It's time for me to say goodbye to you, my darlings.

Since January of 2002 I've been writing here. It seems like a long time. Four years kind of is a long time, actually. I started reading a few of my old posts. How shocking! I'm much the same as I've ever been.

Old and much-hungered-for posts.

Things have changed a lot in the last year. As much as I'd like to say something profound, meaningful, and impressive about how the world works or about how much I've learned, I can't.

Perhaps that indicates just how much I have learned.

What has prompted this dereliction of verbal affection? Well, last night I found a little tidbit that was a prime candidate to be toasted over the Dotty-blog-fire last night. When I clicked to post something new, I found it had been two long weeks since words had issued from my fingertips.

So, my little geese, it seems to me that I've come to the end of my own personal phenomenon. Dotty is off to pursue new possibilities and watch the changes that are certain to come. All the brilliant wit and fabulous pondering will be funneled into new activities. And likely a lot of the old ones. When I'm famous, or if you're in town, come over for something to eat or drink. We'll talk over the old days, like old people, and talk about how things used to be and how things are and how "the more things change the more they stay the same." Groan. Old people talking.

But!

Then we can make fun of old people. "Hey Granny! Can't drive too good with all that hair puffed up around your head, can you?" And we'll say, "The old days, how the hell can they be the old days when we were young when the days were old? What kind of sense does that make?" And we'll say, "Is there any more gin? I could use a refill...go easy on the tonic."

I'll be seeing you. I won't have it any other way.

Today, it's on the wobbly edge of acceptable.

On the weekend I had ice cream cake at a party. That's good cake.

I've had rice cakes. Today I'm eating "Whole Grain Cakes". They taste a "Whole Lot Like Rice Cakes". They made me think about cake and cakes and if cake is a good thing. I was trying to quench my thirst for sweets when I bought those faux rice cakes. They had cinnamon and some kind of sweet stuff on them. And they take a long time to eat, which is good. Were they good? Good enough, I'd eat them again. And they have cake in their name. So how bad could it be?

Then I thought, "Wow. How bad can it be?"

Cupcakes. They're good.
Ice cream cake. Good.
Strawberry short cake. Yes yes yes so good so good.
Apple cake. Good.
Fruit cake. Eh.
Poundcake. Good.
Cake walk. Good.
Cake hole. What you taste if it's good with.
Chocolate cake. Good.
Vanilla cake. Good.
Pancake. Good.
Cake of soap. Not good.
Crab cake. Good.
Funnel cake. Good.
Patty cake. Fun.

Cake. It's what's for dinner. If you're lucky.

Here are my recent quotations.

From one funny guy: "European handball? I don't want to play that. I want to play hockey! She can play with her own hand."

A fellow was talking about something important to him, although I didn't understand what. He was kind of beefy. Maybe that explains it.

"I was up all day Thursday doing pushups!
"On the roof!
"Of the house!"

And then student number two made me laugh with his grasp of the kind of attitude a person needs to get ahead. (I'm not sure what the attitude is, but I would be he's right about what it isn't.)

Teacher-You don't like this? You'd rather graph? Algebra's easier!
Student 1-grumble
Student 2-You need to stop complaining. You're never going to make it with that attitude.

People are so funny! I could people watch for a very long time!

...oh yeah, I'm going to work to teach, too.

It is just after 7am. I've been awake for at least an hour.

What's going on here? I don't wake up until 10am, at least! I think I'm happy about it. I think. But will I turn into a pumpkin soon? I know I look a little tired right now, but will I look like this all day? A little tired? Into a lot tired? Oh my goodness! And I'm working all day! From 7:45 until 8:30!

What the hell?

Every now and then I realize I'm just like everybody else. I work and wake and sleep and eat and obsess about silly things and then forget to do things. I feel sad at those times. I say, sigh, "I'm just like everybody else."

Then I kind of smile and think, "Just not as much."

I thought of her today as I was doing my copy edit work for my schmancy scientific journal.

I came across this plant. Lomatium triternatum (Pursh) Coult. & Rose.

It's a nineleaf biscuitroot. That's a funny root.

But Julie the human flower, she lives in Austin, Texas. Do they eat biscuits in Austin? For some reason I always picture her in Atlanta, although I've never pictured her eating a biscuit.

