I would not turn the hose on them. And if I knew their parents, I might make a remark that I did not need any weed killer in the yard at this time (or is urine a fertilizer, I really don't know). Why complain about kids when adults, after years more training, do stupid stuff all of the time? Oh, yeah, adults can hire lawyers.

Miss California News Conference
I heard a snip-it from the Miss California news conference the other day, and it sounded like a Saturday Night Live skit. Reviewing the clip made it appear moreso like a skit. A poorly worded skit, but a skit nonetheless. And the kicker, she will earn a hell of a lot more than I earn this year.

Slave Leia Appreciation Society
Bonniegrrl said the following on Twitter: "Slave Leia Appreciation Society on Flickr. You're welcome, boys (and girls!) - http://bit.ly/PAyy #starwars"

So I followed the link and saw a bunch of Princess Leahs. And I am sure that the picture above stimulated some men to think about some of these women kissing. Maybe not.

I was mildly disturbed by the use of slave in the Flickr group. Then I was concerned that

Top 10 YouTube Videos
I saw the top 10 YouTube videos. And the only one I have ever seen was the Girlfriend video by Avril Lavigne.

Onion Parody: Treasury Department Issues Recall of All US Dollars
I saw an Onion video on crappy YouTube videos, but it was not as silly/scary as the following one on the Department of the Treasury.

Happy Friday!

Haley's Heros

2009-05-14T08:30:00.006-05:00

A long time ago, I would talk about YouTube videos. It was mildly entertaining for me, and boring as hell for everyone else. Sine I write this blog for myself, I was okay with that. Right now, I only really watch a few YouTube videos, unless someone mentions one in a blog or tweet.

The other day, I found a YouTuber (sounds like a vegetable) named Haley G Hoover. She is an 18-year-old high school senior who can write. Many of her videos are high school quality, with ideas that high schoolers have. There is a series of videos, however, that I found really entertaining:

Annoyances and Grammar Fairies (1-5)
More Annoyances (6-10)
Annoyances 11-15
Annoyances 16-20
Annoyances 21-25
Annoyances 26-30

There are a few others that are well-done. It is the ~~writing~~ script, more than anything, that makes her videos good.

She has a bunch of friends who also make videos. I think the common denominator is that they are all about the same age, they read Harry Potter, and they are part of the "in crowd" of YouTube. The rest of the group may be entertaining to teenagers, but they aren't as talented as she is.

I sort of paused, and nearly deleted this blog entry for a couple of reasons: (1) It is boring as hell; see above, and (2) Haley is popular. I have an aversion to anything popular.

I didn't really want to read the Harry Potter books originally because they were popular. Actually, when I read the first one, I thought to myself, "Why is this book so special?" JK Rowling, in my humble opinion, really developed as a writer before our eyes. The forth book was so much better than the first three. I mean, the first three books were good – they had a really good story. But the forth through seventh books - better literature.

And I have seen discussions about who was a better writer, JRR Tolkein or JK Rowling. I mean, I can understand the comparison: they both are known by letters (JK and JRR), not their first and middle names, they both are English, the both started a resurgence in a genre of literature. Lots of similarities. Tolkein was a professor at Oxford, an expert in language. He did real research, and he wrote some wonderful books. He even developed a few languages for his books. The difference I can see is that JK Rowling weaves good stories, but much of what she writes about is borrowed from other people's stories. Well, it doesn't really matter who is a more gifted author. Tolkein will probably never be as popular as Rowling; his work is a bit more work to read.

Now I am just rambling.

If you are inclined, view Haley. I think there is a bit of poetry in her words. I like how she constructs sentences, and how things relate. She had the heart of an author.

All Twittered Out

2009-05-13T06:40:00.002-05:00

When I started on Twitter, I had a handful of friends, most of which I know from my blog. Either I knew they tweeted so I started following them, or they followed me which clued me into following them. That brought me up to seven or eight friends.

I also would follow a blogger a while back. She blogged, then she started creating YouTube videos. She was a stripper – er, exotic dancer. Her life was interesting. Ever since I was in college, I began to notice train wrecks; people whose lives seem more interesting than mine because of things they are trying to overcome. A friend-of-a-friend stripped her way through college. Well, that's not entirely accurate. She started stripping because she needed textbook money. And the money was crazy good. So she dropped classes to strip on more nights. Pretty soon she dropped out, was doing drugs, and I lost touch with her. She had some issues – an abusive step-father, and we sort of thought there was a sexual component to their relationship. Just guess work.

Anyway, this stripper reminds me of her, so I started following her and one of her friends.

Then I started adding famous people.

LeVar Burton
Mandy Moore
Ryan Adams
Jamie Candiloro

Okay, some are not that famous.

Then I thought, I am not sure I need LeVar Burton. I am not a rabid Star Trek fan (when I originally wrote this, I wrote "Star Wars"; talk about a non-fan), I just think he is cute. And then I thought should I twitforce (twit-divorce) him? But really, since I added him only a day ago when I was adding a bunch, is it a twitullmant (twit-annulment) because of the duration? Adding twit before another word is nearly as irritating as adding an "I" before a word. Oh, but I did add Wil Wheaton.

Melissa Gilbert
Kirsty Alley
Lucy Lawless
Lili Wilkinson

I have been reading the tweets of Melissa Gilbert. I knew she played Laura Engles on Little House on the Prarie, but I wanted to know a bit more about her, Here is what I found on Wikipedia: When she was 17, Melissa made the television version of the movie, Splendor in the Grass. She lost her virginity to her co-star Cyril O'Reilly on the last day of filming.⁵ And the footnote tells us that this fact was from E! Entertainment "Celebrity Profile:Melissa Gilbert," 1997.

John Green
Stephen Fry
Judith Orloff

Then there are the authors. That makes sense. They write books, songs, stories once phrase at a time. Typing 140 characters would be a bit of a joy. I have still not figured out twitter. But I have tweeted 50 or so times. So I have some experience tweeting. I still don't get it, but I participate in it when I am bored. Or when I want to eavesdrop on celebrities, or faux celebrities. If you are a regular reader and also tweet, let me know in the comments. I would love to eavesdrop on your tweets.

Things Left Unsaid

2009-05-12T08:30:00.000-05:00

From what I can tell, Jasmine wrote something last year, an exercise to write down 10 things she wished she could say to people in her life. Lots of people started doing this, and I think Grant's post is the funniest (read: best). I have been toying with the idea of doing something similar – but the difference is that I don't want to say these things. Words can be powerful; they can hurt. And I just don't want to hurt people.

1. You treat your husband like shit; I'd trade husbands straight up.
2. I make fun you when you play the lottery, but when the jackpot gets high, I throw my money away, too.
3. Street vendor, when is the last time you washed your hands?
4. I can tell when you are lying to me. Don't you realize how transparent you are?
5. I want to go back to college.
6. I would like to spend two hours a night and just write for myself.
7. Just once, when I go to the gym, I would like to ditch the workout and catch a movie instead.
8. I bitch about my parents, but after hearing others stories, I really shouldn't complain.
9. I love your children, but they can be real brats sometimes.
10. I could tell you why you are wrong, but that would make me look like a bitch.

I really believe that certain things should remain unsaid.

Last Friday's Lunch

2009-05-11T08:30:00.001-05:00

I almost did not tweet on this, and I really don't think writing a post about this will be good for me. You see, I don't want you to think I am a geek. Sure, I have learned a bit about HTML because I blog. But I am not a geek.

Big breath.

Friday at lunch, I saw Star Trek. I did not tell my boss, but I did say that the lunch might go a bit long. I did not particularly want to see Star Trek. I just wanted to rebel a bit, and sneaking out to a movie seemed like a rebellion that was not too terribly risky.

And you know, I did not really want to see the movie. I wanted to watch 17 Again, but amazingly, that movie is nearly done. At least, there was not a showing when I could take "lunch". But after watching it, I was glad I saw it (and probably not for the reasons you would guess).

But before we get into the movie, I want to talk about being bad. When I was in my twenties, I occasionally would leave work and watch movies. Well, I did this twice. I can't remember the movies, but I remember the feeling I had when watching them. I was scared that my boss would find out and fire me. So the entire time I was watching the movie, stealing time from my bosses, I could not enjoy myself.

Well, many years had gone by and I did not steal time from my bosses. I did not want to feel that way ever again, but something reminded me about the experience the other day. And I wondered if I had changed. Having worked for years, I thought perhaps my mindset, my person changed. And I had to know.

Back to the movie. I have not seen a Star Trek movie before, and from what I have read, the only good Star Trek movie is possibly The Wrath of Khan. I don't know if that is true or not, because I don't really care about Star Trek. I can't get through an original episode without yawning, and some of the spin-offs have me confused (Deep Space Nine). I loved "Next Generation", but I had a thing for the captain, the android and the guy with the visor. Plus the episodes were entertaining.

I watched the new Star Trek movie, and I enjoyed myself, but not because of the movie. I liked hearing the audience's reaction to the movie. One of the characters would say something, and then I would hear a geeky gasp, or a clap, or some other reaction. I sat next to a couple (the theater was packed), and the woman made noises that were darned near orgasm noises at one point in the movie.

Me, I had no connection with any of the characters. I mean, one of the characters I recognized as the "In Search Of" narrator – the old Spock character. But I did not see the Price Line guy in the movie, even though there were plenty of aliens he could have bedded.

The reviews of the movie were very positive, and if I was watching the movie without an audience, I might have left. It did little for me. Well, I wonder if I still have that part of me who does not want to get caught taking in a movie during work hours. Could be. I enjoyed myself, mostly because of how Trekkies reacted to the movie. Or is that Trekkers? Some people take Star Trek way too seriously – you will recognize them because they have schematics of the different ships in their rooms, presumably near a package of condoms whose expiration date is was in the last decade. And they can probably tell you the star date for the expiration date as well.

