You Are 45% Normal

While some of your behavior is quite normal...Other things you do are downright strangeYou've got a little of your freak going onBut you mostly keep your weirdness to yourself

How'>http://www.blogthings.com/hownormalareyouquiz/">How Normal Are You?

beer test... eek!

You Are Corona

You don't drink for the love of beer. You drink to get drunk.You prefer a very light, very smooth beer. A beer that's hardly a beer at all.And while you make not like the taste of beer, you like the feeling of being drunk.You drink early and often. Sometimes with friends. Sometimes alone. All the party needs is you!

What's" Your Beer Personality?

Every time I leave the beach it gets harder. The miles seem longer. I am so grateful for every minute spent by the shore.

what we love in childhood tugs at our hearts evermore

by the sea

beach bound

We're going to take a little run downto Galveston this Friday. Found 2 sweet cottages right next to each other... so we'll head out with our vacation buddies, the Lawrences. I can't wait to hear the surf and get my toes in the sand. Brown sand, but that's okay. I really like funky old Galveston.

and in othernews... The Mavericks got their asses kicked tonight... arg...

AOL polls... a glimmer?

Has your opinion of the president changed in the last year?
No, it's the same
45%
Yes, it's worsened
33%
Yes, it's improved
22%
Total Votes: 92,649


Which party do you think will fare better in the congressional elections?
Democratic
64%
Republican
36%


How do you feel about the situation in Iraq compared to a year ago?
Worse
46%
Better
30%
Unchanged
24%


How would you rate Bush's overall job performance?
Poor
58%
Good
18%
Excellent
17%
Fair
7%

not hell

100 degrees... drought... bring it on. God, I hate cold weather. I NEED the sun. So, maybe Texas is not the worst place on earth for me. I would die in North Dakota... for so many reasons.
Today is a day to thankful for where I am.

shhhh...

Kate and Ian got home last night bearing tales of the road. Kate brought me a beautiful aqua crystal rosary from http://www.lorettochapel.com/. What a treasure. I can't wait to see their photos from SantaFe, Denver, Pike's Peak and other points west. Everyone is asleep still...ahhh, silence.

it appears my ship has come in...

miracles...

Art Walk is tomorrow and I am ready! I have soldered like a wild woman. I always want to just make a few more... 150 will have to do. I am exhausted, but excited that I got so much done.

I am sooooo tired of feeling bad. I am so desperate I am even taking vitamins. I feel like spring is passing me by. Arrrg!
Well, that is one boring subject.
Nan sent me a nice, tall stack of books... including the newest Ann Patchett. Oh, joy! I am reading another first... saving that one for later.
Ian took me to the pond when he, Mark and Will released our turtles. It was time and they should be free. I actually miss the smelly things. The pond is great though and there are lots of other turtles there and plenty of little fishes for them to eat. It makes me happy to think of them free in that little (but immense to them) pond. It even has a fountain and our turtles love moving water. I think they are in a good place.

sea dreams

Monday... too much to do. I need some sand beneath my feet and it looks like the easiest, quickest way is to go stand in the sandbox. hmmmm...

