Self-indulgence

It seems 4 years ago, I was much more narrative and slightly less cynical (we're quoting CG in its birth-month, November, 2005):

So, crazy girls break into unlocked schools and crazy men plow their vehicles down hills and across four lanes before coming to rest at the bottom of a loamy, human-filled hill.

Apparently Abraham Lincoln was rejected by his first object d'amour, too. The historian at Elmwood told me Thursday that Lincoln's approach to proposing to Sarah Rickhart had been to cite the Bible.

"You know, Sarah," he said to her sitting next to him on the porch swing in Springfield. He had watched her grow to womanhood, womanhood back in the early 1800s being 12 to 14 years old or something, while staying with Sarah's sister and brother-in-law, the Butlers, Elizabeth and William. "In the Bible, Abraham marries Sarah." I can't help but picture the delivery as a little bit smarmy. Perhaps any good Christian girl would have swooned.

As the story goes, conveyed to me by someone who actually has read history books on this subject, Sarah left the scene. What an answer. Just walk away. In later years she was said to have regretted the choice, but only because Lincoln turned out to be president and all.

Ages.

Do not expect to find springs in Eureka Springs, though at one time there were 62 or so. What remains are Victorian houses perched along a series of switchback loops along a slight mountainside. It seemed that half of the homes were operated as bed and breakfasts, and that half of those were for sale.

I am exaggerating, just as I did when the jets in the bathtub sprayed water all over the place and I repeatedly exclaimed, "It's a tragedy!" while wiping up the floor. We laughed supremely then, which makes finding out that Manuela keeps a really clean floor more than worth the wet clothes. (Manuela: the cryptic printed signature under the crooked printed sentence "Gratuities are always appreciated" on an envelope on the dressing table.)

On Friday night we set out after dark on foot and had no idea where we were going. There seemed to be no one around, and it's accurate to say the town is quite quiet. The trolley bus is loud, but that's about it. Deer wander though every evening.

I declare

that this is a scholarly and legal use of* Ms. DiFranco's lyrics; links to full versions on official site for her "Reprieve" album included; she says a few things better than I do right now, so I'm saying, "click me:"

"step up and forfeit your frontal lobe
to the sexed up strobe of celebrity
never mind that the nanoseconds in between
are some of the darkest darkness you've ever seen …"

♡

"… yeah, so
it took me a few years to catch on
that those days i catch everyone's eye
correspond with those nights of the month
when the moon gleams like an egg in the sky
and men are using a sense they don't even know they have
just to watch me walk by
and me, i'm supposed to be sensible
leave my animal outside to cry

"but when all of nature conspires
to make me her glorious whore
it's cuz in my body i hold the secret recipe
of precisely what life is for
and the patriarchy that looks to shame me for it
is the same one making war
and i've said too much already
but i'll tell you something more …"

❀

*Who has received a "fair" deal of my money over the years.

*)I miss Utah Phillips

I'm tired of all the information

… and the smells.

Mardi blah

I must be the only person who hates Tuesday more than Monday. Mondays are fine. On Mondays all is open, bright — blank and hopeful. Hit the ground running. Made a commitment, went to commitment, on foot both ways. Read for school. Made it to meeting, sat through meeting. Went to school.

Darkness follows, and it has nothing to do with the cloudy sky overhead.

Bad news is something I can't handle at all, I guess. Bad behavior creates so many ripple-effects of negativity. Where am I supposed to "go" — in my head / with my body / for my meaningful vocation/engagement with life?

There is too much to do in 2010. Too much to do before the holidays/semester's end. Too much to do today.

Winged Victory of Samothrace says, "Just do it."

But —

Doing is just too hard.

Running away is my favorite ~

Let's compete and see who gets to.

Politicians

are the people who take what exists and screw it all up.

Artists

are the people who take what I imagine and make it happen in real life.

Is a hater

Who does expect

(there are many issues unstated : )

Oh, regulatory things … read up … we spent what on what now?

But still, why can't we hire a bunch of out-of-work degree-holders to work in H1N1 vaccination factories?

Rahr.

I will be your incubator!

Was right

… about the 16-year-old.

Layers

Bad news can come like phyllo dough. When finally baked up and presented from an oven, after all the preparation, the kneading, filling and folding are over — the work — the pastry may simply taste bad.

The number of flakes are infinite. The amount of layers are impossible to calculate, and as you dig, thinking, "ah, here at last is the end of it," it all ends up crumbling apart.

It's quite late in the day, lunch for many already, to be playing out a self-indulgent baking metaphor on a blog.

Let's not forget that this blog has (never?) led to any remuneration; lately, it has induced me to donate money to a stranger's medical bills. Not much. Recently I gave KCUR $10 more than to her, and I gave $10 to SNKC. The Kansas City Museum (Friends Of) got about $27 this year, on top of my usual membership … I think … their fiscal year is impossible to trace; membership might be individually annual — and poorly tracked — and they were audacious or ignorant enough to allow a hidden (non-standard) PayPal fee in the secondary campaign for shipping, though nothing was mailed my way.

I think those are all my 2009 501c3 givings. Actual work, unfortunately, is not deductible as an in-kind or any donation. Way back in my head there must be something that half-believes in the "good works," which Martin Luther did not, or in karmic balance. We have not reduced our tip percentage, though we might be dining out less. I have chipped off about $100 to give to a few things I believe in during a time when resources are inadequate. I might be responding to the generosity of hundreds of people in the community 'round here who have chipped off in my direction, based solely on belief.

Oh, and I bought some art this year, too. About $200.

So, an hour later, after the puffs and sambousas and spanakopita have been picked apart and hastily digested with a friend, she drifts back into the third person, decides nothing really has changed and gets back down to somewhat boring and somewhat tarnished brass tacks.

It shall be fine someday when they shine.

Les Mots

you'd have to know to read what i'm reading for art history class (most of which baffle standard spellchecking apps and also must be looked up by me in order to read):

diminuendo (reduction in force or loudness; this word should come in handy)

prole (means proletariat — yes, run, glenn beck!)

aperçu (know french but english connotations are a bit different)

pangyric (recall from undergrad life; fun and hopefully will be directed at me someday : )

fatuous (you know this one)

borborygm (gas!)

voulu (more french; contrived — why not just say "contrived," dear author?)