I am working on a new theory about the woman who was making orgasm sounds. Hmmmmm.

Random Friday #36

2009-05-08T08:30:00.002-05:00

Texts from Last Night
Delightfully Inappropriate mentioned Texts from Last Night, a site where people can post their drunk while texting texts. The funniest I saw was this text message: "I need to shower the guilt off of my thighs." A funny diversion for when you want to waste time on the Internet. I mean, besides wasting time on reading my stuff.

J-bunnies and Images
I laughed at a bunny quote on Grant's site, was going to share something j-bunny related, but then read Jay's comment and I was a tad disturbed. In Jay's comment, he saw the picture of a hot j-bunny, presumably became aroused, and then thought of Grant? Something is off here. I can't quite place my finger on what is off, but something is off.

Oh, J-Bunny-related thought is back in my head (J-bunny plus something being off). I was at the Jacksonville Zoo (nearest zoo to me is in FL, not GA), I saw a hot Asian couple - looked very European in their dress and both were so attractive. And then she speaks with a completely Georgia accent. My fantasy of sharing her with her husband completely vanished at that point. It was like watching a low-budget movie, shot in Asia, and then dubbed in the US by b-movie-type Atlanta talent.

I don't know why I expected some Asian-type accent, but I did. I felt a bit lookist, a bit racist at the assumption, and it ruined the zoo for me. By talking about j-bunnies, I guess I could grace this post with a gratuitous picture of a j-bunny, but I am a bit lazy today. Head over to Grant's site if you want to see a j-bunny (or read really funny blog entries).

Not Leaving Comments
I read a blog the other day that said, "… the stupid internet was down all damn day." I was about to leave a smart-arse comment (that is a smart ass comment with words spelled with additional us, like colour) about the Internet not really being down all day (there would be a big article in the print media about it, probably suggesting you keep getting your paper the next time the Internet is down). The person's internet connection was down. I did not make the comment because: (1) I did not want to appear like a smart-arse, and (2) I did not want to leave incriminating evidence that I read her blog. For heaven's sake, she wrote the phrase, "poop ear." Reading her was really grating on me.

Perez Hilton
Perez Hilton is a minor celebrity. There was something Miss-America-related in the news, and he was in the middle of it. He got all sorts of press for making a dumb girl look dumb. I know some people will say it was the answer she gave, but because she was thrown and paused and such, I think it was how she answered the question that was off. I thought all of the answers to the Miss America pageant involved world peace in some way or another. If she would have said, "I am in favor of world peace," and did not even talk about marriage in her answer, she would be Miss America. Of course, no one would know who she is. Now, she is second place and can probably broker a career in the public eye. And we still are saying she lost. Hmmmmm.

Things Left Unsaid
From what I can tell, Jasmine wrote something last year, an exercise to write down 10 things she wished she could say to people in her life. Lots of people started doing this, and I think Grant's post is the funniest (read: best). I have been toying with the idea of doing something similar – but the difference is that I don't want to say these things. Words can be powerful; they can hurt. And I just don't want to hurt people.

Well, this has been a long week. I think a bath is in my future.

Desperately Seeking Leesa

2009-05-07T08:30:00.001-05:00

How do people find me? Search engines bring more people to my blog than anything. Some recent searches:

queen of spades + sex
This brought them to a blog entry I forgot about writing. The blog entry was called Queen of Spades, and it is a bit naughty. I really only wanted to help out couples with a suggestion.

pee stories
Okay, I am officially going to hell. When you type in "pee stories" into Google, I am on the first page today.

37A Wadlow
In the Swedish Google, if you type in this, I have a blog entry that is actually the first blog entry. The blog entry concerns Robert Wadow, tallest man in the world and his size 37A shoes. Who types this in a search engine (in Sweden)?

kicesie blog
Kicesie is a YouTube blogger from Louisiana. She has a channel that talks about sex. She is a bit hot and clinical, and I wrote something about her a long time ago. When you search this, after you get her blog and YouTube channel, you get my blog. Not sure why I am so high up on the list. And the search engine which was used was some Nordic language. Not sure what it is, exactly.

"i continue to pee"
I must write a lot about peeing. And I am a bit embarrassed that so many people reach me because of my urinary posts.

cum museum
What can I tell you? I am some classy writer. Actually, in a post, I wrote: "I mean, if there was a museum with cum stains that looked like famous people, how many of us would want to see it and pick up some postcards?" I do not operate a cum museum out of my home.

celebrity pinatas
Yeah, I am not really sure about this one. I don't know why people would search it, or why I was found.

diapers planting shrubs
Ditto; see above.

college slut stories
What I am known for, I suppose. I mean, I am married and now faithful. If I am going to write a little smut, I am going to have to figure out a source for the information, right? And college was so experimental.

Giant Gay Repellent Umbrella
This sounds worse than it is. The site is some YouTube spoof commercial. It looks professionally done. Apparently I made a comment on the site and some search engine catalogs comments as well as sites.

What to Say When Someone Dies
This last one is some ironic joke. I wrote a blog entry once called What Not To Say When Someone Dies. So someone looking at the right thing to say will come across a blog entry full of the wrong things to say.

Oh, and I had to use a search engine to think of Desperately Seeking Susan. I knew Madonna was in the movie, but I could not remember the name. I thought the movie had searching in the title, and thought it would make a great blog title. And I did not want to do a play on Searching for Bobby Fisher. And then I saw a movie, Searching For Wooden Watermelons. Now I have a movie I want to see. Darned search engine. It brings people to my blog, and it also brings me to the randomness of finding an independent film I want to see.

Animal Rights

2009-05-06T09:07:00.003-05:00

A few months ago, someone in Atlanta was suing a vet for the loss of their dog (a 13-year-old miniature Schnauzer) – I think they wanted $75K because of vet malpractice. I remember the age of the dog because I thought to myself when I heard about it, "Thirteen is a very unlucky number."

My second thought, of course, was "How long to miniature Schnauzer's live?" About 15 years, came the answer from a trusted internet site. Sounds about right to me. The law generally treats dogs as property, not people. When I purchase a tire (a piece of property) and they have to replace it, they do some calculation that takes into account the benefit I have already had from the property. If you do so with an animal, such as this Atlanta dog, I get the whole life (all 15 years) being worth $562,500. My husband does not have that much insurance on his head, and his life, I don't think, is 13/15th used up.

And I know, lots of people will call me callous. But even actuaries calculate how much human lives are worth. I don't think calculating the same value for animal lives is any worse.

I don't really know where I fall when it comes to animal rights.

Fish
I have fish, which are animals. Placing fish in an aquarium seems cruel to me, but fish don't have much of a brain. I wouldn't be happy when I ate in the same water I crapped in. But that's is just me. Fish don't seem to mind. Fish seem to be towards the "decorations end" of the animal spectrum. You don't want to cruelly kill them, but when people dispose of them by flushing them down the toilet, that sort of defines their pecking order.

Reptiles
Snakes, lizards, turtles, those sorts of animals. I put them in a category slightly above fish. You can't dispose of them as easily as fish (no quick flush). And you can hold many of these animals (although I would not be that excited about holding a snake). And, sorry Grant, I could not find a picture of bikini-clad Tia Carrere holding an anaconda in the Wayne's World movie.

Rabbits
I don't think we should be testing make-up on rabbits. It seems cruel. But I have had a rabbit dish once (I did not know it was rabbit originally), and it was good. Taste like chicken. Sure, people from Georgia shoot rabbits that are eating their flowers (and then, bonus, have something for dinner). I never got while people would want an animal that routinely ate their own poop. As I remember from high school biology, wild rabbits eat grass in the morning, poop in a pile, and eat their own poop in the afternoon. Apparently they have bacteria that helps break down the grass and whatever, then they digest more stuff. So when people buy rabbit food, it is basically partially digested grass. Okay, maybe that is not right, but it sounds a bit silly.

Ferrets
I think ferrets are more like elongated rats that people take care of. These animals make me nervous.

Dogs and Cats
I don't own a dog or cat. I just don't want to grieve every ten or so years. I have read that they do certain experiments on dogs and cats, and I wonder what the cost is. I have not really figured that out. I think it is more impactful for all dog and cat owners to neuter or spade their pet. Perhaps Bob Barker knew what he was talking about – it probably will cause far less animal rights violations (think of the pound and how animals are treated there; how many are put to sleep).

Oh, this blog entry went in a whole different direction. I am just scribbling today.

Dom DeLuise Dies

2009-05-05T11:18:00.004-05:00

For those looking for typical Leesa, go down to Climbing Inside of One's Skin.

Lucy Lawless wrote that Dom DeLuise died at age 75. She tweeted MelissaEGilbert (and I looked it up to check it out).

First time Twitter seemed to add anything other than entertainment value.

Climbing Inside of One's Skin

2009-05-05T05:33:00.000-05:00

I had a good friend who lost a child two weeks before the child was due. It has been probably 35 years (I am just guessing), but it is painful for her to this day. The last week of her pregnancy was the worst part - the child was already dead inside her, and when she went out of the house, people would ask about the due date. The due date was also going to be the death date for her baby. I could not imagine her feeling when that question was asked. She always says she has three children, two are grown, one died as a child.

Every once in a while, I talk to someone who has lost a child – either at childbirth or after carrying that child for many months. And although the words may be different, one story is the same: all say that someone will minimize the death – say that at least the child was not older, with more memories. Then it would be more painful.

