Killah

She preys on innocent victims, waiting for them in the shadow of an alley, crouching under the stairs, lying flat beneath a car with a handful of knives.  Unaware, they walk about their silly nighttime business until she decides they've had enough; with the stone hand of an angel she reaches out and snuffs their small dreams.  But death is not enough for this yellow-eyed beauty.  She desires their screams, thrills in their delusions of escape.  She'll toy with them until they are exhausted and wild-eyed, and snap their necks with a casual smack. Then, with the wind tickling her ears, she'll drag her victim to the backyard, to display the gruesome work to her tall gods.

But they are indifferent to her bloody gifts. Each new body is disappeared into a silent grave, with no acknowledgement of her effort.  She decides to go for larger prey.  Perhaps the tall ones require more flesh.

Promo

I also blog at work.  Just FYI.

Unspeakable

As noted, I never write here about the hard things until well after they're over.  In part, I am intensely private about strong emotions (the Tween claims that she has only seen me cry twice before these past weeks), but I also am hesitant to put down in writing anything that is unconsidered. 

So here's the short, but considered, update:

At the end of May, I had some surgery on my lady parts, hoping that they would be less excruciating for me in the long run.  The surgery itself was successful and my recovery fairly fast; I am now mostly back to normal, and the pain is much improved even over my pre-surgery state.  It will be some time before I know whether it was a total success, and I still get tired fairly quickly, but I am now almost completely healed.

Three weeks ago the Princess and I decided to postpone the wedding for a year.  This was a difficult and emotional process for me, since I am rigid in my thinking have a very hard time changing gears.  But truly, with a little time and perspective I am seeing that this is actually a smart decision; we may even be able to plan the wedding for the Princess' homeland, which is her true wish.  And I do like to grant princess wishes.

Then, almost two weeks ago, my dear aunt Becky passed away suddenly. In the absence of my mother, my father's sisters Becky and Cathy have been surrogates for me, together making up the most important adult female influence in my life so far.  I was, and still am, devastated by this loss.  Last week is a blur; there are big chunks of it that I don't even remember.  This week my weeping has decreased to about once a day, and I am able to be alone, but I still can't read the condolence cards my lovely friends have sent, and I still am stunned that I must wake up and go to work and eat and sleep.  

The result of all this is that I feel a little tilted; my little universe has undergone a fundamental shift.  I don't think that this is objectively bad, though it is subjectively excruciating.  Sometimes a change to the foundations of my life helps me focus on what is important, and often it helps me shed old, bad habits, belongings and ideas.  It opens up space I didn't know existed; sometimes I didn't want to know--didn't think I needed to know--that space existed, but there it is just the same.  The princess and the tween have been solid for me throughout this whole thing, and that has been an incredible gift.  It still sucks, though.  A lot. I would much prefer some low-level angsting about messy bedrooms instead of needing some hands to hold on to so that I can remember to breathe.

Just the same. We are here, you and I, moving forward. Still.

Testy

Test... Testier... Testiest.

Absinthe Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

As always, when there are really big things going on in my life I am reluctant to write about them.  So here is a list of small things that are happening in my life that are totally unrelated to the big things, which also perpetuate the idea of blogger as chronicler of minutiae.  Which I totally am.