Party at the End of the World

I can't remember how many times I've seen Jimmy Buffett in concert. Do I count the times back in the 70's at The Frog and Nightgown (Raleigh, NC) when the Coral Reefer band was one guy? My friend Betsy (where'd you get to, girl?) and I hoisted a beer or two with Jimmy and his "band" between sets on more than one occasion. I'm sure he's forgotten, but I sure haven't. He was funny, sweet guy and it sort of seemed like he was onto something pretty cool. Who'd a thunk that in 2006 I'd still be listening to some of the same songs... and grinning from ear to ear.
The Party at the End of the World tour rolled into Dallas on April 28 and along with it came grey skies and barrels of rain. Now, keep in mind that we had 100 degree weather earlier in the month. Dallas is famous for droughts. Why did it have to rain on Jimmy? And this concert was at the Smirnoff Center where most of the seating is "under the stars" or clouds in this case. But... guess what? The party gods love Buffett and granted him (and his fans) a break in the weather. Not a drop fell during the concert. Near the end I even saw a star or two.
The set was fantastic... a gorgeous seascape (looked like Tortola, home of Jimmy's famous tire swing, to me) and lots of colorful, beachy props. Radio Margaritaville played until Jimmy took the stage... barefoot, of course. The music was wonderful. Steel drums added to the tropical feeling. Every Buffett fan has their list of favorite songs. If Jimmy played them all in one concert it would last for a very long time, so he will most likely not sing a few you want to hear. I would have had Manana, Southern Cross and several others on my playlist, but it hard to complain when you get to hear One Particular Harbor, Come Monday, It's Five O'Clock Somewhere and Party at the End of the World (from the new album-not yet released). Jimmy covered Willis Alan Ramsey's Northeast Texas Women, which brought lots of smiles. During the short intermission, a trailer for Hoot was shown on the big screens. Looks like a great movie. I bought the soundtrack this week and Jimmy's version of "Wondering Where the Lions Are" is a treat. I also like "Good Guys Win".
The Parrotheads were entertaining as always. I think I'm as big a Buffett fan as there is, but I can't quite bring myself to wear a grass skirt and coconut bra to the concert. Maybe it's because he and I go way back. I figure he knows how much I like him even if I'm only wearing a sparkly skirt with palm trees on it and a raincoat.

frivolity

Well, this one flew out of eBay in a flash. Imagine that!! LOL!

two steps forward...

aaarrg! I am having the awful, bizarre behind the ear pain again! Yikes! I was feeling so much better... Dr. Icaza!! Hello...
Okay~ health chat is just too boring. Tomorrow is Kate's birthday! Just imagine being 17, smart, beautiful... lucky girl. We got her a nice digital camera and a chandelier. Like I said... lucky girl!
I have 63 pendants ready to be soldered. That is about half of what I'd like to have done by the 20th. Fortunately I do not require much sleep.
I must post another edition of book chat as I have read some real gems recenty. Currently I am reading Evidence of Things Unseen- a beautiful, almost poetic book. It is really a delight. I will give it a real review when I'm done... and my legions of readers will be overjoyed, no doubt!
And by the way, I think my neighborhood is going to hell. We have some mucho-nutso neighbors. I could write a book about them... but it would be pretty stupid. Some of them just need to pull their weeds... other's need lobotomies. IMHO, of course.
Ah, well...goodnight fair patrons. Clean sheets beckon.

alive

... and well... mostly. I am much improved. I see the neurologist again tomorrow. Hopefully he will me an A+.

I made some art this weekend. I MUST solder this week. Art Walk is sneaking up on me. I hear its prissy little footsteps.

live your poem

Off to work. I am so glad to FEEL like working. It is a grey day here... but I feel rather sunny myself. Happy to be alive, etc...

Happy Easter

ready to face the day

There was a time
before everything happened.
Do you remember?
Our hands were clean
and open.
We were white sheets
under a cloudless sky.
We thought we heard bees
or waves in the wheat.
It was neither.
It was time
riding a storm.

Today I decided to stop taking the damn steroids. I have about 6 days left, but I simply cannot handle them another minute! Even with Xanax I was just too wired. I feel much better. When I'm tired I still have a few problems, but I am vastly improved. I think I will be fine without finishing the predinisone. And if not, oh, well... I see the neuro in a week and a half and he can yell at me I guess. I have made a lot of art! Being wigged out on drugs made me hyper-creative, so it wasn't all bad! The fact that I couldn't see for crap was a bit of a hinderance, but I soldiered on. Art Walk is May 20th.

yo ho ho... it's a pirate's life for me!

ok... so good news... I'm not dying. I have a sea chest full of meds (thanks for the Lortabs, Dr. Icaza!) including Prednisone (so, don't piss me off!) and instructions to deal with the eye problem. I feel like a house fell on me and I can't see or hear for shit, but besides that (and the pain, did I mention that?) I'm fine. This is a thing that takes t i m e , so there you go. I see the good doc again next week. Meanwhile, I'm a pirate girl. My eyepatch isn't as cute as this guy's, though. Now, enough of the boring medical bloggery... it is a glorious day here... sunshine, blue skies and no brain tumor! YIPPEE!

monday...after about 6 mondays in a row

Neurologist tomorrow... ugh...
I am trying to be cheerful.
Feel basically like crap.
Good news... sense of taste is a bit better.
Of course, I always did have good taste.
sigh. Enough of that. I love this picture of a ship's wake in a blue, blue sea. It is a sight I have had the priviledge of seeing many times. I dream of when I'll see it again. So lovely.