Now I am not going to debate whether it is more painful to lose a child at childbirth, at ten years or at twenty years – I have no idea how you would be able to quantify such pain. But I find it fascinating that people who have no experience with children dying will offer up advice that minimizes someone's pain. What are they thinking?

I am reminded by something that Atticus Finch said: "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it." (Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird)

But I have heard others say that you can't judge them until you walk in their shoes. And I don't really get it. I mean, we don't ask murderers to be judges in the courtroom, because certainly having someone who has committed the crime would have more information about how the defendant was feeling. So I am not a big believer in "can't judge me until you walk in my shoes." One of the disadvantages of being a Christian is that we are taught not to judge. That it is God's role. All about casting the first stone. Well, there are other disadvantages to being Christian – but I don't think I am supposed to be highlighting problems with the Church. Martin Luther did that, and the Catholic Church tried to hunt him down.

Anyway, I was just thinking about how insensitive people can be on topics that scream for people to be sensitive to them. Oh, and I guess I was judging those people because I am a piss-poor Christian.

2 Minute Observation about YouTube

2009-05-04T22:18:00.003-05:00

I was watching Natalie's video tonight, and I noticed three things:

1. She had 335 views in the first hour that the video was uploaded.
2. She had 1,571 ratings.
3. She had 1,674 comments.

Looks like something has gone haywire – why would only 335 people watch the video, but there were many more comments? I smell a hacker.

The Rebirth of Leesa's Mailbag: Issue 7

2009-05-04T06:53:00.002-05:00

As you may know, I started a feature called Leesa's Mailbag. Well, Leesa's Mailbag was not a huge success because perhaps my readers are not twisted psycho types.

Hi “Leesa”:

You are welcome to post part of this, if you wish, for your mailbag episodes, but I wonder if you can offer some advice. I believe you have suffered stalkers on your blog. I have “attracted” a couple of anonymous haters to mine. I already moderate comments, so the blog does not get cluttered with irrelevant bile. Have you any “geeky” tips for divining their identity? Making it more restricted simply drives them to create null Google accounts.

Thanks
acuity todos

Leesa's Answer: You are correct; I have had a few stalkers. At first, I was horrified that people would stalk me. I felt violated and angry. I think that is how stalkers want us to feel. I answered in anger, and the stalking continued. In short, the stalker was controlling me; she was winning.

I then took a different approach. I decided to not really care too terribly much. But by me not caring, I was actually making fun of the stalker, giving the stalker lines in my blog. I think that was a mistake as well. I think she enjoyed the attention.

In one case, I knew who the stalker was and I sort of called her out. I mentioned a few facts particular to the stalker. She did not read that post. Eventually I think she read it and it scared her and she left.

With another stalker, as soon as I ignored him, he left. Well, it took a week or two, but he left. He got bored with my blog and my non-answering his comments. That is probably the best approach to take, but it is not as much fun as antagonizing the stalker.

Oh, and I can understand you wanting to stop blogging, wondering what the point to the whole thing is. I have been there myself, and I don't know if you are doing the right thing. I always enjoyed your blog, thinking I was living in your little paradise when I visited the blog. I blog for myself and I am fortunate to have a few people reading me. If no one read, perhaps I would pull up stakes myself (I hope not, but you never know).

Dear Leesa,

I keep getting messages from MyLife (formerly Classmates.com) saying that I am popular, but when I open the email, they say that no one has sent me a message in more than a year. What is going on here?

Sign me,
Confused but Popular

Leesa's Answer:
Dear Confused but Popular,

Did it ever occur to you that you are confused but not popular with loser former classmates? I mean, I believe the site gets paid when you sign up for the site. Perhaps they are also suggesting that you become a gold member in order to retrieve your non-messages or connect with the former classmates who similarly sign up for the service. I signed up for it once and noticed three types of people active on the site: (1) Guys that did not fuck me in high school but want the chance now that we are 20 years older, and not in as good of shape, (2) People who just like people; bubbly personalities who want to re-live the high school experience, and (3) Divorced women who are looking for husband number 2.

Yeah, I want to know what my first boyfriend is doing now. But if he is married, I don't want to upset his wife by asking about him. My husband had his first girlfriend contact him, and I went a bit ballistic. I said I was never the jealous type, and sometimes you don't know until you are tested.

If you have a spare $15 or $100 for the year, you can sign up (I am guessing about the prices). Otherwise, I would delete the message. People you think about will be cooler when you don't know what really happened to them.

Write Me
Please contribute to the questions asked on "Leesa's Mailbag." Over the last few years, people have emailed me with questions, and I have answered them on an individual basis. Now, I think I will answer them on a blog entry. I will do it on Fridays when I have enough questions to cobble together a post. Sort of an Ann Landers with attitude. Just write to the following email address:

Also, let me know if you want to be acknowledged or anonymous. Makes no difference to me. For those who use the comments section to ask a question, I will assume those are public posts.

Random Friday #35

2009-05-01T08:30:00.005-05:00

On Randomness
Grant has a new feature – TTM. Apparently your commenters don't understand randomness. There are clusters in random events, and it is not surprising that J-bunnies are clustered on your site. Thanks for reminding us about randomness. Or is this an effort to remind me that my last random post was not very random at all (it was all about watching videos).

Trapped in Songs
Generally, I ~~hate~~ dislike playlists on blogs. There have been several blogs that I don't read because of their playlists. I listen to music when reading blogs and the embedded playlists make the music a cacophony of notes. Not real pleasant. But I get lost in Under the Influence's playlist. I was listening to Torn Blue Foam Couch by Grand Archives, and after another ten minutes of songs, I reminded myself that I really needed to get back to work. I was lost in the songs. I really like her writing-style and personality, and initially overlooked the music on her blog while drinking in the posts. Now when my mood is right, I enjoy the music. Crap, I don't want to change any of my opinions about anything, but it looks like occasionally, embedded music has merit. Crap, I don't want to change.

On Change
I once saw a shirt that read, "Change is good. You go first." I like the sentiment of that shirt.

Money
I never thought money was very important, but then I see the latest Diane von Furstenberg collection (some of the dresses are soooooooooooo wonderful, but at $400 or more, they better be). Or notice that the headphones I gravitate to at the store are manufactured by a company I have never heard of, and they cost $150. Money may not be able to buy happiness, but you can look damn cute while enjoying your

Word Order Matters
There is a difference between "My sister is fucking an idiot" and "My fucking sister is an idiot." Both sentences contain the same words but the meanings are completely different. I don't like to curse while writing or speaking (but I curse in my head). And I thought this illustration of how word order matters is more clear without using @#*(&%$*(@.

Huh?
Someone tweeted about a wind-up vibrator. Other than giving them as gag gifts at bridal showers, who needs this? What is wrong with a finger and a little lube?

May Day
Today is May Day (International Workers' Day). I went to the Hoops and Yoyo website to find a digital card to celebrate the holiday, but I guess communist holidays are not real popular card giving occasions. Sure, there are different May Day celebrations – the most common of which is celebrated by dancing around the May Pole, a not so subtle phallic symbol reminding us women that this has been a long winter, and now we need to get busy and start making babies. I did not see if Hoops and Yoyo had a baby-making-may-pole-dancing-huge-penis card. But I hope to get one in the mail from my mother-in-law.

Swine Flu
I read in Deb's informative blog, that "[t]he food and drug administration is asking for people to address the swine flu as “H1N1”, because of it’s impact on the consumption and market of pork products." Can you imagine you getting diagnoses with H1N1 from the doctor's office and not knowing what you have?

Have a H1N1-free day!

Moving the Needle

2009-04-30T08:50:00.000-05:00

I wrote today's post (below) last night. And as I wrote it, I knew it sucked. I felt that I needed to write it, but it sucked, nonetheless. It reminded me about a term that is used in the radio business, "moving the needle."

I heard this term on a radio show, a host who did not want people to purchase his show if it was purchased "just to move the needle." Meaning purchasing it just to put on a time where it was just to fill air, you know, like moving the needles of audio equipment (picture old-fashioned equalizers, but newer and much, much more expensive).

So my post was just to have a post for today. Sorry for that. You can scroll down and read the post if you must. But it sucked. Er, perhaps that's not the best way to hype my blog. I have never been much of a marketer.

On unrelated news, I have been tweeting on twitter. And I can see the addictive nature of it. Perhaps I will post about it.

I saw a tweet by johncmayer20, and one of his tweets, "seconds to remember... http://tinyurl.com/dgsxdy". John Mayer is a musician – and I guess most of you knew that. I didn't. When I was in college, I knew a few semi-famous musicians. All of them were talented, self-absorbed assholes. I prefer writers. But this guy seems okay, whoever he is.

Day 101

2009-04-30T08:30:00.000-05:00

There have been lots of people talking about the president's first 100 days. And from what I have seen, there is not a consensus on how President Obama has done. Here are some of my thoughts. Truth-be-told, I am more of a libertarian than anything, but I really want any president to do well. I just don't get democrats or republicans wanting the other side's president to fail once he/she takes office.

Obama is really popular. Four of the last six presidents has similar approval ratings – between 62 and 67%. That makes sense. I mean, I doubt the approval ratings could get much better than that. But this is the honeymoon period, where things should be going well.

100 days is not a long time for a party to do much. Let's take a gander at what Obama has done:

$787 billion economic stimulus package. I really wanted the government to spend on infrastructure. And originally, this was supposed to be an infrastructure bill. Roughly 100B of the bill is for infrastructure. My reasoning: if we are going to spend boat-loads of money, let's spend it on things that will be around for 100 years. A whole lot better than how the $800B was spent as Bush was leaving office. I am still saddened that it was not all infrastructures.