1. My body continues to age EVERY SINGLE DAY.  Evidence: I had to switch to half-decaf coffee, I bought callous cushions for my feet, and I am ready for bed (I actually literally just typed "dead" instead of "bed," which, well, there you go) at 9pm.  Also, I might need a hearing aid, which proves that I should have listened to my mother when she told me to wear earplugs to all those heavy metal concerts.
2. The Tween has been home sick for a couple of days with a sore throat and a fever.  Because of this she missed dissecting a freeze-dried frog in science class.  Since I had to buy the frog anyway, I wonder if we could dissect it at home? Now THERE'S some family fun time.
3. I quit Facebook.  I don't even miss it, except as a thing I used to do to kill time inbetween doing other things. Sort of like smoking. Here is my reasoning, only tangentially related to Mark Zuckerberg's desire to help us all unintentionally spill our grossest secrets:  I just got tired of it.  I started to feel weird about the passive sort of friendship that FB encourages.  The people who are my actual friends are pretty much up to date on what's going on in my life, and constant status updates were ruining any conversational opportunities I might have with acquaintances... plus sucking my creative energy away from other, more literary, pursuits.  Case in point, here I am writing here.*
4. I bought a coffeemaker.  It has a timer that lets me set it to make me coffee BEFORE I WAKE UP in the morning.  So exciting! Next I'm thinking about one of these newfangled "Refrigerators" to replace my old icebox.
5. The Princess brought me up to visit her family upcoast.  I had met Mom and Sister over the winter, but Dad and Grandparents remained a mystery.  I wanted to check out the childhood haunts and see the settings for all the stories.  I did.  It was lovely; I got got sunburned and fly-bitten and disappointed by the changes to Perry's Nut House, and also got fed barbecue chicken and strawberries, and I think we're going to go back next month.

Ok, and we're done.  Safe areas of conversation fully explored.  

*Yes, the blog is literary because I said so, and just for the record your passive consumption of my thoughts is totally fine.

"Bad Romance" As Performed By Newsies [Seize The Day]

Stress Relief

Take one of these and call me in 1:42

Meet the sloths from Amphibian Avenger on Vimeo.

via slog

Sixth Grade Gaga

via slog

That Time of the Year

My head is about to explode with all of the things that are going on.  This kind of tension and stress is cyclical: I guess I would probably not appreciate quiet times without it, right?  As in, I would probably give my left boob for a good night's sleep and some job security right now.  Alas, it is not to be.

(This is not my head exploding.  It's the view of the Jordan's Meat Fire from my backyard.

But this is 1) one of the many things I cried about yesterday, and 

2) exactly what the inside of my brain feels like)

Most of the stuff that keeps threatening to shoot out of my forehead in a giant smelly black cloud has to do with regular life kind of stuff: a tween who is tweening, funding changes for my workplace and thus job insecurity, car repair, wedding planning, mother's day.  The vaguely stressful stuff that is annoying but not life-ending.  

Which would all be fine except that my baseline stress level is increased by a hundred degrees to start with because I'm having another surgery on my lady parts in a few weeks.  It's going to be expensive (thanks for the ultra-expensive health insurance that doesn't, it turns out, cover much at all!), and of course I'm not looking forward to the pain and time off from work and helplessness of recovery.  But more than all that, I'm afraid that it won't work, and I will have exercised my very last treatment option.

So, I keep having breakdowns about stuff like whether I eat lunch alone, and who takes a shower first in the morning, and whether the cat is in for the night.  The princess has been remarkably patient, and in appreciation of her kindness I am not completely withdrawing into myself and becoming mute.  This is my usual tactic for stress, and she aptly calls it "turtling."  I resist turtling and she pats my leg and brings me a sandwich, which is, I think, a fair tradeoff.  And helps.  A lot.

Under the Gaga Covers

I really love Lady Gaga parodies. They are my YouTube gateway drug.



People (well, Salon) keep saying that she's saturated us; we can't possibly love her more, and yet... new singles are slurped up whole with demands for more. I'm not tired of Gaga. And I love her fans.



The choice of subject isn't irrelevant; she's walking id for American teens, singing about heartbreak and cell phones and destructive relationships and dressing like your weirdest dreams.



People seem compelled to perform through her; her words in their mouths, her hips moving theirs. Clever and curious, funny, sexy, embarrassing.  All sincere.



Want more? Fifty more YouTube Gaga covers here.

Lateness

I don't know how it's possible, but I'm only just now reading The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.I'm only about 10 pages in; I'll let you know how it goes.
Ethel Waters, Carson McCullers, and Julie Harris, 1950

Mainers mark Earth Day; Portland selling 'green' items | The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram

I did this last year: it was a great investment. I should have bought the compost turner, though. I'll be looking into that for this year.

