Dotty Parker

tired? try this miracle cure!

I got into bed today around 5:30 to rest and read for fifteen minutes or so.

I woke up at 7:00 with Sprocket molded to my side. I got up, walked around the house, thought about eating, decided it was cold, and now I'm back in bed.

It doesn't seem acceptable to me to be this tired. Nevertheless, I am. I've gotten very little done today. It's not surprising is it, though, when I spend the late afternoon sleeping next to a dog who loves to snore while she's warm. She really likes being warm.

You know how some people in Africa will follow around animals to find the secret watering hole? I'm going to do that with Sprocket. I'll find the warmest, sleepiest places that way.

Nice.

hey! no running!

I went for a walk today with Brigham (a four-legged minion of TheLion's), BrilliantEditor, Florette, Tex, and TheLion. It was beautiful and it was snowy and I watched people ice fishing!

There is another point of interest though. It was cold. It was runny-nose cold. I hate that my nose runs when it's cold outside. Or when I eat spicy food. Or when it's least convenient. Today I took an antihistimine before I went out in the vain hope that my nose would behave itself.

Nope. It didn't. But it did bother me enough to actually look up the cause.

The answer I found uses words like these: mucus, capillaries, vasomotor rhinitis, sneezy. Yeah. Look out!

Here's an abridged version of this article To Your Health : Runny nose may be more than allergy or a cold .

The role of the nose is partly to detect smells, and partly to warm, humidify and filter the air before it enters the lungs. In order to accomplish this, the nose must keep itself moist and keep itself from drying out. The moisturizing mucus is fluid that is filtered from the serum of our blood by capillaries which supply certain cells and glands in the lining of the nose and sinuses. The small amount of discharge which is usually produced is 90 to 95 percent salty water, and 2 to 3 percent a viscous chemical called mucin.

Temporary runny nose may be caused by changes in humidity or temperature. Coming inside from the cold outdoors to a warm room, or having the heater on at night which dries the nose may cause the nose to temporarily go into overdrive in an attempt to flush and remoisturize itself. The capillaries which bring blood to the inner surface of the nose temporarily open up their tiny pores, and the result is the sudden leak of clear serum-like fluid through the nasal opening.

Yeah. Noses and their gooey occupants.

Gross.

But THIS isn't gross at all. You can choose your own clown nose. And a plethora of other fantastic items!"/>

thinkin' 'bout love

Do you think love makes song writers leave off letters? Or do they just feel like making pointy marks about their words and so they create a thousand reasons to do so.

Valentine's Day is soon. Whether or not you care who St. Valentine was or why the holiday started or what Hallmark and Godiva had to do with it, it's still soon.

I have a soft spot for Valentine's day.

It's all about velvet.

Mmmmmm. colors that aren't allowed (by me) on other days of the year, they're allowed here. Bubble gum pink? Sure! Why not! That dirty gray color (so different from the kitten-colored gray I love) velvet? If it makes you happy, wear it! White velvet, which I secretly love by wouldn't wear unless it was a formal occasion (and who wears white to a formal occasion except the bride?), hook me up with it on Valentine's Day.

I'm working on a project and I have black velvet to use. Maybe I could drink Black Velvet at the same time and just become a mystery even to myself. Ahhhhh.

I'm imagining the heart-shaped chocolate boxes covered in velvet or jewelry boxes with velvet inside of them. My darlings, I want neither chocolate nor jewelry. It's the velvet. Oh yes.

numbing snow

I was going to write an entry about how stupid people can be when they drive in the snow. I'm not expecting them to go fast, but I am expecting them not to stop when they don't have to. Driving in snow, my dears, is much more enjoyable if you don't have to stop. If everyone would just magically keep cruising kind of slowly...yeah. Cruising.

On my way up a very steep hill, I came to a blinking yellow light. The car in front of me also came to a blinking yellow light. They stopped.

Stopped!

It's cold and it's snowy and the roads are slathered in dirty, salt-laden slush that makes it hard for the cars to go. My car is included in that. I tooted my horn twice, short little toot! toot! The person drove forward. I think she had taken the blinkage for solidity. Understandable, I suppose. Nevertheless, why pay so little attention when driving up a slippery, frozen slope?