Not a good day.
Somebody toss me a life ring. I am not sure how long I can tread water.

Is it wrong to worship a telescope?

Ahhh... big waves of creativity are crashing onto the shores of my little brain! I labor to find the balance between the real world and the place I like to live in my head. I need to start thinking about Art Walk. I am enjoying working on some larger collages, but I have a zillion pendants to make. The collage above is one of a series that features doorways and windows. The little house is/was (?) in New Orleans. I hope it survived.

The weekend lurks and lures. It is whispering all those promises again. You'll get so much done. I've heard it all before. Sunday afternoon waits smugly with a pile of incomplete tasks. Still, it's Friday and I'm really glad!

stranger and stranger...

from Reuters~ WASHINGTON (March 15) - Cosmic nebulae usually look like blobs in space, but astronomers using the Spitzer Space Telescope reported on Wednesday they have found a nebula twisted like the double helix of DNA.Nobody has ever seen anything like that before in the cosmic realm," said Mark Morris of the University of California, Los Angeles. Most nebulae are "formless, amorphous conglomerations of dust and gas," Morris said in a statement, adding that this one "indicates a high degree of order."
The discovery of the twisted nebula, which stretches across 80 light-years at the center of the Milky Way, the galaxy that includes Earth, was reported in the current edition of the journal Nature.
A light-year is about 6 trillion miles, the distance light travels in a year.
"We see two intertwining strands wrapped around each other as in a DNA molecule," said Morris, lead author of the Nature article.
DNA, which forms the basic material in chromosomes, has a molecule that looks like a twisted ladder, known as a double helix.
The strands of the nebula may be torqued by twisted magnetic fields at the Milky Way's center, Morris said by telephone.
These magnetic fields are indirectly spawned by the gaping black hole at the galactic heart, he said. Black holes are massive matter-sucking drains in space, pulling in everything around them so powerfully that not even light can escape.
But before the matter falls into the black hole, it swirls around its edges. This rotation twists the magnetic fields, which in turn twist the nebula's strands, Morris said.
The nebula is relatively close to the black hole, just 300 light-years away. Earth is more than 25,000 light-years away.
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope detects the infrared energy emitted by objects in space with high sensitivity and resolution, enabling it to clearly see the nebula's distinctive shape.
03/15/06 13:43 EST
http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/spitzer/index.shtml

damn! I missed it!

look up

The Horsehead Nebula...

aaahhh... now I remember... rhyme and reason.

Clear as mud, but undeniable.


http://hubblesite.org/gallery/

Ozymandias
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: `Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear --
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
the lone and level sand stands far away.
~Percy Bysshe Shelley

Between Amarillo and Canyon, Texas,
on highway 27 and Sundown Lane,
Stanley Marsh( the Cadillac Ranch creator)
has erected a pair of legs...

my kingdom come

Look at this fine crown-
starry and bright
it sits on my head
like a minaret.
I wear it at all time
to remind my subjects
of... well, their subjectivity.

My kingdom?
Smallish, oddly shaped.
Were someone
(cartographer? impressionist?)
to put it to a map
I would insist on choosing the colors.
I do have some sway.
I am far less concerned
with boundaries and such.

My hold on it is wispy,
as thin as a widow’s veil.
Revolution brews under the doormat.
Radicals crouch in every corner
and construct clever schemes,
draw complex diagrams.
They rub their hand together
as they dream of my demise.

I was born to this-
heir to chaos,
inbred and redundant.
It is all I know.
The trappings fit me
like a perfect, truer skin.
I stir up the occasional scandal
to remind the proletariat that I am privy
to a realm of sin
that is beyond them,
debauchery on a plane
they dare not imagine.