Non-concentrated large initiatives. One thing that bothers me is that Obama wants to spend a lot more on education, renewable energy and expanding health care. He wants to do this while shrinking the national debt. Well, it can't be done. I don't want expanded healthcare coverage – we already cover most of the poor people (with Medicaid) and a portion of the old people. I am neither poor nor old, and I say "don't cover me." I just want Obama to focus on the economy and ending the Iraq War. I think education and healthcare spending should be more local, and it is really expensive. Focus, Obama, focus.

Terrorizing New York City. I saw deb twitter and write about how there was a 747 and fighter jet buzzing NYC for a photo op. Although Obama didn't know anything about it, his statement disturbed me.

Political Appointments. One of the first things that any president does is make a bunch of appointments. Obama's appointments have been disappointing, mostly because his team picked a bunch of tax cheats. I mean, not to have someone heading the Department of Health and Human Services when the swine flu outbreak is in the news. Not a good thing.

Talk Shows. The Tonight Show was a disaster for two reasons: (1) he made a remark that appeared to slight mentally/physically challenged people, and (2) he had nothing to gain really from appearing on the show.

Commander-in-Chief. Obama is moving to take troops from Iraq, doubt troops in Afghanistan (where terrorists are actually living/training), and close the Guantanamo Bay detention center. I think this is a win for Obama.

I don't think Obama had a terrible first 100 days (Clinton did), but it was not terrific, either. If only he didn't spend like a drunk sailor on shore leave (you know, like George W Bush). Then I would be a bit more positive.

If I had to give him a grade, it would be an "incomplete." If pressed for a letter grade, perhaps a C+. What kinds of grades would you give him?

Leesa's Cube

2009-04-29T06:12:00.001-05:00

The other day, I was reading one of Lauren's posts concerning a psychology game. You picture a cube . . . blah . . . blah . . . blah. You want to have sex with your psychologist . . . blah . . . blah . . . blah.

No, it is not like that at all. Hold on, let me go back and read the links - and pray that they make sense with what I want to write about today. If they don't make sense, I guess I will have to adjust what I will say (highly unlikely) or remove the hyperlink and make a bunch of stuff up (cough, cough).

Okay, I read the cube routine paper. And it reminds me of what I would think would be in those "How to Pick Up Women" books. You know, while it has never occurred to me to actually find one of those books, if I ran across a book entitled, "How Straight Women Pick Up Lesbians" I would buy the book. Not to read it and use it, per se, but because I would be curious as to the contents of the book. I mean, if Grant wrote "An Idiots Guide to Raising Atomic Chickens^TM", I would read it, but I would not ever think of raising those birds.

Oh, a bit off what I meant to write about.

When I was in high school, I took a touchy feely class as a senior. It was taught by a teacher who never really left her hippie days. We wrote affirmation notes to each other to help build self esteem. We did trust exercises. And we did some psychology test where she described in an open-ended way us being somewhere, and we described it, described our actions.

I don't remember the test, but I am going to try and find it.

The only thing I do remember was one of the answers I gave (which is similar to the cube test in some ways) was shockingly accurate. The one question/answer I have remember asked us to describe a body of water and how we interacted with the body of water.

I described a very still and peaceful lake. The lake had not a ripple on its surface. It was so peaceful, so beautiful, so awe-inspiring. I was a bit surprised that there were no ducks in the lake, no fish striking the surface, no dragonflies grazing its calmness. And I sat by that lake and was completely in awe of the stillness, the beauty.

After we finished writing our answers, we would share them with the group, and the teacher would interpret them. The water part of the test was the bit about sex. Well, when the teacher got to mine, she said this indicated that I was a virgin, that though I was interested in sex, I had not experienced it. I was not afraid of it, but that it would be perhaps a more spiritual experience once I was involved with someone intimately.

Her description nailed where I was in my life sexually (I guess, years later, the body of water would be choppy, with a water spout working its way all over the lake). I was a bit mortified because there was a guy in the class I really liked (he had no idea), plus one of the hottest guys in school (he showed me more attention after this, probably because he wanted another virgin; he was hot and very sexually active).

Interesting how reading about "The Cube Routine" can bring back memories buried for so long.

Real Geniuses

2009-04-28T06:10:00.001-05:00

Someone tweeted about this video the other day. The videos title is "2 Year Old Genius - Part 1 (World Capitals)". One of the comments made on the video was "prodigy, not a genius. a prodigy is someone who learns abnormally fast the things that are already known, a genius discovers new things." I am not going to talk about the difference between prodigy and geniuses – the commenter sort of nailed it in a sentence.

Here is what I thought was fascinating – lots of comments about how amazing this child is. But I wonder, if the child was able to match football teams with their cities, or pictures of dinosaurs with their names, would we be as impressed? Probably not. I have seen 2-year-olds do both things, and my reaction is "how cute." A child does this with country capitals and we are amazed. Similarly, if he were to do this with countries and currencies, we would think he was a genius, or intelligent or gifted. All of these words mean something different, but in America, we see them as sort of synonyms.

We value some information – country and state capitals (the 2-year-old can nail both Jeopardy categories), and other information – sports teams associated with mascots, for instance – we think of as more trivial.

If we had a child in school that was flunking a subject, we would rather they flunk art than English, social studies rather than math. And perhaps this has to do with how this information may help us in our future. Though I am a little fuzzy on how knowing state capitals will help us in business.

I also remember that when I was in elementary school, if a girl did not do well in English (I think it was called reading or language arts, actually), you could see panic on the teacher's faces. If a boy fell behind in reading, it was a bit more acceptable. Similarly if a girl did not do well in science, that was okay as well. And, actually, doing too well in science was social suicide. That was a boy's class.

In school, doing well did not automatically mean that you would do well in the "real world." I mean, the construct for school through high school and much of college focuses on individual effort. Although, there were a few classes where team-oriented work was graded, it was rare (and not done very precisely). How many had to work on a project with a partner, and the smarter of the two did practically the whole project so that he/she would get a grade he/she was used to getting?

I like school movies, or education movies. You know, like "Lean on Me", "Good Will Hunting", "Mr. [what's his name's] Opus". These movies inspire me. I don't watch a 2-year-old reciting state capitals and get chills. Just does not do it for me. But if the child could read at two – wow, I would be impressed. Or if the child could change the oil in my car, that would be something to see. I mean, they are short enough and generally don't mind getting dirty – but I am sure people might be upset, especially if he/her made his allowance by changing the oil for neighbors. But it would be useful, no arguments there.

Life's Sauce

2009-04-27T05:48:00.001-05:00

The other night, I was eating Chinese food, and it was soooooooooooo good. I made a comment about how good the food is, and my husband said, off-handedly, "The secret is in the sauce."

Sure, there were fresh vegetables, and the chicken had no gristle. The presentation was pleasing, but the secret is in the sauce. It made the meal special.

I sometimes wonder if that is what is the secret to life in general, the secret being in the sauce. I mean, we construct our lives to be lives that work for us. Perhaps some feel that having lots of money is important – so they skimp on personal relationships (don't spend the time connecting to spouse, parents, children. Or others want a service-oriented life (think of the clergy) – so they put lots of effort into helping others. We focus on the large things (family, job, mission), just like a restaurant focuses on the different meats and vegetables.

But perhaps in life our overall outlook will color how fulfilled we are, much like the sauce can generally make even a so-so Chinese meal seem not only palatable, but something you want to order again and again.

Maybe in order to have a life worth living, one's overall outlook is important, much more important than IQ, EQ or beauty. I have known people who seem to never catch any of the breaks in life – they lose a spouse too early, are stuck in a dead-end job, or just are not that bright. But that does not seem to have as much of an influence on the quality of their life as their outlook.

I had a grandmother who figured out that the secret was in the sauce. If we were stuck in traffic for two hours because of an accident, and the mercury in the thermometer was dancing around 100, she would come up with a game to pass the time, and what could have been a disastrous car-ride seemed to be nearly as much fun as when we finally made it to the beach, where we could make sand castles, bury small children, or cool one's toes.

The secret is indeed in the sauce.

Depression

2009-04-26T22:10:00.000-05:00

I am in the midst of a bout of depression. It is not as if anyone died, or I moved, or I had to do any public speaking (I read somewhere that moving or public speaking is nearly as stressful as having a relative die. I don't know how that can be – unless they averaged some stress tests, and some people were thrilled with dead in-laws and such. Oh, I can't carry a thought in a bucket tonight.)

I had a run-in with a neighbor this week. It is not as if we are close (or want to be close, for that matter). Because I have been depressed, this little run-in seems much more important than it really is. I have not been to the gym in a week or two, so I think I may do that to see if it helps.

I have been trying really hard to post every day that I am at work – but Monday may be an exception. Unless of course, I call into work with swine flu-like symptoms. I really think it would suck to catch the swine flu. I mean, having the flu that could kill you would suck, of course, but also having to tell people you have a disease named after a pig. That has got to be embarrassing.

Well, I am doing my part by washing my hands 200 times per day. I think I need more lotion.

Random Friday #34

2009-04-24T08:30:00.006-05:00

YouTube Video
I did not know about this one, but more than 120K people have viewed it. If you want to view something interesting, watch this. I am not going to say more about it.

Barney Miller
When I was young, I never watched Barney Miller. I have not watched it since, either. It was in the background sometimes. I don't know if there are re-runs with Barney Miller, but I remember the opening song and that's about all. Some bass riff.

Beautiful Video
I saw this video recently. It is called "I Thought You Knew". I love the lyrics, the voice, the cut-out paper puppets. It is just a fun video. But the only bad thing, for Shawn Pigott, is that I liked it. That spells commercial doom.

Medical News
I heard about a man who was growing a tree in his lung. There was a picture in the article as well, and I am feeling a bit sick myself. Apparently the guy inhailed the seed, and they operated, thinking the man had cancer. I breathe day in and day out, and I wonder what makes its way to my lungs. I am really weirded out.