Mainers mark Earth Day; Portland selling 'green' items | The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram: "Portland is promoting the sale of compost bins, kitchen waste pails and rain barrels at discounted prices."

Marriage

I'm sure it comes as no surprise to anyone but me, but it turns out that I'm a traditionalist. Yesterday the princess and I went and bought engagement rings, and while she (very sensibly, considering her job) wanted gems that were recessed into the ring, I wanted a diamond solitaire.

I got it.

But trying to rationalize a whole bunch of conflicting feelings-- diamonds-are-blood-stained-meaningless-symbols, diamonds-are-beautiful, everybody-will-know-what-this-ring-means, why-does-it-matter-to-me-what-people-think, it's-money-we-don't-have, i-really-want-it-- is sort of a representation of how the marriage situation is developing in my mind.

I've been ambivalent about the gay marriage campaign, and marriage in general. I still don't think that it should be the Big Queer Cause sucking up all of the funding and attention--I would prefer that queer and lgbt organizers take up things like national healthcare, preventing/prosecuting hate crimes, and equal pay regardless of gender. Honestly, I think that most homophobia can be traced to a root of sexism, and working on THAT issue instead would improve the lives of so many people.

I also think that marriage is a fucked-up institution that is often the cause of much unhappiness.

Still.

I love the princess. I want our families and our community and our neighbors to recognize the nature of our relationship at a glance. I want to share my health insurance with her without having to prove to some city official that we've lived together for 12 months, which is what's required for domestic partnership. If I ever own anything valuable, I want her to have it after I die.

But more important than any of that, and the real reason I'm marrying her, is that I want to. I just plain old selfishly want to. I want to make a promise to her that I will always put our relationship first, and that I will stick around to work out whatever comes up in our lives together. We're not promising to be together until we die; I don't believe in making promises I can't keep, and I don't know what the future will bring either of us. But I do know that no matter what happens, we'll be in it together, and if there are challenges we will always try to fix things instead of walking away.

Nonetheless, I have a hard time with marriage as I've seen it practiced and talked about. I'm going to get married just the same.

More on this later, I'm sure.

Upcoming travel

I'm trying to get to NY next month. Princess has never been, and I haven't for more than five years. I can feel forces coming together to make it possible. I BELIEVE.

Brooklyn Bridge New York circa 1905

woo.

The Maine Boatbuliders Show is produced by Portland Yacht Services and will take place at the Portland Company building at 58 Fore Street. via

I'm so glad that the Portland Company has a diverse series of events. It's so exciting for them and for boat-and-flower-show-attending people. It's kind of a pain in the ass for people who live in the neighborhood, though.

To be fair, event planners do seem to make an attempt to minimize the impact... by putting NO PARKING signs on all of the streets around the Portland Company (including my own). But what that means is that hill dwellers are banned from parking on their street, and people unfamiliar to the neighborhood get creative with their parking and create dangerous situations, obstructing lanes and sightlines... and, judging by the number of cars parked illegally on Fore Street during the flower show last weekend, the City seems unwilling to tow or ticket.

On the plus side, maybe I'll get the chance to have some presumptuous boat-show-goer towed when they park in my parking spot. We have to look for the little joys, no?

RE: Love of Brett Michaels

There aren't words to describe my love of Slaughterhouse 90210:

“Like a whorehouse on wheels, she thought. Like a whorehouse on wheels.”
—Robert Goolrick, A Reliable Wife"

...siiiiiiiigh.....

Why A Salad Costs More Than A Big Mac

RE: my earlier post and buying for value. Thx, bec.

Why A Salad Costs More Than A Big Mac:

How to Be Poor

I will write about the wedding, I promise... but something else is more on my mind for now.

Some background: while I was a student I applied for MaineCare for my daughter. I've been working full time for just over a year now, and at the end of December our transitional year of MaineCare health insurance ended. This meant that I would add the tween to my work health insurance.