Bundesrepublik (german, of course, and it just means "germany" — i'm starting to get angry)

exegetical (sounds familiar … oh — means, "explanatory")

catamite (eew)

feuilleton (argh!)

tittup (we should talk about this one more often)

SAVAK (o.k. that just exposes that people my age are not familiar with the cultural and political things of our own babyhood years)

Not a pagan, but plays one on lawn

Oh no

There are too many of McDonald's (but, we recall that there are more US gun dealers/shops than Mickey D's around the world)!

Bella

Because everyone knows goats make me happy!

Thanksgiving is coming —

and it's scary!

These girls are happy, though. They live in a perpetual state of merrymaking in the re-created woods of Salem, Massachusetts, in the basementy exhibits of the Witch History Museum, one of three coordinated sites, each with its own set of moldering dummies that are accompanied by live people who narrate facts about The Land of Witches and Pirates.

Like this guy on the right; I forgot his name, but he was funny. The Birkenstock sandals are a a great anachronistic touch, don't you think? He neither took himself too seriously nor was a bored worker. I had the feeling he was probably in community theater, too. The young woman who led us through the museum on Essex Street was quite like a friend of mine who is in comm. theat. here, and the tour at the Witch Dungeon Museum opens with a staged piece about the trials and has the cast's 8"x10" head-shots posted on the wall in the foyer.

[all photos by GEAR, 9/11/2009]

Drives a hard bargain

It's going to be a while before we can do this again.

PS: isn't my floor shiny?

Natural Procrastination

I think there is a market for packets of "Cheeto Dust."

Sprinkle it on your ice cream, or just dip your finger into this adorable Chester container and enjoy!

Did you know that 1 oz. of Cheetos has fewer calories than 1.7 oz. of Larabar "Jocolat?" Only 30 fewer, however, and practically the same amount of Vitamin E — 6% dva — which is only 4% less than what Larabar proclaims itself to be a "Good Source" for.

Protein, did you say? She's got 5g, he's packing only 2g. But, he's a small snack, after all, and made up of things like hydrogenated soybean oil, disodium phosphate (I venture this is what makes the cheese powder so addictive — plus the obligatory MSG, of course), enzymes even, and several things described frankly as "artificial," while Ms. Lara has about six ingredients, all organic and with fair-trade certified chocolate.

That's Denver, Colorado, versus Plano, Texas, for you!

I don't post like that

(and immediately, all I can think of are horse-racing metaphors … post-time and all its punnical implications …)

The blogs I enjoy reading the most contain the least amount of righteousness. Sure, I log onto ______ _______ and ______________ to get a fix of predictable ranting (occasionally new information, a decent news-hub/digest) or of a simulacrum of a person I once knew whose personal damage kept repeating patterns until I, too, was "unexpectedly" caught up in the whirling ego and cast out.

But what I really enjoy reading are affirmative narratives of how life goes. Even when the writers are technically sad or down, dealing with small or traumatic stresses of life (all normal, all fair game to any of us in the roulette wheel of life), those who "have it" manage to round up to a positive subtext or conclusion; I suspect that even when they believe themselves to be maudlin or self-indulgent, they are 1,000 times removed from the actual self-indulgence of the latter category I described.

Is not the affected Britishness / 19th-century upper-class Americanness amusing?

Faugh.

Anyway, we had a lovely day today. I woke up dull and bitchy. Coffee (recycled, press-pot's Saturday offering, microwaved — yes, yes, I know) did not help. I frowned a lot, but my husband has finally come to interpret these with less personal martyrdom because it is, after all, true that 90 percent of any frown is false, and 90 percent of all frowns are false to begin with.

I know less about smiles. I lie.

Breakfast outdoors, and it was like camping, but it made (by design) the chicken pot pie cool to an edible temperature within a tolerable period. I had eaten it indoors earlier this season, and there is nothing quite like staring at one's food for minutes upon end while one's companion eats away and one is starving. Not so literally, of course, but there are rows of days when one meal is the only meal. Try that and sit in front of an oval pastry of loveliness in its white-hot white porcelain dish. It's a $10-meal at YST, so waiting and starving are o.k. "in these times."

Or, should I say, "now more than ever?" I am weary of the false classification, brandification, labeling of the contemporary moment.

Excuse me — why is is more important now to eat at home and not buy your kids "breakfast sandwiches" or "ice cream sundaes" at shops? Did not the average family always parse out such luxuries? And, if not, if we mothers (collectively and figuratively) truly have forgotten how to scramble eggs for our kids and slap them on a ready-made biscuit or stick a scoop of strawberry on a cone, then what of the counter argument: ice cream shops and McDonald's represent JOBS? "JOBS are important, and we'll even take mere 10 percent tips, because surely they are 'o.k. in these times' — not."

As someone who acknowledges the privilege of dining out (as well as the relative balance of calories-for-the-dollar for a perpetual party of two), I say the 20 percenter is most standard, and that's often what we give to crummy servers (while making complaint-points in other ways). If service is vile, then, no. You may have read of my definitions in the past.

Today's service was great as usual, and even at Home Depot, we had two whole people ask us what we were looking for. The latter is one case in customer service history where complaints seem to have made a difference.

Of course, the screws hanging on display amidst the metal joists and corner joints we were buying to fix the 100-year-old bed (which is closer to the age of the house, 89) did not fit through the pre-drilled holes; the HD will be giving me either $7.67 back or an equivalent amount of houseplantage. We spent $80 in window caulking, a few batteries and the galvanized bits, which themselves were quite cheap and probably from China.

And we already had drilled in extra holes. Factory holes vary from part to part …

Domicilelife is tedious and time-consuming, but no more so than in log-cabin days, I pretend.

It took a while to engineer bed repairs … what we really needed was a custom-made metal brace or at least one with three sides. We had adequate screws at the house, and later found many other "unexpected" hardware items … when I recommended a bit of reorganization. I do not have Hank Hill here, after all.

But it's back in the high-life again, and the cat is perplexed and upset about the high-jump. Beds from back then are as tall as a medium-sized dog, and Milo is merely a fat feline.

More laundry has been done here in the past three days than in as many months (no verification on the degree of exaggeration will be given — if pilots can't admit they were just having sex or playing poker in the cockpit, where their advocacy groups protest the presence of cameras …), and later, we both went to buy $100 of food products.

Then I made tacos and dealt with some more laundry things. And he did other laundry things.

All the while, it has been raining.

I'm also getting three paychecks in one week (and there shall be no jokes made here nor facts about how funny this really is).

It wasn't the end of Daylight Savings Time last night, was it?

Jumping centuries

A few weeks ago, gave up the opportunity to view full moon, Jupiter and its (her?) moons out by a lake.