The Harry Situation
I was looking at a tinyurl picture (someone twitted about one, and so I followed the link), and I thought, what kinds of pictures are used by tinyurl. Well, the pic was something weird – some type of mask uploaded by a comedian. I still don't get it. Well, I found a tinyurl that linked eventually to The Harry Situation. The subtext to this blog is "the true story of the rise and fall of the show you'll never see." It looks like it is a fake show, but I can't really tell.

Twitter
I just saw a video about twitter that was so good. The best like that describes twitter: "randomly bragging at your unexceptional life." It is a bit of a knock-off of Never Ending Story, without the wolf that eats everything so that the nothing grows. Something like that. I have not seen the movie in ages (Never Ending Story). I wrote down the phrase "randomly bragging at your unexceptional life". I'll probably never use it because it sounds mean-spirited, but I like the phrase.

Oh, So Sad
You know, I was looking at what I have been writing, and instead of Random Friday, it seems a bit more like video Friday. Oh, so sad.

Happy Friday. Me, I am going to unplug the television, disconnect the Internet, and then read a book. A good book.

Shopping for Husbands

2009-04-23T08:30:00.003-05:00

I saw a story from a blogger the other day – she did not write it, but she posted it on the web. It would be considered spam if you got it in your email (I goggled a fairly unique phrase in the piece, and there were hundreds of thousands of hits).

I liked the sentiment though, so I thought I would re-write it today.

My name is Leesa, and I am a professional shopper. Instead of being good at suggesting additions to your wardrobe or saving you time and money in the grocery store, my job is to help you navigate the husband store. I know, I know, you think it is unethical to think of husband shopping, but that's what we do, isn't it. We are looking to snag the best deal possible with the assets we were given or have developed. Trouble is, we want to make but one purchase – so once we make a choice, we need to be committed to that choice.

Life has a sucky return policy. If we return our husband, we have spent some of our assets – we are older, may even be considered damaged goods. And the selection in our "size" is greatly reduced.

So here is my advice as a professional husband shopper.

When you start looking, please take your time. Try your husband on for size. I mean, date him for more than six months. This isn't because you are making him wait for something special – it is because most men can act differently for about six months, tops. Afterwards, they will reveal who they really are. So be sure to try him out for that period of time.

Some may wonder, should I try all of his features before purchasing (marrying)? If you are coyly asking if you should have sex with him, there is no easy answer to the question. Sex clouds the brain, and it clouds judgment. Before you find a good fit, this sexual feature may seem to make up for other areas in which a husband is lacking. If the husband you are trying on doesn't have a job but can flick his tongue just so to . . . well, you know what I mean, you may convince yourself that you can change him or motivate him into adding that feature (a job). Odds are, you cannot. Now that does not mean that he might add the feature once you start raising children, but it is a risk you have to take.

And there are certain features you may think are not important at all. If he has an annoying add-on feature (let's call this feature, mother-in-law-from-hell), you might think that once you purchase, you can simply discard these extraneous add-on features. You can't. Furthermore, mother-in-law-from-hell may not improve with age; it is normally quite the opposite.

So at 20, you will find lots of husband models available to you. Most will either be in school or have entry-level jobs. It is hard to distinguish from model to model. Problem is, your family (who you think are a bunch of idiots) will probably be able to help with the shopping process. But you will not let them. You think your family is dumb, has bad taste, and does not know that you can change the husband you chose. Your thinking is faulty, but you do not know it.

If you wait a few years, you will have some sort of non-buyer's remorse. Your college roommate will send you a lovely wedding invitation, alerting you that she has found a suitable model (perhaps even a model that you would have liked, or a model you tried out but passed on). Okay, if you passed on the model, you probably won't get the invitation.

So you see that you have fewer assets (not a smaller ass, perhaps one a tad bit larger) and a dwindling pool of husbands to chose from. Your cousin has her first child, and you start shopping with more resolve. You notice that some of the husbands resemble showroom models – a few scratches, a dent or two, definitely they have been tried out by others. You start to wonder if perhaps your list for your husband was a bit too restrictive.

You think perhaps you don't need someone with a Master's degree, who likes poetry, who can bench press 400 pounds and cries at romantic comedies. A steady job is still a must, but that means that you will pass on some of the exotic models – the actor who does not come into his own until he is thirty-one (Harrison Ford was in American Graffiti about that time, had mostly minor roles until then and really did not hit it big until Star Wars, 6 years later), the entrepreneur who discovers a revolutionary way to drill for oil, the crime boss that the law cannot touch. But in waiting, you also pass on the guys who can't keep a job, the people who keep getting into prison (dumb criminals), that sort of thing.

If you wait until then, perhaps you also know whether the husband is good with children, can cook on their own, can fix things around the house, that sort of thing.

If you still think you can find someone better than the men you date, then you wait. Some get snatched up by others, some get turned in but are more damaged goods. Some women start to think, "I have waited this long, I am going to wait until the perfect guy comes."

For some, it happens. For some, their time to shop passes. They may have tried on a few husband-types, but never commit to purchasing them.

You know, when I was growing up, I had a friend of the family who never married. Later in life, I thought perhaps she was lesbian, but she wasn't. She just was really picky. She was picky about a husband (never found someone good enough), picky about a job (once laid off, never worked again because no decent job ever presented itself), picky about where she lived (lived her whole life in once city, and while in that city, only in the house where her parents lived and in the apartment she had until she moved into a nursing home). She had not siblings, and we adopted her into our family. But I always thought that the reason she did not have the life she wanted was because she lacked proper decision-making ability (even ordering at a restaurant was hard for her).

I have met several people who married the first person they ever loved. Most are still with their mates, surrounded by children and in some cases grandchildren. They seem charmed, sometimes being fired from jobs, then landing on their feet with another job. Marital problems seem non-existent (how can that be?). Kids are well-adjusted. [I hate those people.]

Bottom line is that you can do everything right and still end up with a sucky choice for a husband. Or you can do everything haphazard and be eternally happy. It seems a bit random to me. I guess my suggestion as a professional husband shopper is to try before you buy, to be open to possibilities that you did not think of when playing house when you were twelve.

But once you make your choice, don't have buyer's remorse. Rip up the receipt and don't think about returning the husband unless he is truly defective (beats you mentally or physically, doesn't allow you to be who you are meant to be).

Sorry. This story does not even resemble the story I started to tell. And it is more preachy than I wanted it to be. And it is a bit girly for some of my guy readers. Perhaps I need to add something about hand grenades or jock itch or bird dogs.

Earth Day

2009-04-22T08:25:00.001-05:00

Today is Earth Day. I saw a video that highlighted an Earth Day celebration last year – could have been the previous year. People were partying at a park, listening to music, drinking whatever, eating, having a good time. Then the video showed the overflowing trash containers. When you go to a park, environmentalist or not, apparently you eat and drink in containers and don't recycle them.

So I was wondering how to spend this Earth Day. There is a movie coming out today from Disney called Earth. I don't know if watching the film is Earth friendly.

There is all of this talk about carbon footprints, a term we did not even use a decade ago. I remember hearing an article about an actress who took 3 minute showers and unplugged the power strip to her entertainment center. This was a well-known actress, and I was thinking "You live in a 10,000 square foot house and you talk about unplugging a power strip." It is about perspective, about making choices.

I understand this actress – she probably wants to feel like she is doing something good, so she takes three minute showers and unplugs a power chord.

While I am not going to downsize my house, I do look at ways to recycle. I read something that states that we should recycle about half of our trash. Well, I have been recycling like a mad woman, and my recycling is about at the 50% mark. Maybe a little less, but still more than I was doing 5 years ago.

I have a passion for a specific beverage – San Pellegrino-brand mineral water. This sparkling mineral water is bottled in Italy, so these bottles have to be sent over the Atlantic Ocean, placed on trucks, sent down an interstate, and arrive at the local supermarket. The carbon footprint for my bubble water is probably really large. I never really thought about it, but I was entertaining a friend who suggested that my drinking habit was not consistent with an environmental stance.

I still drink San Pellegrino-brand mineral water, but not daily or weekly. I drink it on occasion, but only on special occasions. I know it is a little thing, but it reduces my carbon footprint a little and it makes me feel better.

When I read about Earth Day, I sometimes think we are just deluding ourselves with some of the things we have been asked to do. Things that make us feel better but don't really change our environment. I helped clean up a patch of highway one time. I wore gloves and had one of this sticky-thingies, but the whole experience was completely gross. People are pigs, and I was cleaning up after the pigs.

I don't have an answer for Earth Day. I guess I should bid you to do a pointless thing today that makes you feel better about helping the environment. After all, isn't that the point of Earth Day? Oh, that, and profiting from the commercialization of environmentalism.

Town Hall for Hope

2009-04-21T08:30:00.005-05:00

I was on Cliff's blog the other day, and I saw what I thought was an advertisement. Normally I just ignore ads (really), but this one looked curious (I placed a similar ad in my blog entry today), and I clicked on it.

Cliff's ad was a bit smaller so I did not see Dave Ramsey's name or any particular's of the event. Then I started reading about it, and I was intrigued for two reasons: (1) I actually know who Dave Ramsey is (national radio talk show host, and I am familiar with his show), and (2) he is attempting to do social networking to promote his Town Hall for Hope (and it appears a bit amateurish).

The two ways that looked most promising for me was that he has a blog for the event, and that he has a twitter account for this as well. He also has a YouTube channel. What is really bizarre is that the numbers for most of these seems low. For instance, on his You Tube channel he has 336 Subscribers and about 16,341 Channel Views. That seems low for a national radio show guy. He has 4.5 million listeners per week, has written several best sellers, and tours frequently, addressing sold-out venues from coast to coast. But these social networking ways of reaching people . . . just not Dave's think, I think.