Unfortunately this happened at the same time as a huge increase in insurance rates, so I am feeling the pinch. The increase in the cost of my own coverage plus the adding the tween's is costing me an additional $350 a month--and the insurance doesn't cover as much as I wish it did, leaving me with a growing number of medical bills.

This is a big hit for our family, and it comes in a year when we have a couple of major expenses coming up: the tween's trip to Japan in July, and the wedding in September. Forget tightening the belt--this is a heavy-duty corset situation.

So I polished up some of my college-era poverty survival skills, and after a few months of (painful!) transition I think I'm finally getting used to this much smaller budget.

I thought I'd share some of the tips I'm re-learning, in case the economic recovery isn't happening for you yet either.

1. Make everything do double-duty

Being thrifty means also being thrifty with my time.

• When I cook I make extra so that it can also be work lunches for the week.
  
  
• While shopping, I try to buy food in containers (glass jars, closable plastic containers) that I can reuse instead of buying disposable tupperware. I also keep a ceramic bowl and cup at my work desk because I don't like to reheat food in plastic.
  
  
• Food waste becomes nutrients for my garden in my backyard composting bin, so I don't have to buy expensive fertilizer and trash bags.
  
  
• The slow-cooker works at cooking food while I'm working at my job. This is the only way I've been able to use inexpensive and nutritious food like dried beans.

2. Buy for value

I don't always buy things that are cheap. Sometimes the cost of cheap things can actually be higher.

• Nutrition: Twinkies and snack foods can be inexpensive, but they're not very nourishing--causing poorer health. Less processed=better, and I buy snack foods only at discount stores like Marden's and Big Lots.
  
  
• Longevity: will it break right away (i.e., is it cheaply made)? Will it cause long-term consequences (as poorly fitting shoes or dollar-store medicines might)?
  
  
• Landfills: It's hard to think about sometimes, but I try to minimize the amount of waste that I create, because cleaning up the environment is going to be HELLA expensive in the long run. This just means simple things like using waxed paper or reusable containers instead of plastic bags.

3. Wants vs Needs

I'd gotten pretty comfortable over the past year being able to have all of my needs met--and some of my wants too. In fact, some of the wants started to feel like needs. I had to reconsider my casual spending habits (movie rentals, eating at restaurants, drinking at bars, convenience foods, spending to enjoy entertainment).

Instead I've been considering ways to get some of my wants met for free or cheap, so that I'm only spending money on things that I need (like food, shelter, etc.). I do this by:

borrowing movies and books from the library

• buying used whenever possible
• borrowing things like tools and machines instead of buying my own
• going on cheap dates, like the First Friday Artwalk (if you time it right you can get free wine AND snacks too!) and cheap night/matinees at the movies
• volunteering as entertainment
• avoiding restaurants

Some things tread the line between want and need, like my car, work clothes, and social time. I try to minimize spending on these.

4. Carry it with you

Convenience spending is one of my biggest budgetary downfalls. So I try to carry snacks and water with me--so that I'm not caught spending money on things that I could get for free or cheap at home.

The hardest part about all of this is having to think about everything all the time. Everything takes planning, and it's exhausting at first. For someone like me, whose brain runs a lot like an obsessed hamster in an exercise wheel, this is especially hard. I have to be careful not to be to rough on myself and to forgive small expenditures. Sometimes a cup of coffee with a friend means the difference between feeling sane and not, and that's value--and worth it.

And once this stuff becomes habit, it's a lot easier. I just need to keep reminding myself of that.

UPDATE 4/9: After I read the great comments below, I feel like I forgot to say a couple of things... like, that the tips above ONLY help me deal with what used to be my discretionary spending.

To deal with other expenses, I eliminated everything even remotely optional. I canceled cable and netflix, lowered my credit card payment to $20 over the minimum, and cut the amount I put into savings in half. I'm trying to get my student loan payment lowered, and April looks like the month I'm going to start being carless. I might cancel my cell phone (the cancellation fee is heinous, but it's equal to about three months' payment, and I still have over a year left in the contract). Once you get poor, it's amazing how possible certain lifestyle changes look.