Has been watching the same movie at post-midnight hours for 20 years (*almost).

It was on VHS and is now a $10 Amazon Video-on-demand for all time (*or at least until the company ceases to exist; we do believe so in capitalism, yet there is always the caveat — which is perhaps most manifest in non-profit 'businesses' — that someday the entity might cease to be, and you will be without any guarantee on your investments).

"In 100 years, this won't matter" might be a calming opiate ´a la Marx; however, I find it a rather sad resignation to insignificance. Some of our most well-known and famously celebrated and talented or groundbreaking^ artists were either not what we call recognized (*in other words, able to live without freaking out about money all the time) or knew inherently that what they were up to was important or would last, only that they felt it to be important and worthy of a lifetime.

We are lead to believe that they did work hard and worked every day, despite their debauchery (*so synonymous with the Modern Era Artist and even the post-modern one, though we're still in such a muddle as not to be able to tell exactly where any are located in the mix); and now, as a result of their work plus little else usually but professional association, we admire or at least study them.^^

In other less tedious words, tend to your garden. Voltaire cast Candide, Pangloss and Cunegonde well at the 'end' of it all. Gardens take all day, after all.

And everything does, in fact, matter. Even to diests or atheists …

Don Quixote, Candide … even James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, but to a lesser and now antiquated and quaint extent in their understanding of consequence, advised getting down to brass tacks, as it were.^^^

Yes, she likes to quote a quaint (not dead) man who was her teacher who used that phrase frequently.

She wants to express thwarted theatrical tendencies.

A thought occurred a few hours ago, though: if women are obliged in this culture to pretend they have no facial hairs whatsoever save the thin-groomed brow and the oxmoronic thick lash, then why do men not sever off their own defunct nipples?^^^^

Anyway, I still enjoy the layers of this film. They not only reveal their own layers, through a 1972 rendition of a 1966 stage-version of a story set in 1931 Berlin, but the personal ones spanning 1990 or so to now or so.

High school was quite difficult.

And, if anyone can reproduce a good number of those outfits in my size, I would be quite grateful.^^^^^

Also, I recall trying to induce my more-mature friends (I had no idea; I was 8 perhaps?) into playing the rôles of a group of country girls, sweet and innocent and dressed in pale blue, pink, green and yellow checked gingham dresses, to re-enact personaes from a coloring book; and at this time, I had been wondering if it would be easier now to get a few dancers from the area to pose in a tableau vivant of a certain closing scene of the movie's opening act than it was (influence fail) to have my 'friends' be theatrical back then. Has my influence changed?

But, we shall need the costumes!

Because doing is all that matters.

[^was going to write 'seminal;' how is chosen adj. less sexual/violent; ie, negatively masculine?]

[^^would like anyone to diagram and mail me that sentence.]

[^^^asks that you please note the incongruous comparison, characters to authors — or was it intentional, meant to underline the increasing encroachment of the author's personality into his or her work? His or her. Hee. Sorry; read on?]

[^^^^wants you to be assured this is not a specifically directed sentiment, merely an expression of logical frustration based on time and space constraints]

[^^^^^measurements upon request, resume and payment]

Hates it when natural tendency to speak in 3rd person is absconded and standardized by new technology such as Facebook.

Don't you just hate it when you find yourself in the middle of a desert of the mind? Not a nice chocolate sunday/sundae, mind all, but a dry, sand-blown area of heat and absence of thought that scorching and/or blinding causes pain.

Hateful. Second person. Interrogative case.

First person emerging: I, Claudius, do take this opportunity to go forth and forge an empire.

Never mind that the sewers stink. Never mind that the weather or natural crime waves have caused this night to be silent of police sirens, saving up malfeasance and retribution for later. Never mind that half the friends I've have had have moved on to become themselves outside of my first, second, 20th impressions.

It's all quite made-up anyway. This incongruous over-coupling. Trying. To. Understand.

Succumb

~take out dead and painful scratchy contact lenses and use new ones after 2 months

Action infinitive

~get advising appointment;

~process paperwork related to d's end of life … photocopying, mailing at post office, registering debit card …

~validate other credit card … transfer 1% university debt to 12% credit card at latest possible moment in order to receive grades and registration status;

~start research on research paper for un-paid-for class;

~update all 120 former posts on other online publication for site transfer;

~rake leaves;

~laundry monster

MEANWHILE, stay "motivated" to go out of house and see humans and art.

"Gateman Sees Name Garageman Sees Nametag"

Respite, under "Coming Soon: Failure"

detail from "Yeah Right"

Disguise the Limit

Beniah Leuschke, Coming Soon: Failure. Ah, palindromic humor.

Lived on porch for 3 days and then died

Didn't mention

I walked to one of my jobs on Wednesday and fell on my knees (and one hand and part of the cellphone that dangles from my wrist for "emergencies") a few houses away from mine … because I always trip on my own learning curve that comes each time I put on shoes.

The momentum I had was remarkable to unravel as I sat normally (except for being on a sidewalk) holding my knees that were burning in an odd kind of impact-created pain and were not able to be moved by me (unless, I guess, I were in danger or something), waiting for the pain to subside, assessing the damage. You can never tell.

Later, after I called back the person whom my phone had sort-of spontaneously called, when I could actually think about talking and walking again, I realized that the shredded phone saved part of my hand and that people break falls in a state of balance (based on gravity and what part of you hits the ground first). I am not sure how my knees got involved at all. I guess I actually am out of practice with walking to work. It has been a while for this hermetic agoraphobic, though I have driven minimally.

The curb I had an issue with was actually a ramp-shaped affair, though (probably) with that grid of raised, red-colored (for the sighted) bumps (for the sight-challenged). Sigh.

There is a diagonal cut on my left knee, bruised all over the top of the patella … a scrape on my left hand palm bone … and my right knee looks like I fell 12 or more times. The bruises, which are purple here and are flanked by a wide scrape and another slash (all of these still rosy), are multiple and everywhere, so I guess I hit the ground technically multiple times — whole knee!

Gravity is amazing, as is momentum. And practice.

I walked Thursday, twice, without incident. Different shoes. What is interesting, too, is that I got so cut up but my pants were virtually unscathed. Some pilling happened on the inside, which was a bit rosy, too, after I walked the rest of the 10 blocks to an office. Athleta (pre-Gap ownership) makes a mighty fine semi-synthetic product.

Curb Curl, eater of sidewalks, reaffirms her street credibility.