I don't know.

Then I got home. I tried to take our car up the driveway. It doesn't like going up the driveway sometimes. I was feeling its desire to get up the driveway. I could feel it trying to go up the driveway. All the way up the driveway! I wanted to help! So I drove up, and then backed out to get some momentum and then I'd drive back up.

Remember my irritation with the woman stopping on the hill? Well, add me to the list of people I am unwilling to understand.

I was so ready to get the car up the driveway, that the last time I backed out of the driveway, what was to be the last run up the driveway, I reversed the car right into the snow. Duh. The part of the snow that the plow makes? The dense, icy, heavy stuff that the plow shovels to the side of the road? Yeah. That's what I stuck the car in.

I walked up to get the shovel (I wasn't going to ask for help since I was to goofus who got it stuck). I could go neither forward nor back, but BrilliantEditor was there to help me. He dug out the car. He drove it up the driveway (smart guy, yes? not letting Miss Dotty back into the car?).

But I'm not the biggest snow-driving fool. The city bus was in front of me tonight on my way home. It was going five miles per hour, and I am not exaggerating, up a hill that was a 45mph zone. Five! I was afraid it was going to grind to a halt in front of me. I was afraid to go around him since it was so slippery and I couldn't see. I was afraid that my entire life might dribble away like the water from the bus's exhaust pipe.

I needn't have worried, though. I got home. Before that, though, I got out of the car, walked next to the bus, chit chatted with the driver for twenty minutes or so, exchanged email addresses, promised to write with that David Hume quote, and then skated back to the car with the hockey skates the driver had given me in exchange for the name of the lipstick color I was wearing (Fired Up).

Yeah, sometimes it pays to stop being angry with the annoyance and simply go and talk with the cause. Now and then, you'll get something swell out of it.

where seldom is heard

a discouraging word?

Yes. A discouraging word.

I went back and was reading a project I'd spent many, many hours on. I'd decided to put the project away as it was annoying me. Bad bad.

So I picked it up today and began to read what I'd written for my project.

It's not good. Not good at all.

I suppose there are bits that are redeeming, but in general, I find the prose lackluster.

Perhaps what I need is to include some fancier words. ChillyLily used the word trope today: a word or expression used in a figurative sense. Ain't she fancy? Then I thought of the word vet. Sure it means animal doctor, but it also means evaluate. To subject to expert appraisal or correction, that's what it means. The Webster's Real-Time words thing just blipped by with mercurial, combustible, and complacent. Maybe I should just do that all the time--take the words and make a plot. It surely is fun.

But I got an email from Noam Sequitur. He suggested that Spring's writing is reminiscent of Ernest Hemingway's. He suggested an uncanny similarity. Darling Noam sent examples of both writings.

"I jumped behind the bar on the left side and could see looking over the
edge. The car was stopped and there were two fellows crouched down by
it. One had a Thompson gun and the other had a sawed-off automatic
shotgun. The one with the Thompson gun was a nigger. The other had a
chauffeur's white duster on."
- To Have and Have Not, Ernest Hemingway 1937

"I found cookies, too. I hid one in the grass. I cannot ever find things
I hide. I went for a run. I ran fast. You should see me run. I ran back
and forgot I had a cookie."
- oh! what a busy day!, Spring 2004

Perhaps Spring's plot is less compelling and her language less coarse, but generally speaking, I do believe Noam is right.

I have a black and white Hemingway in the house.

look it up!

On Webster.com you can watch words that people are looking up. There are some good ones! I've decided to entertain myself with making up a little story with some of the words.

The drunkard's withered neck stretched above his collar as he plodded down the big-city street littered with pamphlets from the strip club on the next block.

His existence was chilled by tenacious misery This bore no similarity to the plans he had made as a callow youth. The jazz music he had once played on the radio, now played in his mind in a mocking scream. It was a hateful interpretation of the grand conceptualizations he had creating of being common, normal, "beige". What had become of the dream of the exalted position of the middle-class, perspicacious egoist? Where was the hope that had been assumed all those years ago?