My impotence is legendary
but I am undisturbed by that silliness.
I do my job-
invoke a bit of fear,
present the good face
to our rag-tag, worthless allies.
I wear the ermine and the emeralds
and indulge sometimes
in a wine-soaked dream of abdication.

perspective

I live on a big round ball.
I never do dream I may fall.
And even if one day I do,
Well I'll jump off and smile back at you.

I don't even know where we are.
They'll tell you we're circling a star.
Well I'll take their word, I don't know
But I'm dizzy so it may be so.

I'm riding a big round ball.
I never do dream I may fall.
And even the high must lay low
So when I do fall I'll be glad to go.

I live on a big round ball.
I never do dream I may fall.
And even if one day I do,
Well I'll jump off and smile back at you.~~~Jesse Winchester

Oh, if only I could go... but, alas, Monkeyland is no more. Damn PETA...

today I saw a sign..

some days are too raw, too beautiful and it is just too hard to reconcile my heart and hands...

little boat on a big sea

Perfect weather today... I would give it a prize if I could- a big trophy with a barometer on it or maybe a golden weatherman. I have no idea why I'm inside.

eureka!

There you are... waiting for me by the Fun House. I should have known.

When you leave Galveston headed south
the Gulf transforms beneath you.
Dark water takes on light,
drinks the sapphire sky
and as you pass The Abacos
you glimpse the glittered seabed
powder-white and pure,
sprinkled with fishes and anemones.
At Hope Town the lighthouse
waves you on with spokes of golden firelight
and sends you safely southward
to warmer waters still.
At night, the perfect dome above
is a black sea unto itself,
speckled with islands of sparkling light,
scattered like skipping stones.
Beneath your feet, below the teak,
the ancient waters pull and flow
with magic and strength
far beyond the influence of any man’s hand.
Shut your eyes and time falls away
in the caress of salt wind
and the descant of the deep.
There is no dearer harbor,
no more treasured cove.
This sweet sea, bearer of dreams,
claims the hearts of some.
Consider yourself blessed
if you are one.

I love a monkey on a bike.

77 degrees today! Birds chirping!!~~~~~~~~~~
S U N S H I N E!! In the 80s tomorrow~that's the way I like it! It's not really winter, is it? MIL sent me a stack-o-books. I feel rich! Also, the brass charms I ordered arrived. They are perfect for making smaller pendants and earrings. Oh, delight!!!

enjoy the ride

fly to...

if you don't have Google Earth, get it. If you have a crappy computer, get a new one so you can get Google Earth. I mean it. Get it. http://earth.google.com/

AOL polls

Which way is Bush headed?
Down, he's a lame duck
77%
Up, he can still accomplish his goals
23%
Total Votes: 91,310


What rating would you give him overall?
Poor
67%
Good
12%
Fair
10%
Excellent
10%
Total Votes: 96,057

mini book chat~or see you at the Horn of Zeese

The Horn of Zeese... I shit you not!
Little tiny books... how cute, but not our topic for today. Just wanted to make a quick mention of Prep ~Curtis Sittenfeld~ which I finished a while back. I think this book is nearly brilliant. Slipped into this coming-of-age-tale are some moments of jarring, resounding insight. Sittenfeld deftly captures the feeling of apartness that her main character cannot escape. Honestly I can't even recall the ending, but there are paragraphs from this surprising book that will be with me for a long, long time. ~a single glistening bubble for this fine work... on the standard scale it would get a 5, but the solitary bubble drifting towards the clouds is more apropos IMHO.
I finished Anne Lamott's Blue Shoe which was a big ole dud. I know Lamott is a recovering alcoholic, Christian, etc, but her rather random Jesusy-ness was just plain weird to me. The book gulped up huge chunks of time in a paragraph and then went on the describe the seasons in great detail... mostly autumn, which the author seems to have a fascination with, but events like Christmas (in a home with two young children) were barely mentioned. The big romance of the main character seemed cool and exhausting. No fire, no fun... ugh. And the title... that little blue shoe drove me nuts. Someone always has it shoved in a pocket and I'm thinking it's a baby shoe. Only near the end do we find out that it is a crackerjack toy. Shit! I was always wondering how the hell this 3 inch shoe fit where it did. Someone should have fixedthat in the eding process. So, can you tell I wasn't fond of this ramble? 1 small bubble for some rare passages that unfortunately served to make the rest of the book seem even more disjointed (much like this review minus the good stuff... sigh).
Currently I'm reading Boonville by Robert Mailer Anderson. Oh my! I like this book! It has it's own dialect. I'm about 45 pages in and it is proving to be a real treat. Anderson is clever, irreverent and funny as hell. And Boonville... my God! I think this might be a real place and that scares the crap out of me! More later... but I'm thinking this might be a tub-filler!

non-standard love song...

http://hype.non-standard.net/track/51815

screw you, winter!