Have called Thomas the Tank Engine to sort it all out as recommended

A one-ton one-track mind that skips over places in the spiral;
Labyrinths are too familiar to those who have run from bull~
T's transcontinental connectors to all points in the grey glob
Evade completion, like so many projects written up in the
Railway brochure*:
Natural happiness!
Academic advancement!
Tide-overs that harken back to the days of 1991!
Intriguing vocational mountains, scenic views, wildlife~
Very often she stares at all the tracks that run their regular limiteds and dailies,
Each usually on time, but none ever getting very far at a time,

Listening for some kind of clue in the song of the engines —

You would think in this case, capitalism would work.

(*Perhaps promoting parks that are not well-maintained or regulated at all. Traveler, beware; always get references.)

Pounds

1 buffalo, ground and mostly browned — no hormones/antibiotics, yay, buffalo and parks/usda laws! and drained and drained and drained but not rinsed; you can avoid the fatty orange chunks on top after refrigeration / they are few

> 2 tomatoes, diced and canned

>2 beans, kidney, canned and rinsed

1/4 pepper, fresh diced, yellow and red

1/8 pepper, fresh, diced, some seeds, jalapeño

1/6 onion, white, diced

(unknown; you do the math)=x

x chili powder (2.5 Tbs, better the better)

x (2 fat) garlic cloves, minced

x cumin (1 or so tsps)

x ground black pepper (about 45 grinds on the grinding thing)

x salt (recommend x3, depending on who you are and what the/your moon is doing — variable)

some water a few hours into the experience of the crock pot (the small one that is so old it doesn't come apart and is a huge pain to wash; the large one's having been cracked by a recent "in the dark" dial turning — warm does not equal high — on some split pea remnants … followed by a "let's see if it can make one more batch of chili* over the weekend" that ended up with grease-leakage / burning into something that is NOT going to come out of that electric unit, and even if it did, it's up to Craig's List to find a crockery to replace the cracked one. Perhaps aluminum foil barrier would suffice. But purge-now! me has already sent it away with the two-bag limit).

*(cow; mainly and manly; not in charge I, though it was good, but not as "healthy" as this one, of which, my point in starting this post, is: going to be completely consumed sans a bowl or so, by me, in within 4 days, tops — watch me, and watch my "I am a Sandro B." 30-something self evolve; later, a reversion to the athletic lady, which, I think, is 12 years away).

anyway, i'm in love with eating this mostly watery and crunchy thing. we didn't cook it very long and so the chili specks and "juice" are separate, but I like it very (too?) much.

buffalo taste(s) great.

photo forthcoming? (of the food, not me)

yes.

Throat still on verge of illness

… all it takes is staying up too late on a school night …

why do i keep doing that?
insanity's definition, blah blah blah.

full moon, tra la la.

the same game, players bored.

Flutending

The double entendre (when not Freudian, when MW definition #1 and not 2) is my favorite.

No, I am not tending to anyone with influenza, but I am contemplating pretending I've been virus-ridden for the past four days.

Too much evidence in the e-world and real world exists to the contrary, though, so I'm left with no real reasons for why I have not been able to come out and play, or work, or stay in and work, or barely do anything but bathe, eat too much and misbehave.

I made a meeting Monday and I made an opening Tuesday. I went to work Tuesday. School Monday was cancelled but I worked on school anyway. I have kept up with dishes and pets. I am going to a baby shower and will fix food for that tomorrow.

**************
A bit of time has gone by … the inbox is down to 126, with about 100 of them flagged to transmit/enter … another six or so in process of replying … coffee did not help (but to create a freaky ovarian-ish cramp for an hour); I am still tired and bored at heart and discouraged.

Glad I don't have to go "cover" the American Royal parade in the morning.

Sad I missed a personal deadline … when it's every Wed/Thurs/Fri, it's tiresome, and obviously, I'm not that sad about it / since when does sadness serve as a motivator … You would think that I'd even have jumped at the opportunity to create invoices so as to receive (portional) money "for" the past 14 weeks, wouldn't you? In my head, I know that tomorrow is soon enough, that it's not the end of anyone's world, that I'm human and can pretend I can use that for an excuse just this once.

Once?

Funny.

Grocery store is a great place for the anti-social and spacey, but it's dangerous b/c weekly calorie-count is way up and stomach is not working correctly, despite adding lots of vegetables and avoiding rice.

Allons-y.

Salem Mailbox

Considering the fact that the USPS "decided" without warning or notes (unlike UPS) to stop delivering the mail "because no one is ever here" (with the caveats exposed during inquiries that: we don't know where your mail is; you should call the next day before 8 a.m. — but be sure to let it ring and ring and ring and ring, because "he" does not answer the phone; when you do call AND go down to the PO, there will still be zero answers), I present this excellent use of USPS property.

Two weddings and a road-trip

goal pile fall '09

not get swine flu

do term paper*
*(get "enrolled" after being in class weeks and weeks … )

have dad at home for several days without exploding

make magazine grow in artists' usefulness

do other job

see if someone wants to fix a roof and eaves and much much more! for under $10k in january

not explode in general

not think about "transforming second half of my life" while also not having (had) babies

(republished from Facebook notes, 9-4-09)

You'll just end up doing it with someone else

"they" are all leaving facebook:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/magazine/30FOB-medium-t.html?_r=1

i don't really agree with those issues. don't do ratings and quizzes, don't say anything you don't want the whole stupid world to know, and just share events without necessarily saying whether you are going or where you have been. i never feel like we're co-stalking or co-ignoring.

the people who are lurking never really posted much in the first place. we've found no one has the time or energy to write to people directly, to all the people they wish to care about. honestly, we meet so many people in real life that it's overwhelming to know who(m) to maintain ties with, which kind, at what intervals.

that's how i feel anyway.

as for over-marketing, unlike the sexy "girls" who try to hook up with one on myspace all the time, the predatory marketing here seems fairly tame and infrequent. sure, i have nearly 300 "friends" at the moment, but many of us have career interests in common and live or are connected to the same accessible geography. we even see each other in person unless we live too far apart.

i appreciate hearing about web sites my cousin finds about advertising trends. i like hearing about healthy lifestyle choices people are making. peer pressure can be electronic and positive. some of us are stuck at computer screens wrecking our eyes and tendons for some cause that is really all for the effect of making some money to stay alive well enough to enjoy each others' company.

so we might as well "see" each other online during the computer-hours of life and get a head start.

the way the article plugged for twitter and ignored myspace was interesting, wasn't it? the way it undermined most of its own arguments for why people are leaving facebook was a little dull. the way i'm on linkedin but never go there because it's so ugly makes me guilty of being a lurker too.

show me a social networking tool that requires no maintenance (ie: no need to be profitable in order to compensate someone to spend time working on it), and then we'll have something to discuss. people want to keep in touch. if they want it without advertising, they should get together and build that. is twitter like that?