Now, trudging toward one last place to carouse with others as near to the existential apocalypse as he was, the thought of having wanted a genteel existence dumbfounded him. Proving his fealties to a syndicate of jug-eared administrators would depress, shove him back into the ranks of those condemned to see blackbirds as pestilence and disease.

He continued on, past locks and snecks that would not open for him and prepared to abuse his liver. He was fine, enjoying the disharmony his place in a world that reveled in manumitting of people like him from predicaments like his.

as big as life

I was reading Harper's Magazine and the beginning always has a section called READINGS.

It usually makes me laugh or sigh or both or sometimes just turn my head and act confused. It's a look I'm coming to make my own.

In this front section are things that are both distressing or amusing. Sometimes they're both.

Here's one bit that's fun for girls and boys. Sort of.

This morality tale comes from teaching materials from federally funded high-school abstinence programs.

Deep inside every man is a knight in shining armor, ready to rescue a maiden and slay a dragon. When a man feels trusted, he is free to be the strong, protecting man he longs to be.

Moral of the story: Occasional assistance may be all right, but too much will lessen a man's confidence or even turn him away from his princess.

So, kids. What did we learn from this story? One, that the noose metaphor is incomplete. What, exactly, is the noose representing? Is slaying a dragon a metaphor for sex? If it is, is a noose an ineffective metaphor for a condom? Is a noose to represent the notion of equal rights for women? If so, why was it used to slay the dragon and not the knight?

Two, that slaying a beast is the right and proper way to woo a princess or maiden.

Three, that the beast to be slain gives him a "surge of confidence".

Four, knights in shining armor are much more comfortable in a noose-free society.

Five, note how impressive it is to cram so much horse shit into one wee story! Rockin'!

I'll leave the others as they aren't as absurd as I'd like and actually irritate me. If you want to read them, you know where they live now.

Now here's another reading. These are descriptions of imaginary friends provided by 6 and 7 year old children for a study by M. Taylor and S.M. Carlson

Skateboard Guy: Invisible eleven-year-old boy who lives in child's pocket, wears cool shirts and has a fancy skateboard, can do lots of tricks on his skateboard, likes to see how fast the child can run.

Michael: Invisible nine-year-old boy, taller than child, short brown hair, brown eyes, wears red shirt and jeans, lives in back-left side of child's head, sleeps in bed in child's head.

There are seven that I've left out. They're pretty good, too. I'm a little distressed by some of these things, but I suspect that lots of them are developmental things that I've not learned about. I can understand, I think, why an imaginary friend would be a bit older, kind of cool and weird, and might occasionally be a jerk. "Dislikes that sometimes she is mean." There was another friend described who was mean sometimes. I bet it's normal, but I'm not sure it's helpful..."Mom! I hate Elephant. She thinks she's so cool, but she's just mean."

Is that normal? Sure!

And now, how about a few dog personals? These are from Doggy Dating, a U.K. based canine companionship agency.

Bunty, age 4, Walsall
I like to run in the park and sniff people's crotches. My favourite toy is a He-man figure. My favourite food is tripe. I would describe myself as cute with a cheeky sense of humour. I am looking for a partner to hang out with in the park.

I imagine Spring and Sprocket writing personals for themselves.

Sprocket, age 5, Ithaca, New York
i like to run and bark and say grrrawwwwwwwowow and chew ankles and i um i like food and i have big eyes and pretty teeth and im bigger than you think i am and i want friends to sleep sun dots and snore with me now soon

Spring, age 7, Springsprings, Springton County, Spring State, New York
I like to watch traffic
I like to bark at UPS
My favorite toy is Sprocket head
My favorite treat is pig ears and Sprocket head
I am looking for a submissive dog to bring me treats and not bother me
I am gorgeous
I am ten feet tall

I'd write my own personal, but I hate admitting that I don't like eating grass.

yap yap yap

I could continue to yap about my extraordinary dislike of the politics of this continuing administration.

I could.

Hasn't most of it been said by now? And if it hasn't been said, isn't there a reason it hasn't been said (besides being extradited to another land for torture)? I'll presume it hasn't been said because it's already been said in another way.

I'm going to assume that I have, for right now, said enough. So there it is. Enough.