Monday: Mainly cloudy. Not as cold. High 51F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph.
Monday night: Cloudy with drizzle developing overnight. Low 42F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph.
Tuesday: A few showers early with overcast skies later in the day. High 59F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 30%.Tuesday night: Mainly cloudy.. Low 48F. Winds ENE at 5 to 10 mph.
Wednesday (24 hours): Occasional showers possible. Highs in the mid 50s and lows in the mid 30s.Thursday (24 hours): More sun than clouds. Highs in the mid 60s and lows in the upper 30s.
Friday (24 hours): Mix of sun and clouds. Highs in the upper 60s and lows in the mid 40s.

Save your magic.
Hush your incantations.
Spend your money somewhere else.
Bring only the currency of flesh and bone,
a skeleton key, a glass of water.
Shut your eyes now and remember-
I am easily amazed.

28 degrees...

Buffett's swing... Cane Garden Bay, Tortola, BVI

my swing... Virgin Gorda, Tortola, BVI

my brain is such a nut!

Okay... The Dallas Morning News has an article today about the fabled city of Timbuktu... a real place in Africa that has spawned many legends and myths, and some amazing true stories. Dallas based author Frank Kryza has written a book about Timbuktu, thus the article. Soooo... as I'm reading this I think of Tippacanoe and Tyler, too. Well, who wouldn't? From there it is only natural to think of Linda Ronstadt belting out "I've been from Tucson to Tucumcari, Tehachapi to Tonopah..." and so now the lyrics to "Willin'" (a song thatwas on the 8-track I used to listen to driving from Durham to Danville... over & over & over) is STUCK IN MY HEAD! It was not particularly a song I adored, but it seems I know every damn word of it. What is with my brain? There is so much I need to know, want to know... but this is what I keep..."Driven every kind of rig that's ever been made, driven the backroads so I wouldn't get weighed, and if you give me weed, whites and wine and you show me a sign, I'll be willin' to be movin". Now, isn't that useful?

photo for a winter day

The Baths at Virgin Gorda... Tortola, BVI

I was there... I came home...why??

Happy Valentine's Day

Holidays have no pity. ~Montale

http://ladynwavs.com/mystic.html
ahhh... well... there you go.

winter storm watch

Winter, that sly bitch, is indeed planning a visit to north Texas. That predictable slut and her trashy entourage are due in this weekend. I say, "Come on, you blustery whore! Get it over with! We've saved February for you." I honestly wouldn't mind a Dr. Zhivago winter... featuring the young Omar Sharif writing poems with frozen fingers, iced chandeliers, a lush soundtrack. I'd leave the kid with a sitter though. But that's just me. So, the show-off trees that started budding and all the folks who wear shorts in the winter are about to get a frigid ass-kicking. And that is today's weather report.
In other news... Judy might eliminate Mark... blah, blah, blah. I might be persuaded to help or at least create a disturbance to distract possible witnesses. Stay tuned...
Katherine and I have to get our shit together for the banquet which is tomorrow night. Just details... I look forward to hearing more chapters of the Vegas adventure. What a madcap kid! Hilarity nips at her heels. She should do stand-up, I shit you not.
So, today we are off to gather supplies, etc. I will be delighted to put this project to bed. It always seems like a bit of battle.
Let's see... what else? Oh, yeah, I've been wondering about God and mankind and why I'm so screwed up or maybe I'm not, just a little out of sync and would I want to be different because I feel so damn blessed to look at the world through this weird lens that fills me with such hope and wonder... or somesuch bullshit. Just another day with my silly old heart unfurled.