Now, I don't believe everything Dave Ramsey believes, but I appreciate his was of taking personal responsibility for one's actions. I can't go to the event because I have a prior engagement, but I would think attending and writing about it on your blog (if you go) would be terrific.

I have written a number of posts that are "oh, crud" type of posts. Posts of diminished independence, of we-can't-really-do-anything. Personally, I see my wealth and property values decrease (but I am not in debt so I am not going to lose my house or my car). Retirement may be delayed – but it was so far off that it may not matter. I am more concerned with a flat economy over more than ten years now, as if the markets are being manipulated so that more and more of the profit is being sucked out of the economy. I tend to be a conspiracy theorist (technical term = nutjob), but you know, if there were no conspiracies, then I wouldn't think this way. And I see our government continuing to try and spend us into prosperity (and I am the nutjob?).

I could go on and on about this, but I won't. I would, however, suggest that you look into this event because it looks positive, hopeful, and something that may matter. I just did not think the Tea Party Tax Protests (the current ones, not the ones in the 1770s) were that way at all.

If you want to attend an event, look here. Most of the venues are churches, which I love. Some people believe religious people are nutjobs that had over their personally responsibility to Christ, or a tree god, or whatever. Perhaps they may thing a bit differently if they go to this event.

Anyway, instead of me going on and on about this event (which I have been, to spite my promises to the contrary), I am clipping an article from the Savannah Morning News. It has more information about the event, written by a non-nutter.

Dave Ramsey to host 'Town Hall for Hope'

Personal-finance guru Dave Ramsey has called a meeting. And more than a million Americans are making plans to show up.

Ramsey's "Town Hall for Hope," a presentation promising straight talk about the economy - how we got here, where we're going and how it's affecting the average Joe - will be broadcast live Thursday night from LifeChurch in Oklahoma City, Okla., to some 6,000 locations across the country.

The public has been invited to attend the 90-minute presentation and question-and-answer session free of charge at a location near them - and they've been signing up in droves.

In the Savannah area alone, more than a dozen venues - most of them churches - will open their doors for the meeting, which begins at 8 p.m. Eastern time.

Across the river in South Carolina, some half-dozen churches - from Hilton Head Island to Bluffton to Beaufort - are gearing up to host the event. More than a few are already filled to capacity. A note on the Web site of LowCountry Community Church in Bluffton advises, "This venue is already packed, so please look for another location!"

Sign of the times

There was a time not so long ago when Ramsey was considered pretty radical.

After all, his suggestion that we cut up our credit cards, pay off all our debt, live below our means, save money and actually pay cash for our little luxuries seemed the complete antithesis of the American way.

"Now, I think we're beginning to realize the way we have been living in this country is part of the reason we're in this mess," said the Rev. Darwin Meighan, pastor of Live Oak Community Church on Savannah's southside.

In addition to serving as a host site for Thursday's meeting, Meighan's church is one of 26 in the area currently offering Ramsey's 13-week "Financial Peace University" course.

"The course offers a lot of hope to people who may otherwise feel overwhelmed financially," he said, adding that most of the people in the class are also planning to attend the town hall meeting.

It's a scenario that's being played out across Savannah.

At Wilmington Island Presbyterian Church, retirees Bill and Betty Grubbs signed up for FPU in the hopes it would help them learn how to hold on to more of their money.

"We're relatively comfortable, but our 401(k) now looks more like a 201(k)," Bill Grubbs said, laughing.

"We wanted to find out what else we could do."

Now 10 weeks into the course, Betty Grubbs says the couple are putting Ramsey's teaching into practice.

"We're following a budget and using cash, rather than a credit card," Betty Grubbs said.

And they'll be in the audience for Thursday's town hall meeting.

"I'm really interested in hearing what he has to say about the situation we're in today," she said.

A message of hope

At Thursday's town hall meeting, participants will hear Ramsey, a syndicated radio talk show host and New York Times bestselling author, offer his take on the economy, the recession, foreclosures and more, providing real statistics and steps to take now.

The presentation will be followed by an hour of live questions from viewers via phone, e-mail, Twitter and Facebook.

For so many Americans living in fear about the economy, Ramsey said, the meeting will provide an opportunity to sit down with people in their own communities while joining in the larger national community to talk about issues and answers.

"The solution to America's economy is to get people to believe again," he said in a statement released this week.

"It's time to connect with families to instill hope and optimism in our economy and our country. We the people are the healing agents."

About 'Town Hall for Hope'

A free, live event, Dave Ramsey's "Town Hall for Hope" - a presentation and question-and-answer session on the economy - will be broadcast live from 8-9:30 p.m. EDT Thursday from LifeChurch in Oklahoma City, Okla., to more than 1 million people in some 6,000 locations. In the Savannah area, more than 20 locations will serve as host venues.

For more information and a list of host venues in your area, go to www.townhallforhope.com.

About Dave Ramsey

A personal money management expert, Dave Ramsey is a popular national radio personality and best-selling author of "The Total Money Makeover," "Financial Peace" and "More Than Enough." He is also host of "The Dave Ramsey Show" on Fox Business Network.

Ramsey knows first-hand what financial peace means in his own life - living a true rags to riches to rags to riches story. By age 26 he had established a $4 million real estate portfolio, only to lose it by age 30. He has since rebuilt his financial life and now devotes himself full-time to helping ordinary people understand the forces behind their financial distress and how to set things right. His books and courses are designed to help people eliminate debt and credit cards, learn to budget, avoid bankruptcy, build wealth and find financial peace.

"The Dave Ramsey Show" is syndicated to more than 400 radio stations nationwide with more than 4 million weekly listeners.

Chemistry 101

2009-04-20T08:30:00.000-05:00

I love storytellers, and I was looking at a blog recently with Storyteller in the title, "Confessions of a Sultry Storyteller". She had an interesting post the other day, that started like this:

Would you rather have great chemistry or great sex? If you had to choose which would you want? I have rarely met a couple that has both.

Which leads me to wonder can one live on great chemistry alone and no sex, or great sex and no chemistry?

I am not sure how to answer the question, though I think it is an interesting question.

When I met my husband, we had chemistry. We had good (not great) sex, but the kissing. Oh, the kissing. It was chemistry.

Now that I have been married for many years (more than 10, rapidly approaching 20), I have had a number of great sexual expenses. The sex has been good, great, and forgettable. And the interesting thing is that there will be weeks that are simply great – two or three wonderful sex sessions in a week. Sex that curls the toes it is so good. And then there will be weeks of "ho hum" sex.

The chemistry is about the same. I still melt when my husband calls me at work. And at other times, I can't wait until he has a business trip so I can soak in a tub and read. His stubble on a Saturday morning can be so wonderful or irritating. It just depends.

The sex turned into great sex, perhaps because my husband learned a bit about me. Perhaps because I changed a bit. Perhaps from a variety of things.

For me, I would rather have chemistry. I know you can learn how to be a better lover, and so that even if the sex is good but not great, you can improve upon it.

Until a few years ago, I would have thought the chemistry part is not learned. It was just the way it is. I don't think that anymore. When I was cheating on my husband, our chemistry had gone. Completely gone, and I figured that's what happens after nearly a decade of marriage. We went to counseling afterwards, and the therapist said that love is an action verb. We can choose to love, and when we do loving things, we start feeling more love. And when that happens, the chemistry seems to have been rekindled. A weird thing.

I get back to the question: would you rather have great chemistry or great sex? Do we really have to choose between the two if we want both?

On a completely unrelated note, I just notice that word verification is forming many more words than it used to. To make comments on many blogs, there is a word verification. Usually it asks you to type something like this: asdfioqw. Well, I have seen a bunch of words lately. Snacky. Boogers. Riskqe (almost a word). What if aliens have started communicating through word verification and we have not paid attention? The first words were not really well-spelled. What can you expect from aliens, anyway? And not they are learning words. The next thing is sentence structure. I think an alien is using my blog to tell us that they are observing people pick their noses (a booger snack?). If I disappear, blame the aliens.

Random Friday #33

2009-04-17T08:30:00.008-05:00

Wonder Woman
I read the other day that people are tossing ideas around concerning a Wonder Woman movie. Megan Fox is one of the names being offered. I have never seen this woman before. Then I looked up the movies she is associated with. The Transformers? Is that really a movie. And the rest of the movies seem to be highlighting her body, not her acting talent (Whore, Jennifer's Body, and some yet to be filmed mermaid movie). I sort of hope Wonder Woman is better than a brunette who has a nice body.

Swing Blade
I never watched Swing Blade (this just did not occur to me - I read something about the actor from Ian earlier in the week). I think it came out at a time I had no money. And by the time I had money, I had seen so many bad BB Thorton impressions I passed on the movie.

Book Bloggers
I saw a post the other day, and it was really interesting. These book bloggers started out with about three visitors per day, and now they are more popular. My blog is not a book blog, but for the first time, I realized that there are different "blog communities." I mean, here are the different flavors I have run across:

1. Book Blogs. I just realized that recently. See above.
2. Mommy Blogs. I avoid those blogs. I am not a mommy, though I want to be one. These are just too painful, a bunch of mommy's complaining because they don't have enough time for baths and the reading of trashy novels.
3. Bitch Blogs. There are a few bloggers, more than a few, that could be called bitches. They are mostly "Sex in the City" chicks. They think they know everything, and occasionally tell the rest of us we are stupid.
4. Erotica Blogs. Self-explanatory. Is that a real word? Not the word erotica, but the other word.
5. Religious blogs. Interestingly, some of these blogs really are close-minded. Sort of like me.
6. Support blogs. People blog about sick children, cancer, all sorts of things. I even follow one of these blogs (a blogger whose child has Williams syndrome), but I do it because the woman is a terrific writer.
7. Military wife's blogs. An interesting sub-culture, and interesting to hear these women's stories.