At any rate, she lives in the south. They have biscuits there. It's a plant. She likes plants. It's kind of a wacky name. She's kind of a wacky girl. And it grows in Texas, in some parts. Although not in Austin, I don't think. But it's a biscuitroot. And there's a peppered biscuitroot. Which would be for her being spicy and sassy.

So, biscuitroot, you're now a symbol of happy.

This picture belongs to the very copyright aware people at montana.plant-life.org/species/lomat_cou.htm who should know that this is an exercise in academic frivolity, which has, in fact, solidified my understanding of academics and their absolute frivolity.

He was training some punk at work. BellyRub wrote down something and the guy said, “Hm, that’s interesting. You know, your handwriting says a lot about your personality.�

BellyRub was offended. His handwriting is not beautiful. He never bothers to write a heart over his lowercase i. His exclamation point doesn’t have two eyes and a grin at the bottom. He never learned to make an uppercase Q that was recognizable as an uppercase Q? Well, actually, no one knows how to do that and make it look like a Q? (If you know how to make a cursive uppercase Q that looks like a Q, please send it to every grammar school textbook publisher in the world and to my fourth grade teacher who said my handwriting needed improvement. And gave my best friend good grades!)

The offended BellyRub explained that the link between handwriting and personality had been disproved many times. I think the trainee could use some more training on how to be polite. I’m ready to volunteer, too. (They’d never hire me for pay. You should see my handwriting!)

I imagine myself in BellyRub’s position. I’m trying to teach this goofball trainee and when I write down some notes for him to learn he says, “Hm, that’s interesting. You know, that says a lot about your personality.�

I’d look carefully at the paper and then look at him with a somewhat glazed and googly look and say, “Yeah, it’s kind of scattered and pointy, isn’t it?� I’d make some kind of creepy, jerky motion, and smile. I’d say, “It’s weird how people pick up on those personality quirks, isn’t it? You’re pretty perceptive.� Then I’d start looking around frantically for a pencil and stick it behind my ear. I’d say, “Oh, that’s better. Always be prepared. Thought I’d lost my stick.� Cuckoo grin.

When I was talking to BellyRub I let my mind wander in a different direction. I’d still say, “Yeah, it’s kind of scattered and pointy, isn’t it?� Then I’d say, “It warns people that I have knives in my pants.�

At that point BellyRub laughed and said, “Whaaat?� And I laughed because I realized that my sentence sounded like a foreign language translation of what I meant.

He said, in a scattered, pointy voice, “Oh! Pockets! Knives in your pockets!� So I started laughing thinking about the poor French boys and girls learning my twisted version of English and thinking that I’m talking about pants made out of knife fabric. “Oh! Pierre! Do you like my cargo-pants? They are made from real cargoes! From Brazil!�

And, of course, I must laugh at myself for writing pants. Here is the good ol’ US of A, where many misunderstandings are born and bred, we’ve got a dire pants situation. The US version of pants is trousers. Or jeans, I imagine. I’m making that up, taking liberties, yassir. But in jolly old England (not good ol’), pants are underpants. You know, underwear, skivvies, bloomers, shorts, panties, tightie whities, boxers, loincloths, codpieces, drawers, thongs, snowsuits, those kinds of things.

So having knives in one’s undies, well, that might make you have scattered, pointy handwriting if you didn’t in the beginning, mightn’t it?

This is a strange game I haven't solved yet, but it's pretty cool.

It's called Grow Cube. Play it a bunch of times and then a bunch of times more. There aren't directions, but it's not hard to figure out.

Spend your time making your brain feel massaged.

Aaaaah. Grow Cube.

Mmm.

And the woman narrating was meandering through relaxing and letting our minds stay present and noting where our bodies store stress and learning to find that stress. She suggested that we find whatever body part our stress is associated with (your back or your jaw, for two examples) let it drop. She meant that we could coax the body part into relaxedness so that it isn't held taught above the calmness, so that it has the ability to feel calmness and to soften. Her imagery was leading to a place where the body is relaxed enough that it feels like it's sinking slightly into warm sand so that there's support that conforms to your body.