I want an hourglass... like in the the Wizard of Oz. Life in manageable increments... pretty and I really like sand.

why I drink

Insomnia.
Rainy days.
Excessive heat.
Extreme cold.
The right.
The unutterable
that rides constant shotgun,
saying more in silence than
fifty angry prosecutors.
The opening argument
goes on forever.
Finally a recess
when I say
“why, yes…don’t mind if I do.”

what are these things at the ends of my arms?

Do your own hands ever look unfamiliar? You feel them. You know they're yours, still... Maybe it's only me, but that would make me unique and that is beyond absurd. So, okay, let's assume you do fail to recognize your hands at times. Do you ever wonder how those alien fingers found themselves in so many pies?
Ah, lick 'em off and forget about it. Just try.

from "Fatty's Girl"....
Did you ever want something so badly that the wanting became the thing, the very thing, that you had to have? As a child my imagination was legendary. I drew places that I'd never been to, never seen, with astonishing accuracy. I told stories to my little cousins that had them spellbound. I always left them with a cliffhanger and the next time we were together, usually at our grandparents' house, Jesse, Lisa and Bev swarmed me, demanding the next installment.
In early November, when I sat in my room and seriously began my perusal of the Sears Wish Book, there was always an object that captured my desire. The year I was ten my obsession was a round train case with fake travel stickers scattered on the front. As I looked at it in the catalog, it was easy to imagine my hand slipping into the looped handle. I felt the weight of the case, filled with 45 records, a hairbrush, pink nail polish, a chiffon scarf pilfered from my mother's top drawer. I thought of Donna and I sitting under the willow with our cases open, wearing our movie star sunglasses. We'd laugh our Hollywood laughs and toss our hair. For the six weeks between the arrival of the catalog and Christmas morning, the red vinyl case was with me, the wanting of it so sweet and secret. Yes, it was at the top of my wish list and I was certain it would be there, under the tree, but after it was mine, a real thing in my possession, the wanting, the delicious fantasy, would give way to the shared reality. The case would be mine for all to see, but the dream would be irretrievably lost. Knowing how it would play out made my stomach clutch, filled me with a illogical sense of loss. Why on earth, did I want the wanting?
Only when Dewey died, did I realize the true folly of dreams, the danger of wanting. I lost my powers and the economy of emotion was all I really craved. Time and time it slipped through my fingers as I tried to conjure Dewey's face, his presence, for an instant. I knew what was true, that he was no longer ours, that we were a family with an ugly shadow of loss that darkened every place we entered. Still, I tried to capture it, the heavy, false burden of wanting, but even my infamous imagination could not give me even a feather's weight of Dewey.

It's like this...

feels like spring, looks like spring~ but it's not. I don't know why this bothers me so much. We live behind the veil of illusion, and this is only buds and leaves we're talking about. I hate winter. I should be delighted, dancing in the street. But I fear a cold snap, a killing frost. Somebody slap me.
Or not... instead you might lose a few hours (or days) here... http://goldennumber.net/

Vengeance is mine sayeth...

I bragged about my moonroof and now I've got a wacky light problem with my car. That's about right. I tried to repair it with my mind, but my mojo is so weak it is pathetic. So... I turned the damn thing off. I predict another trip to Frisco for repairs. Maybe I'll get to drive that orange Element again. Who thought of that car? It looks like Hitler's car. I doubt Mr. Bean would drive it. I must admit the acoustics are pretty awesome though. Maybe if they provided you with a mask to wear when you drive. I don't know...
I did not watch the State of the Union address last night. Well, that's a lie. I went to the gym and it was on like probably 7 of the 8 tvs... so I SAW some of it, but did not plug in the earphones and LISTEN. The 8th tv was ESPN and people were skiing in a sort of snow/ice covered halfpipe. I am constantly amazed at the things people dream up to risk life and limb. I didn't get that "I-wanna'-do-something-very-physically-dangerous-just-to-prove-I can" gene. Sometimes I'm afraid to cross the street... So, I didn't watch the rah-rah speech and I slept just fine.