So let's go to the education profile of this administration:
No Child Left Behind

I don't know if we left children behind in this story, but if we had, it was because they didn't have the right eye wear. When I was in high school, I took Driver's Ed. The classroom part was fine, but there was after school driving practice, too. (My driving teacher was not cool about many things, but he did allow me some shenanigans.) It was kind of lame.

So there were five of us in the car. Three in the back seat, the driver, driving, and the teacher in the passenger seat. When I wasn't driving, I was sitting in the back seat trying to be not bored.

One weekend, BellyRub and I and the kid from across the street went to the mall. In a stroke of genius, I bought four pairs of goggles at the dollar store(they all came on one card--thrifty!). I was planning on having all of us in the driver's ed car wear them.

Driver's education is lame. Being in an oldish car that was likely acquired at a government auction is lame. Being in this car with a huge yellow sandwich board on the roof is lame. Doing all of this with three other young women and an irritable gym teacher is extra lame.

So when the goggles came to class, we (except for the driver and the teacher who declined.) wore them and peered out the windows. I instructed my classmates on how to properly curl their fingers so it looked like they were hanging off the window of the door. The middle person got to turn around and put her paws on the back seat the way that Spring does now.

When we felt very frisky, we stuck our top teeth out, too.

I was laughing very hard. These things always make me laugh very hard. It was hard not to laugh while staring at people in the car next to us, but oh boy was it worth it for the stories I could make up about them being worried about who was going to be learning to drive!

We all wore them for a while, but no one really looked at us. And then the elastic bands started to squeeze our heads too much. I think they were kids' goggles. And we had big heads.

But I soldiered through! I will not be beaten by inattentive people! My swollen head can take the extra pressure for an hour or two! All for the cause of absurdity and entertainment.

Yes.

notta damn dime at walmart

So this whole dime action doesn't make a lot of sense. Are these retailers going to send a note to the White House to tell W that people didn't shop enough on Thursday? Who is this affecting? Likely the people at JoAnn Fabrics who don't get hours to schedule for their employees if they don't make budget. And people at every other store that uses the budget for such purchases.

Who's going to notice?

It's silly.

Maybe don't spend a dime at Walmart. Never spend a dime at Walmart. They stink.

boooooo, george bush

A rerun of pictures, a rerun of complaints, a rerun of another cold day, but these things still seem relevant, don't they? Even when you know it's cold, you still have to wear gloves. Even when I know the president isn't my favorite fella, I want to tell people about it over and over and over again.

notta damn dime

Okay kids. I still don't like George W. Bush. His $40 million party for his big day pisses me off. And sticking Washington D.C. with a $11 million bill for security they are obliged to provide.

Furthermore, he sends other people to get killed and kill other people. He lies. A lot. He's advocated torture.

And he's a son of a bitch.

So.

Since there's little I can do as a sweet, little girl, I will ask you to join me in this big hug to say, "You are a stink head, sir."

I'm dubious about the organization of this thing, but it's also important to do what we can, even if we're not sure we can.

So buy your groceries today. Bring your lunch to work on Thursday. And bring your own coffee. Remember that Target gives most of its political contributions to the republicans. Remember to stay on your high horse for just one money-spending day.

Whinny! (from on high)

duh

I'm tired and full of thoughts that aren't prepared to be written.

For Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, a day late:

Let's revisit some old pictures, shall we?

And remember not to spend money on the 20th. It's the Not One Damn Dime event. I'll do my best to give you more information. And our best is all we can do, isn't it?

their two cents

Spring and Sprocket have been busy little doggies. With the snow and the cold and the electric blanket and the stir-craziness, they've been up to much mischief. I thought they might calm down if they had a bit of time composing.

Sprocket has been allowed to go first.

cold cold cold i have no hair on my eyes and they are cold and my feet have cold parts and my nose i like it the way it is in the wind but it winds up my nose into my head an my eyes get cold on both sides and i think my eyes are big but sometimes snow happens when its cold like now and the snow can hide things in the ground like those squeakings mouse and i dig them up sometimes they live under the bird feeder and that girl was trying to keep me outside so that the people inside could play with the walls and put wet stinks on the walls and i dug up a house of squeakings and it squeaked and it did it and i didnt want to eat it or touch it i only wanted to find it and i didnt care anymore but it was loud too loud and i wanted to go not listen but i couldnt but the girl got cold and took us inside and up and then sat on blankets and then the blanket that gets warm alone was there i love that blanket it feels like being cooked except not

Spring has this to say.