(republished from Facebook notes, 9-2-09)

Centipede, Millipede, 8/21/09

PS: they are all dead now, despite the fact that when we came home after a week of having the windows shut that the place was a mold factory … damp and gross and prompting even the most A/C-hating individual to crank it to 70º … black mold starting its path on places on the toilets no one expects … white floury clouds of spore powder flying into the air when morning glory vines are pulled …
******************

C: Loved loved loved the arcade game,
Until that roller ball would pinch my palms …

Feeling compelled to clarify on the alleged centipede-harboring-issue, lest everyone think I live in some kind of crawling pit of filth (and starting with how I sweep a lot but, as you know, can't deliberately kill non-lethal spiders and actually contemplated getting an owl somehow to deal with those mice that one time):

Centipedes are nightmarish and terrible things. The fact of their Jurassic past and tropical present keeps me from going to certain countries or geologic ages (sure, I can time-travel, why not).

I crushed a one at Mildred's a few weeks ago.

"My" "centipede" colony is contained in a flower pot where a baby jade plant is growing. They seem to be in various stages of life, and after I looked up both C and M, I find that there is a reason that a few seem to have more legs than the rest and the kind of fast-acting, wanna-hide gumption one comes to fear in centipedes: they are millipedes.

They all are kind-of tiny 1/2" by, oh, maybe 2 mm in diameter (like the mixed measurements?) … being "kept" only because I like to look at them and try to pretend I can get over my disgust. I am fascinated by the life of soil. Remember the little grey silverfish-companion bugs that lived in there? Now they have herbivore friends.

These friends will continue to grow, the Internet photos and data indicate, and apparently they migrate a lot, live "quite a long time," whatever that means, and can create 50-300 eggs, which hatch over a period of days. One site claimed they were incapable of reproducing indoors. I'd rather not experiment on this one; they might have adapted to new environments by now. If they are "greenhouse millipedes," they are an invasive species from Japan or elsewhere in Asia that are now ubiquitous on our continent. None of the photos really look like my creatures. They are still too small.

I don't see them trying to escape … except for a pile of dead juvenile ones I saw curled up outside the pot all in a cluster, which is how I noticed them and whose corpses I attributed to a spider hanging out around nearby around the bend (with no scientific proof, of course, and s/he's does not seem to be eating them anymore that I can tell; I can't find the arachnid).

It is not smart to think my will power and that very cottony and wide spider web encircling the base of the flower pot will stop them. The web seems especially well-designed to catch things that move and have wiggly mass like millipedes. But that would mean attributing both scouting and decision-making to a spider. That's some spider.

What's really stopping me is the fact that I am going to have to carry the thing outside (it's a 12-incher, full and heavy and crusty and full of spider webs and probably a spider besides — and who KNOWS what's on the bottom between the pot and tray???), remove the plant (hoping for the best) and dump it out.

All gross and tactile and worse than mere harboring. And, when my husband agreed to do it (easily), I couldn't let him take them away when we walked over to get it / them. Yes, insane. I wish I could tweeze them out without freaking out so that my Java finches might eat them. Only I don't know if they will. Mealy worms, sure (no, I don't buy those to feed them; are you kidding).

New lesson is an old lesson: you have no idea where that dirt has been.

Eggs are everywhere, and I've always liked science and am more pro-life than a lot of my actions would indicate.

But there is no way I'm having 'pedes running around my personal living space. There could be dozens.

So, relocation day is nigh.

Land Sea Monkeys could be the next million-dollar idea.

**************************
I am sad they have died.

(republished from Facebook notes 8-21-09)

You know it has been too long

When you can't remember which version of which password is going to work.

Thank Googleness for forgiveness and multiple tries.

Just like a carnival game.

Sodium underload

And then there was vomit

j.k.

No one is ill.

Just like the word /

Concept!

Purgation, when did that

Go out of style …

Parasite week continues

Now, there is a bat in the belfry (sic; third floor) of the house.

We are too tired to battle.

We have no idea where/how it came in.

All equals one giant SIGH.

Public Hospital x2/~3

They will ask you your weight, at least 3 times in 2 visits, and you shall self-report it, only once noting out loud that they have not taken your weight, that you do not have a scale and that no one has weighed you in a long time.

Truman Medical Center intake staff are ex-circus performers.

I met a Somalian man (young man) in a wheelchair because I was no longer, after one visit to the ER, fascinated enough with the coral reef / tropical fish tank there that divides General Waiting from (something like) Expedited Care. He looked as familiar as all my former students, and he described his situation as an accident, and he lives on Garfield Avenue, near a school where I once taught. Also, people from other countries, religions and cultures etc. are more interesting and less socially threatening to talk to in a place where I stand out a bit from the crowd. And most other people in the waiting rooms are pissed off or wrangling children. No one reads anything. I don't know how they can stand it.

The RN/LPN of today wished an x-ray (Madeline from Radiology was nice, and it was sad to overhear her dealing with some tedious phone-line transferring issue while I was waiting — the little cracks in the technology become evident, along with all the other cracks that make working in a place stressful, that make you wish that systems did not have such systemic problems and that people could just do their jobs outright and to the best of their ability).

The two doctors who actually saw me Sunday (neither of whose name was listed on my paperwork as the doctors who were there) had decided against an x-ray. When an infection seems mostly improved … why dig into the bone level? Foreign matter was the goal; but I was pretty sure the only thing keeping one of my hands puffy (look, Ma, no tendons!) is the deep punctured hole sitting on top of it.

Having a second arm bracelet exclusively for the fun of displaying your insurance status is quite ____. Wednesday, when I go back for my second follow-up, I shall look about at others' bracelets. White is for private insurance, and I have a feeling there are other colors.

There was a woman (which I kindly thought was a dummy / teaching tool the third time I saw her) curled up on a bench inside the spot where one becomes admitted.

