Genius!

I had one of those lightning strike moments of pure genius last night at 3 o'clock in the morning! (Which, by the way, is what time the Geek stumbled in after going bowling after work with all the other little Geeks) We were talking and I was confused because I couldn't remember what day of the week it was (Which, now that I think about it, was probably brought on by the fact that it was IN FACT technically Friday when I was trying to talk to my Geek about what had gone on during my day and what my plans were for tomorrow while in point of fact my "today" had become "yesterday" and my "tomorrow" had become "today," and I had consumed endless amounts of coffee for nigh on a week now...) Anyway, I was struck instantly by the idea that my life would be soooo much easier to keep track of if the work week only consisted of 4 Tuesdays and a Friday. Then, whenever I said anything to anyone what required a "day" reference I would have a much much higher probability of getting it right. If for some reason I got it wrong and some smart ass corrected me it would sound something like this: "What the hell are you talking about, it's Friday not Tuesday!" Then instead of thinking what a know-it-all little smart ass the person is I just think "Shit, it's Friday already, yahhh!" So that's what I want 4 Tuesdays, 1 Friday, and 2 Saturdays (so I never suddenly realize that it's Sunday when I thought it was Saturday and still had half a weekend to get shit done around the house) I think Franklin Covey should make day planner pages like that. I'd use them in a heartbeat! Well, that's it, my brilliant idea...

Destruction

I've been meaning to write an entry, even if it's just some stupid little piddly piece of fluffy kitten vomit, but I've said I'm too busy, too tired, too far gone in my own deep dark spring time induced little grey funk to be able to muster something so pointless as a blog entry.

Bull shit.

I'm officially getting the fuck over it.

Here goes:

Last Friday I awoke late way too early, did my entire bathroom routine in the dark (the fluorescent bulbs my Geek has replaced all my nice 25 watt bulbs with is WAY too bright some mornings so I just get dressed in the dark... which explains alot, I know) feed all the whiny needy defective pets I have, couldn't find the mate to one of my favorite shoes, had to wear my crappy black flats instead, and was heading out the door late way too early, when I spotted a note. Written in black Sharpie on a blank piece of what I still refer to as "Typing Paper" was the following:

Hey Sweetie,
I hope these make your day a little "sweeter!"

Kisses -- *My Geek*

The note was weighted down by a Dark Chocolate Orange (you know the big round orange liqueur flavored chocolates you whack on the table and break apart the little segments to eat) and a can of Mango Juice. Let's just say that at 3pm while drinking that heavenly nectar and lingering over my dark chocolate fix I cried because I was so lucky.

Today as I write this, I am safe and sound at my job, and my best friend is safe and sound at her job, and my Geek is safe and sound at his job, and my parents are safe and sound at their home and jobs, and that is enough to make me cry just a little bit.

When the world is as stupid and pointlessly violent and ignorant as it is today and everyday for all it's history sometimes you have to be a little self indulgent just to feel anything at all...

You can't change Time, you can only change your Mind

This whole "Spring Forward" time change shit is ridiculous. I realize that I hate change and I do claim anarchist tendencies, but I can't be the only one who thinks this is some sort of conspiracy or perhaps a social experiment. I mean, I try to get my boss to think it's 4:30pm when it's really just 3:30 so...

Seriously! Why, if it REALLY matters, can't we just change what time we go to work, school, and church. I wouldn't mind going into work an hour earlier if I could leave an hour earlier.

I think that my solution is just as valid and arbitrary as theirs (whoever "they" are). I say lets start a petition. Leave the fucking clocks alone! Just get your ass out of bed earlier. It's what you're being forced to do against your will anyway. STRIP AWAY THE ILLUSION! You aren't going to work at 9am, you're being FORCED to show up an hour early. I say tell the world the ugly truth! We're all just stumbling along like some sort of jet lagged zombie. Sleeeeep. Sleeeeep. Must have sleeeep...

LEAVE THE FUCKING CLOCKS ALONE, THEY'RE RIGHT ALREADY! THERE'S NOTHING "WRONG" WITH THEM!
STRIP AWAY THE ILLUSION!
FREE YOURSELF FROM THE TIME FASCISTS!

work when you want, sleep when you want, play when you want, and fuck the fascist pigs who try to control society in the most piddly ass ways imaginable

Being a grown up sucks

I've had no time to do ANYTHING! Except work, read, take long baths, walk the dog, clean the house, burn a brush pile, celebrate the time change with sex, plant flowers, belly dance, and pack for a business trip. As you can tell, blogging ranks down towards the bottom of my "To Do" list. I have been reading alot lately, and as soon as I can make myself put a book down for any length of time I will post some of the fabulous little tidbits that I've discovered. I have done a tiny bit of writing and maybe, perhaps, I might consider posting some of my drafts of poems... maybe.




Today's Trivia:



a group of cats is called a clutter.










You can call my dog an idiot whether he's in a group or not.

That is my dog, J, ready to go out in the rain. I have to love him because my father and my geek tell me I have to. He's high strung, high maintanence, allergic to everything, and refuses to piss in the rain. Some women attract loser boyfriends, I attract damaged pets. I guess it could be worse.

Good books and good friends...

I just realized something for the first time today. I always knew it as fact, but I never truly appreciated it the way I should... It was one of those things you just take for granted.

I have friends that buy me books!