Vonnegut on the barbarous technocracy of writing

Kurt Vonnegut is a nut. And I love him.

VONNEGUT

...So much of what happens in storytelling is mechanical, has to do with the technical problems of how to make a story work. Cowboy stories and policeman stories end in shoot-outs, for example, because shoot-outs are the most reliable mechanisms for making such stories end. There is nothing like death to say what is always such an artificial thing to say: The end. I try to keep deep love out of my stories because, once that particular subject comes up, it is almost impossible to talk about anything else. Readers don't want to hear about anything else. They go gaga about love. If a lover in a story wins his true love, that's the end of the tale, even if World War III is about to begin, and the sky is black with flying saucers.

INTERVIEWERSo you keep love out.

VONNEGUTI have other things I want to talk about. Ralph Ellison did the same thing in Invisible Man. If the hero in that magnificent book had found somebody worth loving, somebody who was crazy about him, that would have been the end of the story. Céline did the same thing inJourney to the End of Night: he excluded the possibility of true and final love—so that the story could go on and on and on.

INTERVIEWERNot many writers talk about the mechanics of stories.

VONNEGUTI am such a barbarous technocrat that I believe they can be tinkered with like Model T Fords.

INTERVIEWERTo what end?

VONNEGUTTo give the reader pleasure.

A Not-So-Gentle Reminder

When the body needs a break, it just goes right ahead and takes one. As it did today, when I woke up and it was all, "Fuck you, Jen, get back in that bed. No? Ok, how about searing pain? How do you feel about the bed now, huh?"

To which I replied, "Yes, MA'AM. Uh, hello, heating pad. Haven't seen you in DAYS!" (Chronic pain, exhausting, frustrating, no cure, whine whine, blah blah.)

In other news, I'm getting married. More on that later.

Pictures of beauty contests winners, 1930-s.

Pictures of beauty contests winners, 1930-s.: "

Legalities

The Tween's father and I never married. For that I am sometimes grateful and often annoyed. It would have been much harder to get out of that situation if we had been legally bound, but since we were never married the Tween has existed in a custody netherland for a dozen years.

Legally, he still has 50% custody of her, even though she wouldn't know him if she looked directly at him. Since he has no interest at all in claiming that 50% we've been fine until this winter, when there became an emergent need for a Tweeny passport.

The irony is that if we had gotten married, all of this would have been settled when we divorced. When kids are involved, the legal shortcuts of marriage are pretty handy.

So I've tried to file for custody before (these days they call it primary residence), but was unsuccessful because the father is SO uninterested in custody that he wouldn't sign and return the paperwork I sent him.

Today is our initial court appearance for this process, and I am nervous. I don't like it when I can see how the government intrudes into my personal life; I like to pretend I am an autonomous free citizen--though I am clearly not.

It's also difficult to stir up the ashes of this decades-old relationship. Like it or not, at one time I loved her father enough to have a baby with him. Despite all of the years of aggravation since, I did once want to get married to him. We were parents together of a tiny beautiful infant girl. My 19 year old self wanted to erase the trauma of my teen years by settling down with him and being "normal" together. Of course, we never were and never would be. I'm pretty gay, and we were really young, and he had issues and I had issues.

My feelings for him now are mostly ambivalent, tending towards irritation when something I want can't happen. I don't even know the man any more. Our parenting-together-selves were almost half my life ago now.

My resistance to this legal process has been manifesting, though, in my body (which is sore and tired and stressed) and in a wild disorganization of thought and paperwork which is entirely unlike my normal manner of operations. I keep hiding paperwork on myself, sticking it into folders where it doesn't belong, forgetting to bring it to appointments, losing it, procrastinating filling it out. I'm taking out my feelings on the paper. Luckily the paper doesn't mind.

With a little bit of serendipity this situation will be settled--for all intents and purposes, although there is more court later in the year--today. Please think good thoughts for us.