It snows.
I have snow on my snout sometimes.
I have reddish-brown eyes.
I look evil with snow and glowing eyes on my face.
That girl has a blanket that is warm without her.
I want that.
I want that girl to go so I can have that blanket.
I am beautiful.
I am snowed on outside.
I have soft hair because of snow.
I say you should rub my ears.
I am beautiful.
I am better than the other dog.
Feed me.

yes!

I got an email from the ThaiPrincess today. I'm absolutely relieved to hear from her. Her home is far away from where the tsunami hit, but she wasn't answering her email and I was wondering if she'd been on vacation and la la la. Not good.

So when I heard from her I was so relieved I had wee tears in my eyes. She would say that it isn't good to cry, but I would say that it isn't good to surprise someone with being dead so that it is good to cry happy, happy tears. That's what I'd say.

She wasn't even in Thailand, by the way.

She was on vacation. In Argentina. That girl. She's something else.

I want to go to Thailand anyway. Yes indeed. Look here. The ThaiPrincess would surely take me here.

could you, like, not be five?

I went in to work to help a co-worker figure out a problem and to do some fancy shopping. There was this very very cute little guy wandering around and laughing and playing and flirting and making lots of noise and talking non-stop. My co-worker, Bubbles, she was enjoying his company for a while.

The little guy was hopping around and Bubbles was saying, "tu nombre? tu nombre?" Your name? Your name? He thought it was incredibly funny. He started saying, in a voice that was as low as he could make it, "My name..." as if he would soon tell us his name.

He never told us. So I called him "MyName". That also made him laugh.

But then Bubbles started to try to understand and solve the problem , so that she could solve it when I wasn't around.
He was right next to her, a spastic bundle of very cute energy. Eventually, though, Bubbles had endured enough of his busy, small-person'd-ness; she got annoyed. She's a therapist, though, so she has unusual ways of saying things. "Hon, I can't talk right now. I need to focus now. I need to concentrate." He said, "What's focus?"

Then she tried, "I'm really busy. What's your mother doing?" Apparently he considered finding out to be unexciting.

Finally she said, "Could you not talk for a while? It's not that I don't like you, because I do, I just need you to not talk."

He stopped talking. I sat, not talking, wondering what the implications of connecting talking to acceptance. Could it be that just asking for him to not talk would be okay? Say, "Hey, can you not talk for a while? I'm thinking." Wouldn't he understand that? But then saying, "Can you not talk? I still like you though." Does it imply that when I usually ask for silence the person I'm asking is disliked? I'm a bit concerned about that. Yes, indeed, that's not what I want our new generation of babies to learn.

I'm not the therapist, though. And when I babysit and the child cries because he or she misses mom and dad, I won't "nurture" the child. I'll comfort, entertain, soothe, amuse, hug the child, but nurture? That's just weird. And since I'm not a therapist, perhaps it's okay that I'm thoroughly puzzled by her saying she still likes him. I do think, however, that she's dealing with her own discomfort with disciplining.

But I love Bubbles because she knows it's all weird. When she was getting frustrated with MyName, she continued working and said to him, "Could you please not be five right now?"

He had a huge smile on his face. She started laughing. MyName looked at me and said, "Not be five!" I asked how old he was. He said, "Five!"

He and his mom left soon after that. But I keep hearing in my head, "Could you please not be five?" And little tiny laughter.

change of time

I've been playing email tag (I didn't even know it was possible) with my doctor. I call to say that I don't know when my appointment is. I tell him to email me back, if he likes.

He emails me. I email back with the times I can't be there.

He emails me with an appointment in one of the times I can't be there.

I email back tipping him off about this.

He emails me back with an appointment.

At 8am!

But I'm too embarrassed to write back and say it's too early. Perhaps I'll find that I'm much happier as a morning person. Perhaps. What do you think the odds are, though? Slim and none?