My insurance cut me off from St. Luke's … but the public hospital is excruciatingly convenient anyway, and I am most used to declassé situations. Mind, that is a misuse of the word, but the waiting room is rather like a giant, non-moving bus. After making a decision to move from the section of chairs reserved (says sign) for people waiting to check in to a spot deeper in the waiting room between two male humans, there was a smell as I read my PETA propaganda picked up from the yoga studio in the office building where I work. Nothing traceable to anyone in particular, so what's the point of moving again? It's a lottery …

It was my second visit, and I keep laughing but it shouldn't be funny that I have had to declare the last date of my last period at least seven times to seven different people (always having to look it up and probably at least once or twice mis-reading my calendar, dyslexing a 3 for a 6 or vice-versa) … and no one (one did ask) actually took any samples to check; shouldn't it be funny that I answered "no" at least 5 times about prescription medication or medication in general but I still received the "may decrease the effectiveness of birth control pills" speech two or three times?

And I got an x-ray without any lead vest? And am taking giant doses of antibiotics?

The part about restating your name and DOB every time they hand you something new is fine; I get that, and so the round-about ways of asking whether someone is pregnant, making sure again and again, must be some legal issue, too. But, unlike Dr. House, they trust your answers.

I have spent eight hours and an unknown amount of medical expenses on the consequences of my trying to get my ("my") stupid and psychotic cat indoors Saturday night. I only had the sense to hold the 17-pound beast away from my face. You think you have a grasp of something, and then you realize it's thrashing beyond your control. It happens quickly. Cats have instincts, and my human ones were suppressed by the goal. I guess I should have let him fight the other cat and then let him be the one to go to the vet. Which outcome would make me a better cat-owner? Ha ha.

The person today had no more information than I had about the IV cocktail of antibiotics I was given on Sunday (even less, because I had to inform her twice that I had taken them the day before; I guess she was distracted? I had overheard her talking about how she would have taken this library job — her favorite job ever — were it not for the fact that she had been about to go into the Navy and "everything was in motion" to the loud RN man who sounded every bit as arrogant as a doctor until I met him: short, wedding ring, balding, glasses, trim, literary, "knows every animal shelter," and whose cat "does not bite…").

Though I had scribbled the funny brand-names of all the equipment I was left with for 2 or 3 hours on Sunday, I figured (stupidly, I see), that my discharging paperwork would disclose my treatment. The healthcare practitioner today did not find it necessary to look up details; she did, though, act surprised before her ears contacted her brain when I answered her question about my pills, "I'm on Augmentin, or the generic form of it, but I have only taken two so far" (meaning that the drug probably hasn't had much chance to work yet). She got all bug-eyed: "Why only two?!?" Sigh: "Because I started it Sunday and it's a 12-hour dose and I do it at the 9's."

Oh. Can't imagine what annoyances her day serves up to lead to all that.

When you go to the doctors', you have to pay too much attention; you might as well be ordering fried chicken at a drive-through, you have to repeat yourself so much.

I will say that most people I met there are nice, considerate and fine. As good as or better than those I have encountered in so-called private sector health care. One of my fellow patients today (as I overheard; yes, doctor-types are loud-ass MFers who will talk about anything anytime and whose voices carry through the walls but who talk in the halls, referring to you as "12" or "4," anyway) apparently works at the IRS. Knowing her condition, it would not have been polite of me to peek out and see if we knew each other; having heard what RN man said to her about needing to make and appointment to get up to the OBG clinic made me think he was way-too-tuning his explanation way way down. It was insulting to all of us within earshot and with brains. No mention of cervical cancer screening. He wrote down I should read Christopher Moore's "Island of the Sequined Love Nun" (when noting that I was reading).

The fact that I have not paid a dime out of my pocket, despite the fact that my insurance card clearly says "$100" for an e-room visit and "$25" (it may be $30) for any doctor event, disturbs me. I have not had any paperwork that lists any costs. I have signed a few that, with long language, imply my consent to be treated and to pay for it. What kind of system asks you to sign a blank check? A check that you will pay after your insurance decides what things cost (for you/for them/that particular day) and what portion of that cost is their responsibility and whether or not certain caps and thresholds have been met for the calendar year and/or lifetime.

So, now I have had at least one "emergency room" visit, and I will have clocked two additional clinic events, which are in-taken through "emergency;" I can forgive (not) the Walgreen's Take Care LPN I saw on Sunday morning who was reticent about explaining anything and not at all sympathetic. I had to lead her into every clause of her sentence re: why I could not get antibiotics from here there and then. They would have helped, and I'm sure I still would have gone for more care, given the alarmist nature of Internet accounts of cat-bite infections, the amount of pain and loss of mobility due to swelling and, well, pain. But they have their rules.

The fear of the unknown expense contributes poorly to the getting well thing. I want to follow directions and am only going back for the second follow-up Wednesday morning out of fear. You know, no one wants to lose parts of their hands. But, instinct tells me that things are improving, and arrogance tells me that I would know it if things took a turn for the worse.

Everyone believed me when I said it was my cat that had bit me, not some stray, and that he was up-to-date on vaccinations. "I have the paperwork if anyone cares to see it." No. Amazing. It's all true, of course; but there is no reason for them to believe me. Except that my English is great and that I have insurance and a sense of humor.

My 140/bpm heart rate upon initial intake is what got me in ASAP, I was told. What a ticket, eh? Long live anxiety. I even explained that the last time I was at Walgreen's (for a supposed strep-throat infection that I did not have), the tech made me go back out and wait in order to get my BP and heart-rate down, that I was probably fine. Of course, things eventually stabilized Sunday and the rate was in the lower 80s after that. However, the amount of follow-ups assigned leads me to believe that it would have been bad care for them to let me go home un-antibiodied on Sunday. All a bit arbitrary, isn't it?

PS, don't ever ask me to take a lie-detector test. Disaster.

PPS, tetanus shots make it feel like you lifted 50 pounds 50 times with only one muscle group. I can barely get my arm over my head at this point. I don't like my blown vein, either. My legs are doing fine. My ankle could be better. My internal organs are not self-reporting. I do not ever want another cat/dog in my care again. They are too expensive, and I'm too selfish to pay for things I consider extraneous or akin to buying "love." I am worn out with the little furry bundle of needs that provides very little benefit in return, just noise and dirt; besides, I have birds. Avian flu, salmonella and little (predictable) beak-bites, I can handle.

Laundry was accomplished. House-scraping was not.

Wireless router was accomplished. Configuration was not. (It worked until disc was applied … now I know why so many people give up on not putting passwords on their signals … we thank you, neighbors, but we curse the perpetual incompatibility of hardware — why can't it be more like putting a Porche engine into a VW bus? It's not like we're cross-breeding Apples and Dells. If Dell were a fruit, what would it be?)