One thing she said, though, that was a bit odd, however, was when she was describing relaxing the face. She said something like, "Let your face melt into your back brain."

What's that? I'm supposed to visualize that? I tried to think of an alternative way to say what I think she's trying to say. My version went like this: "Let all the tightness and the wrinkles and the lines melt into smoothness; feel the skin on your face relaxed and free from cares, your hair and your ears and your chin coaxing your face to surrender to their pull." It's longer, yes. But there's no face melting with the slop ending up in the back of my head. Eww.

Earlier in the DVD she wanted me to relax my lower back, not press down my lower back ribs, but to "let them hang, like garlands."

Garlands, huh? I'm never going to her house for Christmas.

My thanks to Texas 4-H Meat Judging Retail Identification for their photos. And to Mark Ryden for the meat angel.

And then there are mishaps. I forgot to go to Ali's for dinner, for example. That's not cool. I forgot about teaching a class. I thought I was done forgetting about those kinds of things.

Alas, there are some things I do remember, like how to forget what I'm supposed to remember.

PTAMom was up today helping me move my stuff. We got to my apartment and I didn't have the keys. But I never lock the door! So I went back and got the keys. When we got to storage to put the rest of the stuff away, I had the wrong key. And the time before this one, I didn't have a key at all.

So much forgetfulness is kind of funny after a while. It's the annoyed kind of funny that happens when that good friend of yours does that thing he always does that drives you crazy, but you know you can't change so you kind of shake your head and love him anyway.

I'm my own best friend!

We're talking about gastrointestinal. G. I. Sprocket.

What in the world has BrilliantEditor been feeding that animal? He says that it's probably because of whatever "treats" the deer are leaving for Sprocket. If the deer are, indeed, causing Sprocket such redolent distress, I believe a new bioterrorism has been founded in the abominable abdominal grumblings of a small, hog-shaped canine.

Spring has been trying to dominate her for days. Perhaps this is Sprocket's defense--to cause Spring to sink to her knees making hairball noises?

Sprocket is lying near to me and her in breaths sound like small questions. Hm? Ehm? Hrm? Hhhem? Little sounds with an occassional answer. I can hear her, I think, saying all these different phrases: "like deer poops?" "poo?" "poops?" "yeah" "do I?" "I do?" "yeah?" "i smell good"

I suspect Sprocket does this just to prove she scared the shit out of some deer. I'm not sure what she hopes to gain by having proven that, though.

She's already overwhelmingly impressive.

Here's some stuff that's funny to me. And I've put those little titles that come up when you put your mouse on the picture so you can truly feel my joy.

You know, if a computer gets warm enough, you can iron with it.

Little bastard. Who does he think he is? Telling his mommy to have a cigarette. Even if he is right.

Poor baby. But it's so funny.

I think both creatures are really happy now.

Yodeling, singing, interpretive keening. I wish I looked that good.

What do frogs learn in school, anyway?

Smut. A smut infection. Anther-smut as an entity all its own. What type of infection is that? Oh, that’s the anther-smut variety. For whatever reason, these words have captured my imagination. Sometimes I imagine that it’s antler-smut infection. Which would be different from an antler smut infection. The second one has a smut infection of the antler. Which makes me think of juvenile male deer with pornographic doe pictures hanging from the points on their antlers. Then the deer PTA would have a meeting about antler smut infecting the youth of the forest.

And that makes me think that my mind seems to need a rest from antlers, anthers, smut, and the PTA.

Goodnight.

When I was growing up, we said my dad's version of grace. It goes, "We thank thee Heavenly Father for this food, and bless it to our use. Help us through this day and night, help us to do right, and save us for Christ's sake, amen."

I looked it up on Google to find out what words are really used (you know how kids hear different words? Like the Jimi Hendrix song where he sings "Kiss the sky" but another person heard "Kiss this guy".), but I couldn't find the prayer out there at all. I even tried different chunks of it the words and couldn't find one that resembled it at all.

We were apparently quite rebellious in our religion. Woo!

My mom's family, on the other hand, was happy to use the grace that the Roman Catholics provided.

"Bless us, O Lord, and these, thy gifts, which we are about receive from thy bounty. Through Christ, our Lord, amen."