Anyway, I guess blogging subcultures are interesting.

A Spy in the House of Love
You know, each television show has an episode name. Most of them we don't remember or even think is important. Anyway, Dollhouse's last episode name was A Spy in the House of Love. That name sounded familiar, like it was the name of a book or a play. Well, I googled it and got the name of a book by Anaïs Nin (published in 1954) with the same title. Anyway, the plot of the story seems to have been inspired by the book. Now, I don't imagine the writing for Dollhouse is very good (I doubt it will lack a season, so it will probably be on for five seasons). Perhaps the episode title is some way to play homage to Anaïs Nin. Or perhaps this is another exhibit that points to the fact that most story ideas are recycled, and we have not had an original story in a very long time. My guess is that the writers of this episode were reminded of the book after an episode of The Simpsons (The Ziff Who Came to Dinner).

Members Only
I read other people's profile in blogger, and what frustrates me to no end is that there are blogs that I can't get to because they are for invited guests only. I saw a blogger recently, let's call him Tim. He has a crapload of blogs that he is a member of, and guess what, it is by invitation only. Now I don't know if I want to be invited because I can't see the blog. They may be bad blogs, crappy blogs or good blogs. But I can't tell. Xmichra is another one with an exclusive blog. Who knows, Xmichra may be a doula and this site is full of birthing plans and videos of women having babies. That, I don't want to see. But if it is cool stuff, and let's face it, if we can't see it, it must be cool, I want to see it. I feel like I am 12 years old again, and girls aren't allowed in the treehouse.

Writer's Block
I never have writer's block, but I often have writer's mediocre output disease.

Happy Friday!

Boycotting the News

2009-04-16T08:30:00.002-05:00

I wrote a blog entry yesterday about the Tea Party Tax Protest. And I was sort of wondering – why bother? But I have to wonder if I should even pay attention to the news.

I mean, I hear about how the politicians screw things up all of the time. I get mad at them, and perhaps you do as well, but did you notice that we normally get mad at politicians that are not representing us? The Alaskans probably love Senator Stevens (he brings home the bacon), but the rest of us see him as why our government does not work, you know, because he wants to build a bridge to nowhere. So if I pay attention to the news, I get pissed at other people's representatives, and I have little recourse to get them out of office (other than training with and using a high-powered rifle, but I just don't have the time to train to because a sharpshooter; plus it is illegal and goes against the teachings of the Church, unless you are talking about the Crusades, and then you could kill infidels after torturing them and chanting from Psalms).

And if I start listening to other news, it just gets me more pissed.

I mean, here is a sample of recent news items:

From Reuters UK: U.S. agents seize suspected Nazi guard. Apparently some 89-year-old guy may have been a Nazi during WWII. And he may have been responsible for a bunch of deaths, but after the war, he moved to Cleveland, Ohio and started living the American dream. And the American Dream does not deal with marching Jews into ovens and killing them. From the article I read, he is a retired auto worker. Anyway, some judge doesn't want him going back to Germany to face charges because he is old and he probably has not killed a bunch of people recently. Oh, I am improvising a bit. Me, I want the American system to hand him over – we get all pissed when we can't prosecute people who have fled to other countries, and then we don't give people back when it is another countries turn to prosecute people for entertainment value and posturing. It just makes me mad, and I can't do anything about it (unless we go back to that high powered rifle solution above).

Then I read about some proof of massive sea monster:

Apr 3 - Just 800 miles (1287 km) from the North Pole, paleontologists believe they have found the fossilized remains of a massive sea monster that lived 150 million years ago.

Predator X -- a new species of a Pliosaur -- is said to have been the most dangerous creature to have lived under water.

The creature was about 50 feet (15 meters) long, weighed approximately 45 tonnes (40,823,000 kg), had a head ten feet (3 meters) long and jaws armed with teeth the size of cucumbers.

Dr. Jorn Hurum, and his team of paleontologists discovered Predator X in northern Norway last October and says the new species of a Pliosaur was more fearsome in power than the land-based Tyrannosaurus Rex.

And there is a link to a 2:12 minute video.

I know the sea monster has been dead for 150 million years, but I once saw an episode of Scooby Doo where a frozen caveman came back to life and chased a bunch of kids around while listening to funky rock-n-roll music. Come to think of it, those meddling kids found out it was not really a caveman, but I still have a fear that someone will thaw out this creature (if it were more than bones and rock), and it would splash around for a bit and then take a bite out of the ship that found it.

News just produces feelings in me that are counterproductive and uncomfortable. And I can't really do anything about it. Sure, some people will say that I should not vote unless I know a bit more about the candidates, but you know, I would argue that we don't generally make good choices about who to elect when we have a bunch of facts. It is all a crap shoot.

Wouldn't it be easier if we just let those suits behind the political machine do their thing, line their pockets, etc., and let the scientists get eaten by large frozen sea monsters while we spend our time figuring out the Wii Fit. And who really thinks that they will get in shape in front of a video game? Maybe those of us who decided not to listen to the news.

Tea Party Tax Protest

2009-04-15T08:30:00.000-05:00

I was all set to write about the Tea Party Tax Protest that will be occurring today, and after a while, I thought, "Will it really matter?"

Right now, we are spending future generations into the poorhouse, and we really don't care as long as we have the cash to keep the cable on, pay for text messages, or purchase $600 shower curtains.

President Obama said something yesterday about us no longer being able to spend, spend, spend in government, but I guess that does not include the healthcare reform Obama wants, the stimulus package we "need" or else the Earth will start hurling into the sun, or for the US to either bail out or purchase the US automakers.

I look at things in simple terms, and here is how I see things:

Some people made some really foolish moves when purchasing homes – people who could not really afford homes purchased them on really shaky grounds because they figured that the housing market would go up 10% per year. Then when it looked like this was not going to happen, people started defaulting on loans, banks foreclosed on houses they did not really want to own, and property values fell in many areas of the country.

The government got involved because elected officials need to appear to be helpful. What I never understood was that some Federal oversight failed, regulators were sleeping at the wheel, so as rational beings we wanted the same people who made the mistakes to fix the problem. We did that because they have the expertise. I am still scratching my head on this one.

We passed a bunch of spending bills, and some of them did very little to help the economy. So our legislators decided to spend money in other ways. It reminds me of seeing someone on the side of the road, head bend, hood popped open, wondering why the car has stalled. He (face it, it would be a "he"; a "she" would call AAA) takes a monkey wrench (or other item in the toolbox) and whacks part of the car. If it doesn't fix the problem, he whacks another part of the engine. We are kinda doing the same thing right now, but our monkey wrench is 1 Trillion Dollar spending bills.

Here is what people are not talking about: (1) Unemployment is on the rise, but people are still making mortgage payments. What happens in several months when people start blowing through their emergency funds. (2) Most ARMs (adjustable rate mortgages) have not ratcheted up, yet. The first wave will hit in a year or so. What happens when this occurs.

Both of these events are what I like to call "Holy Cow" events. They are big, may affect housing prices and the economy, and will probably need our legislative bodies writing hundreds of billions of dollars in spending (because that's what legislatures do).

Part of me wants to dress like a native American and attend one of these tea party events – though I think dressing like Pocahontas is not really PC unless you are on a Disney property.

Me, I am looking at the stock market gain more than 1,000 points over the last month or two, and I still think about the bad news on the horizon. But stock brokers are smart, right? I mean, they are a bit smarter than mortgage brokers and bank regulators, right?

I have started thinking about this tea party tax protest some more. Why could it not have been some wine tasting tax protest instead? I mean, that would have more appeal to me, and after thinking about this, I could use a drink.

Easter and the Church (or Leesa Is Going to Hell)

2009-04-14T09:30:00.003-05:00

It you have read me for a while, you probably know I am Catholic. If the guilt and Holy Water are not a tip off, my moral views are similar to that of the Church. Yeah, I am a total whack job.

And for those who don't do the whole Catholic Easter experience, Church is a big part of Easter. Here is the run-down:

1. Holy Thursday. This is the start of Holy Week, where the priest washes 12 people's feet. Those with foot fetishes must enjoy this mass. I had my feet washed once by a priest, and the whole time I was thinking, "I hope I don't have fuzz in between my toes." The next Easter I paid closer attention to the feet washing thing, and you really can't see other people's feet unless you are on the alter.

2. Good Friday. This is the mass which is, in my estimation, the most depressing of the masses. It is all about crucifixion, and you exit the Church in silence. One year, a priest actually made us drive nails into a board to symbolize the crucifixion. I wonder how much counseling was generated after that.

3. Holy Saturday (aka Easter Vigil). This is the marathon mass. It is normally 4 to 5 hours. Yes, folks, a whole lot of stuff happens at this Mass. The new Catholics are entered into the Church, normally a mixture of 2nd graders and adults.

4. Easter Mass. This is the most well-attended mass all year, where the C&E Catholics are found. C&E = Christmas and Easter, for those who just like to go to Mass on the big occasions. You know, like the relatives you see at weddings and funerals. They are part of the family and loved, but you don't really know them.

This is not really what I wanted to talk about, though. Consider this as background.

My husband attends Church with me, but sometimes he will skip if he thinks he can get away with it. When we were dating, he would attend Mass four days in a row. Now, however, he may attend two of the four Masses. Perhaps three.