Not those kind of "friends" who hear you go on and on about a book that you've been dying to read and then go out and buy it for you, nor am I talking about the type of "acquaintance" who simply buys you a book because it was on Oprah's book club or the New York Times Best Seller List. I am talking about the type of friend who reads a book and goes "Wow, that was great, I bet So-and-So would get a kick out of that one..." I am talking about the type of friend who wants to share their favorite author with you. I am talking about the type of friend who looks at some book they would never read in a million years, unless it was the ONLY book on a desert island and the natives said "Read book 'bout kittens, rainbows, and ponies or we fricassee your ass for dinner," and says I would never read a book about kittens, rainbows, and ponies in a million years unless it was the last book on earth and I had a choice between reading it and being fricasseed, BUT I bet So-and-So would LOVE it, so they buy it for you against their own better judgement and taste. THOSE types of friends are one of the best things you could ever have happen to you!

Even if you don't really enjoy the book, or if you've read it before, or if you set it on the floor and your dog eats it, a book given with thought from a friend is probably one of the best presents I could ever hope to receive.

There are many joys in life. Books, friends, kittens, ponies, rainbows, and any combination there of, are among the best!

By Lamplight

Since moving from my idyllic Springhouse I have gained central heat & air and lost, among the many many many charms of my prior abode, the ability to watch that most beloved of inventions - Television. As my friends are aware I am a bit of a masochist, so it isn't as bad as it could be... I have found however that such primitive conditions are very conducive to my addictive almost obsessive love of reading. I also realized that there is no real rhyme or reason to when or what I read. And that though this lends me a charming eccentric air it also leaves me bewildered at times as to where I read that line, you know the one, the one that gets lodged in your head, the seed of an idea, the simple ten word explanation of something which you've wrestled internally with most of your adult life, the perfect pick up, the exact right thing to say when you can't say anything to help someone, that line. Well, it used to be that I would highlight things, fold a page in an almost origamic way so that the tip of one page would point to the exact sequence of words that salved my soul. Alas, this only ensured I would never remember what I gained from my books until at some future point I reread that exact book (and I ALWAYS reread, at least once, books that I like enough to keep on my bookshelves, except of course Les Miserables, and no one can fault me on that!) Anyway, all this rambling is to bring me to this point:

I must start keeping track of what I read, and what strikes me when I read it!

So here it is, my starting point. I am going to list which books I am currently reading and when something strikes me about one of them I will record it. At some point I will take a little precious time away from work, and friends, and family, and pull my nose out of a book long enough to set this up as some kind of permanent list of some sort with a link and all that spiffy shit, but for now here is window into my current reading life:

Saving Fish from Drowning, by Amy Tan
She wrote The Joy Luck Club. I am ashamed to admit this, but I saw the movie and did not read the book. It is a very good read. I am fascinated by how the author took an interest in automatic writings (where the departed communicate through the writings of the living) and turned it into a brilliant plot for a novel. It solves all those nasty complicated point of narrative problems I encounter if I write more than three pages of anything. So far there have been no life enhancing quotes or thoughts, but I'm only 2/3 of the way through it, so I'll keep you posted. I did find an origami page marking what I think is the most beautifully funny names I've ever seen in print. (For my own reasons, I have a weakness for characters, real or fictional, with unusual names.) The following is the excerpt that I marked:
"The rusty-headed twins were two who remained, from the lineage of the Lord of Nats and his Most-Most Favorite Concubine. She was much higher in status than the Most Favorite Concubine, and somewhat lower than the Most-Most Favored Wife. This was according to the twins grandmother, who was not from the paternal side, and so not of the divine lineage. But she was the one who named the boy "Loot" and the girl "Bootie," English words meaning "goods of great value taken in war." She kept them from being that, as she now testified to the tribe and the Younger White Brother."
Also there is a part where describes the tribe making a plan to evade the military regime of Burma by this elaborate hoax of leaving their village intact and living in the rain forest mountains. Then abruptly it says "We made another plan." As though the plans we all just merely collective decisions that the tribe set forth for everything, all the time. Kind of a "If A, then B. If X, then Y." some sort of group Chose Your Own Adventure Book. I just found it amusing. Probably because I'd had a glass of wine in a very hot bath...

This Book Will Change Your Life "365 Daily Instructions for Hysterical Living", by Benrik
I originally picked this one up as a gift for My Best Friend. She's been a little twitchy lately... But as I flipped through it I realized just exactly how fabulous it was! Kind of along the lines of "Steal This Book," with a zenish twist. Not quite as anarchist as "Steal this Book" or "The Anarchist Cookbook," but also it is not outdated yet. You will not find the recipe for Heroine in this book, but you will find a list of backdoors for hacking and premade vegetable stickers. It is irrelavent on the surface, but if you look too deeply, you will find that the "Daily Instructions" are actually practices in self realization. I am quite looking forward to randomly opening to a page anytime I'm feeling in a rut. Examples of "Daily Instruction":
Day 65 - Today learn a poem by heart. (Sounds great & enlightening doesn't it...)
Day 27 - Today you are not allowed to use the words "yes" or "no."
Day 239 - Bullshit Today. Log on to an internet chatroom and participate in a discussion you know nothing about for as long as you can without being exposed as a fraud.
Day 224 - Cut in line.
Day 148 - Leave a note on someone's car windshield. (They give several examples. My favorite is "I've left someone in your trunk. I'll pick him up next week if that's OK.")

There are two other books that I've started, but I'm having a hard time thinking coherently right now...I know this has been long and rambling, but I'm on cold medication so cut me some fucking slack.

*These are NOT book reviews, just simply my thoughts. Which makes this entire process useless to anyone but me, which is exactly how I like it.

Animal Farm Economics

Cow Economics without the Bull Shit
Thanks to Cows I now understand what I couldn't be bothered to pay attention to in high school Economics class! Geez, if someone had just bothered to EXPLAIN it to me maybe I would have learned a little something instead of playing cards, reading Eudora Welty, and writing morbid poetry during 6th period that year. In all honesty I can say that I never understood the Gold Market until I read this piece.