That's my bet.

I've begun setting my alarm for earlier in the morning. I was trying for 6:30, but come on. Who are we kidding?

I sleep through it.

BrilliantEditor clued me into the fact that I'd actually turned the alarm on, but that I didn't seem to hear it.

Oooooh. Perhaps it's time to try something a little later.

So I tried 7:45. At 7:45, I wake up, listen to the news on the radio and decide if I want to roll out of bed or not. Then I try to roll out of bed anyway.

I plan on creating a soft landing pad next to my bed. I think it will be easier to roll out of bed and go back to sleep that way. And I'll get an electric blanket, too, to make the whole process take up less room. I might even raise up the bed and then slide under it.

Until then, however, I'll listen to the radio and try to get myself out of bed before 9:00. That's when Democracy Now! starts and that's when I decide that the world is ugly, cruel, and mean. And sleeping seems the best way to combat it.

Maybe I should just change the station...

steam o' conscientiousness

I taught a class tonight to eight people. It doesn't seem like that many until I'm standing in front of them and realize that they each want individual attention.

And they deserve it! Every one does, I do believe. Except maybe for the really annoying people. They might deserve to be individually ignored.

One woman in my class was on the edge of both categories. She was steamed. Really steamed.

But she seemed to be trying hard to keep with the class despite the fact that she was irritated.

She was irritated by something very small and very fixable.

So there I was. Caught between steam and conscientiousness. There was a running conversation in my head that went something like this:

(sweet)I'm so sorry you're unhappy. I really am.(end sweet) (normal)Now is the time to pay attention(end normal) (steam)to me and not a small detail. We need to look at the big picture now, don't we? There are other people in the class, lady. (end steam) (sweet)I know you're disappointed and we'll make it right.(end sweet) (steam)Now get your self together and stop pouting, dammit. You're a grown up. You can endure this for a couple more hours!(end steam) (normal)Now here's some wool and some stabilizer. Some people call it...

In the end everything was fine. I learned that she was a difficult woman anyway and so my irritation was probably a gentle reminder to her that the world was as normal as it always was.

And in the end, I got to laugh at myself for thinking that I could help stop her being irritated.

Ha!

It's a normal state of affairs!

portrait of the artist's dog as a young pup

Words continue to fail me.

Happily I can click a mouse button like nobody's business and have no need for words here!

Today's portrait is of Sprocket.

She wanted to comment.

they say i am a little piggie or sometimes i am a bread or a brick but i am brown not pink and they should know theres a dog jumping on a pig he wants to jump over but he ate pig ears and is fat now like me when i eat pig ears but they never give me ears so i am dying and its sad and i cry but i never cry tears because i save them for making stew i drink stew with the tiny monkey in the woods he puts stew by my teeth and i pull stew with my inner wind through my teeth the ones that stick out so that i dont get too hot in my mouth

And with no further puppy commentary, here's Sprocket's portrait.

curious curio cabinet

At Sunday’s pancake breakfast, I met a new character to add to my curio cabinet of weird. I began to describe him, but deleted all of my words since they seemed more angry than amusing. It occurs to me, however, that the curio cabinet idea is one worth looking into.

Since I have alternate names for everyone but me, I think I might go through and make little caricatures of people. Then we’ll all know who we are.

My brain’s a bit cloudy just now, so we’ll settle for just a little bit of joy. In the future, we shall have more.

rage lust anger jealousy

For Christmas, LeTigress got me the game “Imaginiff…”. It’s dandy.

We played last night. It’s very intriguing. A person pulls a card that says, for example,

Imaginiff…___________ were a Beatle. Who would he/she be?
1. John
2. Paul
3. George
4. Ringo
5. Volkswagen
6. Dung

And then people vote on which answer best describes the person who was in the blank. If you vote with the majority, you get a point and get to move forward. So it's a lot like America. Vote with the majority, even if you think they're wrong, and you just might win!

But in this case it's fun.