It's okay. I like my dad's better, though. It feels earthier. The Catholic one you could say when you were filling the car with gas or going to wear perfume. And, to a kid, the Catholic one is just a bunch of words: thy? receive? bounty? through? What's coming through the bounty?

When I look on beliefnet.com, it looks like the Catholics and Protestants have other "prayers before meals" but that's the one that's listed as traditional. It's listed as traditional on the Protestant page, too.

I have now reached the end of my knowledge.

My opinion, of course, doesn't end there. Perhaps it's a good thing to always have a grace to say.

If Ali cooks for me again, I'll treat her to a different one. And, although I have an aversion to rhymey, sing-songy verse, I might have to consider the Johnny Appleseed prayer. "The Lord is good to me, and so I praise the Lord! For giving me the things I need, the sun and the rain and the appleseed! The Lord is good to me!"

Or I might not.

I looked at Buddhist prayers thinking there might be something deep and powerful. Silly Dotty! These people aren't into eating! They're all about living in the moment, nourishing "our bodies so we may work for the benefit of all sentient beings".

I don't know that I'd be interested in eating, at that point. It doesn't feel tasty. I'd probably be feeling like, "Mm, nah, you go ahead and chew on the bamboo stalks. Yes, yes, be sentient, by all means. Oh, help yourself to that pile there! All those rocks are yours for tasting! Don't let me get in your way. I'm going to go suck on my toes or something. You know, fuller flavor."

I'm not really impressed with the prayers that I've found. I think it's good that I'm not the girl assigned by God to listen to grace as it's said all over the world. I'd come to him with a pad of paper written on in every possible spot. I'd say, "You have to do something about that stupid food/good rhyme. I can't tell you how many times I've heard people say, 'God it great! God it good! Now let's thank Him for this Fud.'"

So I might not have the job long.

So grace it is, when Ali's cooking up a storm. And Ali's stuck with prayers already presented or my final, highly educated offerings.

Good bread, good meat, good God, let's eat.

1, 2, 3 Yea God!

I learned about fingernails. That half-moon arch is called the lunula. Did you know that? I certainly didn’t. And here are some ab fab things you should know about your dainty paws. I’ll give you a fun fact, just to make you want it more!

Dietary changes that supposedly strengthen nails don't work. Unless you're deficient in protein — rare among people in the United States — adding protein to your diet won't strengthen your nails. Similarly, soaking your nails in gelatin won't help either.

Those bastards telling us to drink gelatin! A bowl full of jelly, indeed.

We read a book called Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen, I think, which I didn’t quite finish and am anxious to try to accomplish. I’m going back to the same school tomorrow, so I may have to scoop up a copy. It’s about a boy in a plane crash! And he has to survive on his own! And the tool he has to help him…can you guess what it might be? Could it be a hatchet? It might be…

There were lots of good things, but the silliest was my rediscovery of a Pink Pet. The eraser of old. I remember the eraser having “Pink Pet� scrolled across it in a fashion that inspired confidence in penmanship and the utility of the eraser.

I may have been mistaken, however.

The pink pet doesn’t have the scrolling ease of handwriting, although it does have the accuracy of a person who may like a pink pet, but just wants the fun, frisky pet part, not the rubby smudgy oops part.

And so there was my eraser joy.

And my big, very happy joy for the day came from a girl who talked to me and answered my questions. She’s a selective mute and doesn’t talk to people. She didn’t talk to the last substitute they had and she wouldn’t talk to the principal of the school. She doesn’t talk to her schoolmates. I feel so happy and friendly and kind. I’m my very own pink pet today. *squeaky squeaky*

Lately I've been making myself laugh while I'm reading literature citations. Woo! What a hoot!

It is a bit silly, though. Here are the ones I have right in front of me:

A. Peacock
Hall and Smol
Flannery, Snodgrass, and Whitmore (it's like a storybook law firm)
James, Smith, and Jones (three nonidentifiable last names)
Wratten and Cox (forgive my crude humor)
Husband, Fitter, and Young (just seems odd)
Feldmann, Aguirre-Urreta, Chirino-Halvez, and Casadio (which of these things is not like the other?)

I should go to bed now. It's late. And with all the fun of literature citations, I'm surely tuckered out!