This year, I attended Easter Vigil by myself. I mean, my husband did not want to spend that much time in Church. And this year, someone sat by me. Some guy sat by me, and it may have looked like we were a couple. In Church, I felt . . . uncomfortable. Not because I was doing anything wrong, but because others may have mistaken me for someone else's wife. Sounds weird, but it was an extremely uncomfortable feeling.

Here I was in Church, thinking about the gift Jesus gave us, feeling ashamed of how things appeared to others. Of course, then I started thinking about the kind of company Jesus kept. I hear Mary Magdalene was a real J-bunny. Crap, I think I just made fun of a saint, and I just went to confession last week.

Where is the delete button?

Demon Candy

2009-04-13T05:35:00.002-05:00

Leesa has a tummy ache this morning.

Normally Leesa doesn't eat much Easter candy. I don't like peeps, though at one time they were as addictive as crack (I assume crack is addictive).

Leesa is not her normal self. Leesa normally does not talk in the third person about herself, but Leesa has eaten a lot of candy over the last 18 hours.

Leesa got a large white chocolate bunny, and Leesa thought she would only eat the ears, but once she had devoured the ears, the bunny looked out of proportion. Leesa did not want the bunny to look that weird, so she devoured the head. One thing lead to another, and soon enough, Leesa was placing teeth into bunny ass and enjoying it way too much to make her feel comfortable.

Leesa is not going to come to work today, not because she spent all weekend in prayer (Catholics have Church 4 days in a row) but because she ate bunny ass.

[No cute bunny ass picture today. I typed bunny ass into the computer and either got Hef wanna-bes bent over or real rabbit butts. Nothing I could use on my site.]

A Work Relationship

2009-04-10T09:30:00.002-05:00

It all started innocently enough. I was chatting with a co-worker, in his cubical, and she was listening to the conversation. He was ignoring her, but she caught my eye. She would shake her head, sometimes at my words, sometimes at my co-worker's. I can't remember the conversation, but I remember her.

Next time I stopped to chat with the co-worker, she was in his cubical again. She looked the same, a fresh face. I am a bit embarrassed about this, but I was drawn to her . . . tail. Oh, you see the other female in the cubical was a goldfish.

And until recently, I thought fish were more like decorations than animals. You know, you see the Beta in an oversized brandy snifter, and you think, nice decoration. You don't think, this is an animal with its own thoughts and needs and desires.

But this fish, I will call her Goldie, changed all of that. My co-worker took a two week vacation recently, and he asked me to watch his fish for the time he was away. And by watch, he really meant feed his fish. He gave me some flakes and no instructions and he left Goldie to my care.

I looked at the amount of flakes left, and I thought to myself, "This is not going to last two weeks," so I went to the store to get a bit more food. The nice person at the store convinced me to buy a different type of food, in pellets instead of flakes.

So I started feeding the goldfish pellets. They were cleaner than the flakes for sure, and they seemed to make the goldfish come out of her shell. Not that goldfish have shells. After a few days, the goldfish seemed to interact with me more, almost starting to beg for its food. At first I was feeding the fish the first thing in the morning – feed fish, log into computer, read blogs, get coffee, start to work. I would do things in that order. Then I started feeding the fish a few pellets when Goldie begged for them.

And by the end of the two weeks, I really thought Goldie had started to have a personality. She would recognize my blur as I went by, I would swear, and she would beg for food. Plus she was really, really happy to see me.

I know, I know. Rational people don't think goldfish can think. Perhaps Goldie is extraordinary.

Happy Friday!

Internet Crap

2009-04-09T08:30:00.000-05:00

At least once per week, I get a forwarded email that should not have been forwarded to me. Much of the time, the email contains facts that seem alarming (and are false). But sometimes it is something that most of us have seen . . . way too much.

I found this list somewhere. For better or for worse, here are a list of things that most "Internet savvy" people have seen at least a dozen times. Bad news for me; most of these things look new. There were some bonus items, and I did not list them because "Two Girls One Cup" was among the items. And that is just wrong.

01. Grape Stomp
02. Charlie Bit Me
03. Chocolate Rain
04. Dancing Baby
05. Post Secret
06. Charlie The Unicorn
07. Mentos and Diet Coke
08. Numa Numa
09. Peanut Butter Jelly Time
10. George Lucas In Love

11. You're The Man Now Dog
12. Yatta
13. Star Wars Kid
14. Bubb Rubb
15. The Flying Spaghetti Monster
16. Dramatic Chipmunk
17. Homestar Runner
18. GI Joe Pork Chop Sandwiches
19. Fail Blog
20. Skateboarding Dog

21. All Your Base Are Belong To Us
22. Winnebago Man
23. We Like The Moon
24. I Can Has Cheezburger
25. Barney Vs. Tupac
26. Shining
27. Cute Overload
28. Rick Roll
29. Lazy Sunday
30. David After The Dentist

31. Powerthirst
32. Christian The Lion
33. Bert and Ernie Rap
34. Lady Punch
35. Leprechaun in Alabama
36. Where The Hell Is Matt
37. Boom Goes The Dynamite
38. Breakdancing Baby
39. Drunk Jeff Goldblum
40. Scarlet Takes A Tumble

41. Sepultura - Refuse resist (cover) By Gauchos
42. Gay Mount Everest
43. Afro Ninja
44. Cop Shoots Himself In Leg In Classroom
45. Tron Guy
46. "Leave Britney Alone"
47. Laughing Baby
48. I'm the Juggernaut Bitch
49. The Chairperson Falls
50. Take On Me The Literal Version

51. Bill O'Reilly Flips Out
52. Don't Tase Me Bro
53. The Landlord
54. Breakdancing Baby Kick
55. The Pet Penguin
56. Ms. South Carolina Answers A Question
57. I'm F*#king Matt Damon
58. Will It Blend
59. Spaghetti Cat
60. Tom Cruise Kills Oprah

61. Little Superstar
62. Chad Vader
63. Pretty Much Everywhere It's Going To Be Hot
64. I Like Turtles
65. Who Needs A Movie
66. Jake E. Lee Shreds
67. Hawaii Chair
68. Aussie Party
69. Hitler Plans Burning Man
70. Flirting with Magic

71. Look At The Horse
72. Asian Backstreet Boys
73. Leroy Jenkins
74. Pinky The Cat
75. Monkey Sniffs Finger
76. Sneezing Panda
77. Prison Inmates remake "Thriller"
78. Techno Viking
79. Ask A Ninja
80. Best Man Trips and Ruins Wedding

81. Best Wedding Toast Ever (Amy's Song)
82. Kitten Surprise (how to break up a cat fight)
83. Katana Sword Infomercial Goes Wrong
84. Matrix Ping Pong
85. La Pequeña Prohibida
86. Angry German Kid (translated)
87. Evolution of Dance
88. Ok Go – "Here It Goes Again"
89. Battle at Kruger (lions vs. buffalos vs. crocodiles.
90. Daft Hands

91. Human Beatbox
92. Most T-Shirts Worn At Once
93. Zero G Dog
94. Cuppy Cakes Song
95. George Washington
96. Scary Maze Prank
97. Gay Referee
98. Tranquilized Bear Hits Trampoline
99. Reporter Gets A Fly In The Mouth

You can guess I just did not want to post anything today.

Race Relations

2009-04-08T08:30:00.001-05:00

When I was young, quite young, I remember listening to my grandfather. He was . . . a bit of a racist. No way to sugarcoat it. He used the N-word an awful lot. And not the N-word that most people think about. The older N-word. Again, think racist grandfather. He grew up listening to and saying that N-word. He heard untrue things about black people and believed them. That's part of his past, and it shaped my view of him.

And something happened in the 80s. I did not know what it was at the time, but my grandfather became less of a racist. The way I see it is that everyone tries to make sense of the world, and in their mid-twenties or so, people try and figure out the world. They take info from when they were younger, then what they have learned and figure out how to react to a bunch of situations.

He grew up in Georgia, not the center of the universe. He remembers being jumped by many African Americans. That is his first vivid memory he has of an interaction. Through years, he hears that African Americans are not as smart as he is, that they are lazy, etc. This is what he learned. This is an opinion he had.

The older people of his generation start dying . . . I mean, they are older, and all, so they start dying. Those influential racists start dying. And he continues to experience things throughout his life.

He notices that an African American neighbor moves into his "good neighborhood." He expects the neighborhood to "go downhill", but it doesn't. He also starts observing his neighbor. The first things he says about his African American neighbor (to others but granddaughter is listening) is not encouraging. It is full of hate and anger. Things he has learned.

But you know what begins to happen? He notices that the neighborhood does not "go downhill." He notices that his neighbor's yard is not only well-maintained, but it becomes the best yard in the neighborhood. The neighbor spends time mowing his yard, fertilizing it, everything. The neighbor begins to change my grandfather's mind, changing his heart in the process.

A couple of years go by, and little by little, my grandfather uses the other n-word a bit less, and without the preceding "damn" at all. The neighbor hunts and shares his kill with my grandfather. My grandfather responds with fish he has caught. They are developing a polite friendship. The friendship is not more or less than other neighbors, but the important thing is that it seems about the same. Regardless of race.

By the time he died, he seemed like much less of a racist. There were shadows of racism, but it was not like I remember as a little girl.

I remember talking with an elderly black man . . . it must have been twenty years ago. We talked about many things, but something he said I still remember. He said that race relations would begin to improve, not in his generation, but in his grandson's (and in mine). He seemed to know that past experiences would be difficult to overcome, to look past. Some healing could take place, but not the type of healing that would improve race relations within the culture.

I heard someone a few weeks ago say that they are sick about talking about race relations. It had to do with the aftermath of Barack Obama's election. For me, I am glad that the dialog is still taking place. I think it is important.