An example or two:

Imaginiff Tex were a crime. Which would he be?
1. Vagrancy
2. Homicide
3. Shoplifting
4. Corporate fraud
5. Unsafe lane change
6. Indecent exposure

Everybody chose indecent exposure. Except me. I picked vagrancy. It seemed like he’d start with that and move up to extra-bad behavior in public.

Imaginiff Dotty were an emotion. Which would she be?
1. Hate
2. Fear
3. Jealousy
4. Rage
5. Lust
6. Love

BE and I both chose rage. Everybody else chose lust.

It’s strange and kind of marvelous to know what silly things our drunken friends think of us. I’m pretty happy. Lusty ain’t all bad, now is it?

Rage, though…what’s that saying about my marriage? Poor us. Lust apparently abounding, yet I’m full of rage! The implications are staggering. (If BE starts looking bruised and battered, someone may want to send me a note to get my rage under control.)

Imaginiff Dotty had an imagination. What would she invent?
1. Gnomes and fountains
2. Silent chalkboards made of fingernails
3. A stick for legally hitting stupid people
4. Pockets that are never full or bulky
5. A circle with corners
6. Fire

It’s a good game. I highly recommend it. There are some small pieces, so be aware that you should not run with them in your mouth or feed them to plastic bags that are not toys.

Rage! Rage against the dying of the light! Uh, lust?

monkeys

I keep wondering about monkeys and then get all caught up in their fuzzy little heads and their dangly tails and their ability to flip flop around until they arrive at their destination looking cool and confident.

I learned from this slide show, and others at the same place, a bit about monkeys and lemurs and primates and prosimians and protomonkeys. I highly recommend checking them out. You never know who might be watching.

paint!

The house is getting painted. The big room in the front, the one that all the doorways attach to, is getting painted.

Some people (probably me, last year) would say, "Hey! Do it yourself! It's just painting."

Oh how wrong some people (include me, last year) would be.

They've scraped the walls of seven layers of wallpaper all of which were laid directly on the sheetrock. **Tip for wall-decorating people** **Prime the sheetrock. You'll be able to get the paper off more easily and the paint will be more even.**

Today they were sanding and things. They had the doors blocked with plastic. I felt guilty going in and disrupting their work. I surely wanted to keep them happy. But I had to take the dogs out and run errands and eat. They didn't seem unhappy.

But they were covered in dust. COVERED! And one guy coughs constantly. If you remember my complete frustration with my in-laws for their coughing and throat clearing, this guy's coughing is so amazing, he'd probably stop my in-laws from making their noises--out of shame. They'd be ashamed at their own lack of talent.

BrilliantEditor says that the guy smokes, too. So maybe it's true that smoking isn't good for you. Who would've thought that was real?

swimming heads

I was speaking with BellyRub about this a few weeks ago. He disagrees with me and says you can just put your head on a scale.

To weigh a person's head without chopping it off, I believe the person would have to stick his or her head into a bucket of water that is already on a scale. Or, to be scientific, to find the mass of a person's head...blahblahblah...already on a balancy thing.

I suspect that isn't where the expression, "my head is swimming," came from, though. Wouldn't it be interesting if it did?

My swimming head has too many things inside of it walking (swimming?) around and then shoving each other and saying, "You're it."

Real-life people look at other people and say, "Whatcha thinking about?" When people ask me, sometimes I can easily tell them. I like those times. But, sometimes I don't know what I'm thinking because it's just at a moment when one of the things walking around has said, "You're it." So I really couldn't say.

To continue the metaphor absurdly and more insanely, I do love those times when most of the swimmers are out of the pool. There are some malingerers, and I will find a way to kick them out one day. I think filling the pool with alligators might help, but it might also make me feel a bit nervous about cleaning my ears or brushing my teeth.

Nevertheless, there were a few moments today when it seemed like the people playing Marco Polo, the ones who play tag and say "it", the ones who annoy the hell out of me, those people had scampered off somewhere else. I was explaining it to a friend of mine who I had coffee with--a few clear moments allowing me to surrender to no worries, when I could feel my heart beating and hear its pulse in my ears and be absolutely gripped by what I was doing.

That's what I'm going to think about tonight as I begin to fall asleep, those luminous moments of liberation from too much thinking. A wonderful thing.

paint your wagon

We didn't stop at painting our wagon, we went right on to painting the inside of the house. Woohoo!