There was a spider living between the wall and the spice-tray. I removed it from the jar of rub (the one with the lounging pig on it, which a former neighbor gave to us, at least two years ago) to the storage porch, where it should find plenty of yummy trash flies, perfectly sized and ready to eat. I did clear up in there, but some flies are very smart about hiding. I am so sick of maggotty things, however, that I am nearing action.

It is nothing as active as all those people doing the Tour of Kansas City today or the Komen Cancer run tomorrow, and it is not all that important, as long as the municipality continues to collect trash on a weekly basis. We do use our two-bag limit (one bag is covering the week-old one that hosts many lifeforms by Sunday evening), and I love the recycling bin because it never contains rotting food.

There are a few "dust spiders" in my room; these are the blonde things that remind me of sea crabs and usually live in joints where walls or window-moldings meet walls. I can't mind them. I do mind the cat hair, and so it's a wonder anything has a chance to settle down at all. Songs of Innocence: sweep! sweep!

9-26-01

Back when working class was

that —

Before fear, movement.

One job one life one love one

marriage

one straight line with few

regrets; Regrets come from

options.

We have far too many

options and very

little security.

If you are a woman

and if you really consider a pomegranate, you would never question why Persephone disobeyed the lord of the Underworld: if you've ever been hungry, merge that feeling with the (image of) the ruby-bright mosaic of firm, sour and wholesome seeds, and you know that it would be impossible to keep from eating them.

On the other hand, it's harder to imagine why any one (woman) would be talked into ignoring the command of the Lord of the sky, the one who created her, who, instead of imprisoning her in darkness, threw her out from a lush garden, revoked upon her eating of a mere, crunchy apple.

Admittedly, I would have a hard time avoiding either of these fruits for long.

Re: Picking up birds that are dead at night

She didn't want to do it; she could not shake visions of shiny beetles scurrying out over her wrists, scared into escaping — or the thought of phosphorescent-seeming worms, puffy larvae, squirming ever so slightly, soft under her fingers.

B. would tell her this: "Girl, the things you can't see you might not even feel, and in either case, it washes off."

19 years ago

U.S. consumer credit market report

Personal angle that bears no wider statistical value:

Got the same balance transfer offer from Commerce Bank in the mail twice in one week;

Received e-mail from AT&T Citi card* that my credit limit was increased to a hearty $8,300.

Oh, it's far too easy to get a high-interest loan, isn't it?

As if I'm going to put roofing repairs on a charge-card!

*Card had not been used in years; was used** online a few months ago at encouragement of "use or we close" letter. As this is the card that saved my ass when I was being held by Japanese federal agents at the airport in Fukuoka (having memorized the calling card number, I was able to make an international call for assistance on the green pay-phones), I had to keep it. Also it is a Mastercard, and I like to have one in addition to the Providian- Washington Mutual- Chase VISA, because contrary to commercials, there are some places that don't take the latter (like my university).

**It now has a zero balance, and I did not pay them any interest. Sadly, we do pay interest to a bank I hate more and which is meaner about sneaky penalties and seems to be inching away from the traditional grace period, Bank of America. Perhaps transferring is the way to go. The other VISA in question is not un-evil, but despite its reputation for screwing people, including my dad, has never done me wrong. The switch after this last collapse was a bit harsh, though; they made one agree to all kinds of online rules, and they cancelled some existing services. They think I am worth $15,000 in potential debt. We won't even talk about the golden '90s … I'd have to go find my debt-journal, but it was quite a journey from $18,000*** in the hole on multiple cards — using less than half of all credit available to me — to having thousands in savings. Too bad there was a house purchase and then a salary slash, or we'd be home-free (literally, but happily, I think, because then we would go travel).

***I don't know how — I really don't.

Food and writing

These articles make me go, "hmm, I wonder how much this person is making off this relatively simple re-digesting of well-known information?"

EG: Except for the fish thing*, our household already does all this:

"Foods that speed up your metabolism are vegetables, fruits, lean proteins, fish, healthy fats and whole grains. Look for these vegetables when shopping: spinach, broccoli, carrots, asparagus, cabbage, beet roots, assorted beans and dark, leafy vegetables. Any type of fresh fruit is good for you, but try eating blueberries, melons, apples, citrus fruits and tomatoes. Skinless poultry and eggs are excellent sources of protein. The omega 3 fatty acids in fish boost your metabolism by burning up to 400 calories a day. The enzymes in your body that burn fat increase while those that store fat decrease. If you are not a fish eater, take omega 3 capsules that contain a minimum of 300 milligrams total of EPA and DHA. Eat healthy fats like nuts and peanut butter. Whole grains found in brown rice, cereal, barley and oats speed up your metabolism as well. Consume foods with B vitamins, magnesium and fiber to increase your metabolism."

Duh, whole grains, duh, vegetables and fruit (Am I lucky that I am addicted to apples and tomatoes?) Nuts and lean protein, duh.

What author doesn't say is, "Sure, you can fool yourself that you're eating healthy with a diet of mostly this junk that I'm repeating from every American Heart or Cancer Association note, but all that cheese (string cheese of late, only 3! A woman must have sodium when she must have it!), pretzels — no more whole grain than the Man in the Moon (see above re: sodium), and bacon (2 pounds in 1 month; quota for year nearly reached; see above re: sodium and Moon) are not going to be balanced out."

*ask me about my sadness over the death of the ocean, the sadness of fish farms, and the concentrations of poisons in les poissons sometime …

FFB

: has a lot to learn.

PS, LGBT* community battles Feds for acronym superiority/ story at noon; investigative report turns up lots of alphabet soup but no reasons why anyone would willingly fill out that "survey."

PPS, I know, "if you have to ask," etc. I didn't (ask about what, just why).

*feels like she's missing someone …

Because Facebook is sick of it:

: to be shivering in a T-shirt outside during my birthday month is unprecedented at this latitude.

: construction crews getting super-overtime right now to pave road that would see perhaps 25 cars on a Saturday.

: construction crews' backing-up alarms and diseley engines driving me unhappy.

: shivering has health benefits.

Apiary: 10 Days of Shirkhood

No, the blog is not an obligation of any kind. I'm never writing about anything named. Maybe some of you have guesses; maybe some of you are victims — but last week I did quite well with the call-returning, the friend-supporting (concierge, counselor, co-celebrator). I overcame "odds" and walked miles in order to get between point-Home and point-Job.