I'm in a confessional mood. Here it is~ I like to watch people play poker on TV. I also drink way too much coffee. I think I'm cool because my car has a moon roof. Sometimes I read my horoscope. I'll drink anything in the right circumstances. Earrings make me happy. I still sort of believe that a neglected splinter can sprout a into tree. I say that because I have one right now and I'm little worried.
Enough already!
Today is the last day of January. I could weep with joy. To commemorate this happy day I plan to wear sparkling shoes and listen to loud music... or music loudly... haven't decided yet.
The willow trees are getting that fuzzy, greenish look~ too early, but maybe not. Maybe February will be as mild as the rest of our "winter". Dare I dream?
My work schedule is now kinda', sorta' permanently (for the time being), tentatively set. Thursdays and Fridays. God! Can I manage 2 days in a row??? The courthouse is nearing completion. It looks fantastic! The last I heard was March for the grand re-opening.
I have a PILE of special order pendants to make. The $45 ones! I must cease this rambling and get busy.
Be well gentle readers...

book chat... long awaited, much anticipated...

Calm yourselves, if possible. Book chat has begun, as has your literary enlightenment.
Kate gave me a most delightful book for Christmas. First of all, isn't it marvelous when someone can select books for you?? ... books that you love and would have selected for yourself. Oh, what a delight! Holy Fools is by Joanne Harris (Five Quarters of the Orange, etc..) and would tempt me with its title alone. It is set in 1610 France and is chock-full-o-nuns, magic and a delicious dash of sensuality. Religious mania mixes with showbiz to produce a truly unique novel that gets 4 bubbles out of 6 on my read-in-the-tub scale. Not to mention, the Denver Post liked it, too.
Now on to Death of An ordinary Man by Glen Duncan (I, Lucifer)~ OK, read this. By all means, posthaste. This book is on my list of all-time favorites. I love it... LOVE IT. I would marry it if it asked. I'm waiting... Afterall, this book spoke to me... it might ask me. I can dream, yes? There are parts of this book that will stay with me for a very long time, like beggar lice on knee socks. just read it, okay? 200 irridescent bubbles and a towel-pop !*!
Currently I am reading Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld, which already is dear to me because of the author being a gal with a guy's name. I feel for her. Guess what? It is set in a New England prep school. 78 pages into this book I am finding it quite good. Funny, tender and occasionally astonishingly accurate...
I have always found the times when another person recognizes you to be strangely sad; I suspect the pathos of these moments is their rareness, the way they contrast with most daily encounters. That remind that it can be different, that you need not go through life unknown but that you probably will-that is the part that's almost unbearable.
... 'Nuff said. Go read something... in the tub.

Postulate
What am I to the Almighty
but a bit of dust with a shrill voice
asking, always asking,
wanting and needing,
disregarding the sacraments,
falling short on praise,
wandering during worship.
I am the least of His worries,
too bothersome for the omnipotent.
Irritating the divine
with every sinful breath.
He sends his beginners
to deal with me,
Capra’s angel, Satan’s novice.
Lets them learn on me.
So they meddle in my little life,
send me troubles and joys,
which I exaggerate or undervalue.
Frustrated angels want to slap me around
for my unending ingratitude.
Minor devils test the sharpness of their forks
before stepping up to illness and ruin.

I believe in the hand of God.
I think it stirs the pot
and I an errant drop
lie under His big foot.

I speak.

Oh, joy! A return to bloggery! The world can lift its tearstained face and jubilate! I'm back!
whatever...
So, I have recovered from the plague and am a functioning human being once more. Goody!
On the downside (as if I'd ever look in that direction) it is still January. Winter had been so mild here everyone expects Feb. to be a month-long blizzard. The early trees are budding. What a temptaion for jack frost. Things are grey and brown and while I have a lovely bracelet in those shades, it is not my favorite palette. Isn't it fascinating to hear me chat about the weather???
Now, on to earrings... nah! Just teasing! No new, cheap jewelry to gloat over.
I'm trying to write, but suffer from interruptions... translation: excuses. I need to crack the whip on myself, but it proves a bit awkward and then if I do it well, I find I like it. That was a joke... I swear it!!!
Oh, look! Clouds! What a perfect garnish for the day! How do people live in Ohio where there are something like 300 overcast days a year?
I think I'll go polish something.