Now I have to choose a paint color.

Folks are here scraping the walls and then they're going to scrape the outside. I like them because the dogs like them. Sprocket wants to play with one of them. She walks up to him and barks. When he goes to pet her, she scampers away and barks. When he goes back to work, she gets close to him and barks. This is what she's saying:

you with the hat and the hair and the thing that makes that ccckkkrreehhh noise that thing yes now you will you will i can tell you will chase me now now now now dont you hear me chase me now and you pretend you cant hear me but you will chase me now and you ask that boy what i want and you know you want to chase me away because i bother you and you know you want toand i want you to do that but you ask that boy and he says i want you to do that and you wont do it and you glare at me and want to chase me and you dont chase me and you dont chase me and i hate you but i wont hate you soon and then youll chase me because i say you want to chase me you want to i know

Spring ignores the whole thing. She says this:

You are in my town.
You do not have a meat passport.
You were not invited.
You should have a meat passport.
I will stare at you.
You are frightened.
I rule.
I can eat you any time.
I rule.
I will sleep.
You will get a passport.
I rule.

Because the dogs are so good at policing the household, I know it's safe to have these people in the house.

That's what I tell myself, anyway.

In my world, if the dogs aren't fond of a person, I decide to be careful of that person, assuming that the person isn't nice. It's a litmus test, except it's a dog test. And the wool can be pulled over my eyes if they feed the dog something tasty. Like lamb or mutton. Anything that might have had wool.

my world

In my world, a litmus test could also be overcome by painting yourself blue or red. The problem would be knowing which way to paint before the test was administered. And the other problem would be if you lived in Los Angeles and there were gangs everywhere and they wanted to beat the hell out of you because of your colors.

Damn!

That would suck!

No wonder no one uses litmus paper anymore.

but no!

I was talking with Florette about old diaries. She said she had some from when she was in middle school and they were all about boys. Will he like me? Will he ask me out? How long will it last? How cute is he!

I only had those third grade diaries and I didn't have much about boys. (Although on the last page I admitted that I liked a particular fellow. It wasn't a secret to me, though. I remembered. I also remember when I stopped liking him...)

So one of the other things in those boxes I looked through were diaries that went from eighth to twelfth grade. They are all about boys.

I called Florette to thank her for giving me the heads up on what goes into those diaries. Boys.

Want a sample of my eighth grade genius?

COOL BEANS!
I hope I marry Bob.

I love Bob.
Andy thinks that Betty is anorexic. I don't. I just think she's weird.
I love Bob.
I gave Lily a note. She was glad. Lily is my favorite friend.
So is Angie.
We made up a new handshake today.
I LOVE BOB FOREVER!

Florette is absolutely right. All eighth grade girls are the same.

I will officially stop caring about all this "normal/not normal" stuff and just go on being the absolutely charming and wonderful genius that I already am?

I'll say "Oh yes!" to that last bit.

(Let's say quirky genius.)

do this. now.

It's the new year! And it's time for resolutions.

Or not.

Isn't it cooler to be oh-so-uninterested in these resolution things? I mean, how could I be any better? Well, I couldn't. But there are some people out there who could. And I'm here to make some resolutions for them.

Turning corners without your blinker on. Turn it on so I know where you're going.

Big, huge, thumping bass systems that drive my house. Turn it off. I know you can't hear me, but I'm writing this to you. Turn it off.

Ill-fitting clothes from pseudo-trendy stores. Yes, yes. Many people wear those clothes. Good for you. Stop stretching them out.

Putting things back in the wrong place when shopping. I think you know better than that.

Walking slowly, several people wide while in the mall. Change, my dears. Because I hate you.

Foot shuffling. You can pick up those feet, kids! You can do it! I know you can! I hate that sound.

People who whine. Yeah, well, maybe that one doesn't need to change. I mean, hey, I've been known to indulge in the whinification of life...yeah. That's a good thing. Leave that in.

Poking people in the eye. It's just rude.

If you see any of the people described above, tell them I know what they need to do. It's very easy. They just need to take my advice.

And do it. Now.