A week is nothing. It takes six (common parlance / check Snopes) weeks to stop or start something called a habit. I don't know: it seems awfully much like I need to be convinced daily about dental care, for example. If it ceased to matter, I would cease to practice. (chances of encountering test situation low / find better metaphor)

The part of me that habitually records elsewhere both minute downfalls as well as continued swing-and-miss behavior (or, habits) wants to draw you into that kind of confessional swamp. I have enough sense not to. As it does not take much to mop up my available wisdom, I predict I shall soon stumble into some other sort of self-confessional bloggery-goo regardless. It is quite possible, too, that I shall not have the sense or time to burn up my diaries before I die. I could end up like Edith Wharton, whose wishes for letter-destruction were not carried out with uniform faithfulness by her friends or servants. My mother told me long ago that she destroyed some journal of hers at some age, perhaps 18. As a girl, I was heartbroken to miss that connection with her; I understand fully why she did it, and it is probable I shall never have any daughters who need to be connected to me via my ridiculous younger quarter-baked written-down selves.

"You are what you do
in order to prevent becoming
what you're busy not doing,
and if you do do it truly and arrive at it duly,
then in the end you are absolved,
and the problem of Heaven is solved."

Editors love unattributed quotes. Editors love writing. Editors can't believe that someone so reliable has fallen into a four-month pit of despair. Editors know no one is reliable. (F, F, F, T; in case you miss the badly rendered irony)

Most anything is unsustainable. The complexities involved with mere digestion — trucks, migrant workers, engineered poisons, all-point refrigeration and, afterwards, plumbing — even make simple nourishment into a huge waste of energy. (energies derived from carbons, incl. wood, which we burn to collective over-use … leading to something lovely, as we have learned)

So if mere eating is tangled up in behavior I do not support in principle, you can see why subtracting other bad items is only theoretically useful. It does all add up, but when the scale is already this far tipped (no amount of local-eating practice will end the fact I have to drive all over the place to collect digestables or have to use urban-utile sanitation systems), I seem to be of the opinion that it's o.k. to ride the plate all the way to the ground.

You know that I am having issues with la casa, its very essence as a place. A noun of trouble. I am adjunct (to) an artist's lifestyle, but there are lyfestiles that act as larger nets; boundaries exist that preclude things like Chinese wedding, Montana ranching, Colorado walking, Salem sailing.

There is no question about where time goes. Zero. The why is evident, but the why not is locked inside the Freudian attic. The attic could use a new roof.

I spent 90 minutes accompanying … car rental 15 miles from house … chosen by slightly higher power (which is footing bill eventually, though there is no contract to that effect) … had to fuel own vehicle upon return to city, and naturally, there was a vacationer-esque rotund man blocking all entrance-points and parked near diesel-only stand in wait for whichever of the two other stands would be first to open. This is an unstaffed station that always has broken card-readers and pumps that are excruciatingly slow. Those sorts of frustrations are so easy to think away. You want to scream, but you smile instead because screaming would clearly damage all sorts of things.

When screaming is used, it's always destructive! When is another thing stored under the eaves.

So, the Dakotas are not all that bad of a compromise, and there was never any question that I would not accompany that far. I'm supposed to be doing all sorts of things (obviously; this diatribe is transparently a procrastinatory landfill). I can't say this with a straight face: he's with another woman. I am glad he does not have to drive 9 hours alone. Everyone else was unable to come/go at the last minute, one due to car failure in Colorado, one due to planner-stupidity, and one who may or may not have existed in the first place. The girl was not going as of 8 this morning but heard from poor-planner that there might be cash involved, "now," and so that was that.

It's funny to know that there are some people who are always going to be friends, friends for years, past roommates, past pains of the highest degree (financial, emotional, etc. — she is a female, after all) — without any sexual interference, people who accept faults and neither condemn nor abandon. It is a repeated situation throughout my little life, but I have learned to judge the difference between actual and merely supposed permanent non-attraction. In other words, there are probably husbands or brothers or others out there who require me to play literal pro-line-walking advertisements in my head the entire time we're proximate.

And considering my audience, I should pre-empt with "it's more fun to be over-confident than paranoid; I am not jealous by nature, nor generous, and I'm not offering any invitations." I have done an excellent job of deflecting certain definite advances — the advertisements work; I have done less well at cultivating an air of non-availability. It used to exist. It was an interesting inner strength. I would say it was breached sometime in 2007 … maybe; who knows. There were a number of milestones, as early as 2001 (the year that fast-forwarded a lot of relationships toward their demise).

I'm not available; I don't want to be available. Regardless, I am wilting under deadlines that I have made promises to myself about … remembering how I thought it would be good and easy to run out to __ later with __ but now finding the situation to be sitting there as if at the end of a 60-mile road-blocked hill. At least I did not commit to that. Commitments and I are like bees and me. Fascinating and necessary for life, these sweet-makers dance, swarm and, of course, sting. I don't need to add to them. I don't have a lot of free ad-space left, no room in the hive. Now you know why I'm always making jokes about colony collapse disorder.

There is no photograph because besides art, the only recent images I have are of the stupid cat and this gougy cut on the top of my foot.

Independence Day

First Friday: Art, what art?

Explosive language

Me watching TV prior to "July 4th" holiday:

Pyro City, my "home for Black Cat" fireworks, ended their intense commercial with a, "Hey, kids, we've added new Pyro-Heroes," (or some such thing) and showed a ring of anime-type characters in different solid-colored outfits like PowderPuff PowerRangers.

Now that's marketing something dangerous to kids. If they're gonna make silly demands on a poisonous substance people use willingly (at least at first, pre-addiction) — tobacco — then I think someone ought to care about promoting experimentation with explosives.

There was no disclaimer at the bottom of the TV screen about the fact of various cities' regulations on the use or possession of fireworks. Nothing about being a certain age — aren't they restricted to non-minors? And when did the tobacco-age go from 18 to 21? My father once asked me that question about alcohol. Without looking these things up, I have no answers.

I'm against regulations, you know. I really don't care how many kids are unparented enough to get hurt … adults in my personal experience have died from fireworks and from tobacco … and when I was in college, I was dumbfounded by the dumb behavior of "honors students" off campus (my friends) — who shoots fireworks at their own home? Ah, renters! Most were smokers back then, too.

I'm also against calling Independence Day "Happy Fourth of July." I declare, that's like saying "Happy December 25," if you are Christian. Which many of us are not, but we say "Merry Christmas" like conservative radio hosts admonish us to anyway. Because it's convention. And it's easier. I find the convention of saying "happy 4th" to be an interesting comparison point.

This is the one day (tomorrow) I feel lame not having a proper American flag.