UPDATE: I got the temporary order. It'll be permanent after another hearing, to take place in a month or so. She's mine!

Housekeeping

Doin some redecoratin around here, ayuh.

Also, the lady friend will furthermore be known as tomboy princess, or TBP. By her own request.

That is all.

UPDATE: I was too early on the nickname front, and another one has developed all on its own. Princess she is and shall be.

Broke Back Butch

My friend Anna is broken in several places. She blogs about it.

Mooooovies

During Oscar season, I like to try to see all of the best picture-nominated films, mostly because the Nickelodeon** runs them all in February, and they have cheap movie night on Tuesdays. But there are SO MANY this year! TEN! There's no way I can see all of those.

Luckily I saw a few over the course of the year, so my list is down to 5--at least possible. Unfortunately for me, it looks like I better make sure I'm in a happy place before I start out on my Oscar Adventure, because these movies all look a little... uh... suicide-inducing upsetting. Except maybe Up in the Air?

Best Picture

Avatar I saw this with the kiddo and my girl. The movie was SO funny. I don't know why the tween was so upset with us for laughing so much.
The Blind Side Refuse to see.
District 9 I saw this one and kind of enjoyed it... but too much thinking is required to appreciate this film for it to win. And I thought it was a little dumb, but better than most movies.
An Education
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious
A Serious ManLOVED this movie, but again with the too much thinking. The folks I watched it with did NOT love it, and I felt like a nerd for liking it.
Up OK, yes.
Up in the Air A girl from Portland is in this movie. On that basis alone it should win, right?

UPDATE: Today's Press Herald has an article about the Portland girl.


**Hey. Remember when the Nickelodeon was $2 per sticky seat? God, I miss that.

Who hasn't?

“She had burned through a fair sampling of manhood trying to find someone, not to make her ‘happy’ - that wasn’t the point - but to cauterize her relentlessly dripping wounds.”
— Arthur Phillips, The Song Is You

Slaughterhouse 90210 - “She had burned through a fair sampling of manhood...

Earworms

Sometimes I get poems stuck in my head... like when a song starts bouncing around in there, but it'll be a phrase from a poem that I heard one time. It happens with novels too. It doesn't necessarily have to do with the quality of the whole work, but with the certain phrase or image. Ayn Rand's "our days are numbered" calendar in Atlas Shrugged is one of them, as are China Mieville's black windows, Carolyn Chute's soft whitebellied heroines, Annie Dillard's dead like sheaves of falling wheat, Dorothy Allison's scrambled eggs and tomatoes, Muriel Rukeyser's useful shit, Yeats' cloths of heaven, the anonymous "westron wynde"...

Sometimes what my brain coughs up is a message for me, and sometimes not. I have been lately pondering domesticity, and this is one of today's--those last two lines stuffing up my thoughts. I highly recommend the collection that this came from. May the copyright gods forgive me.

Affections Must Not
by Denise Riley

This is an old fiction of reliability

is a weather presence, is a righteousness
is arms in cotton

this is what stands up in kitchens
is a true storm shelter
& is taken straight out of colonial history, master and slave

arms that I will not love folded nor admire for their 'strength'
linens that I will not love folded but will see flop open
tables that will rise heavily in the new wind & lift away, bearing their precious burdens

of mothers who never were, not white nor black
mothers who were always a set of equipment and a fragile balance
mothers who looked over a gulf through the cloud of an act & at times speechlessly saw it

inside a designation there are people permanently started to bear it, the not-me against sociology
inside the kitchens there is a realizing of tightropes
Milk, if I do not continue to love you as deeply and truly as you want and need
that is us in the mythical streets again

support, support

the houses are murmuring with many small pockets of emotion
on which spongy grounds adults' lives are being erected and paid for daily
while their feet and their childrens' feet are tangled around like those of fen larks
in the fine steely wires which run to and fro between love and economics


affections must not support the rent


I. neglect. the house

Childhood Nightmares

I grew up in the 80's.

Symbology

Speaking of symbols... If you follow me on twitter, you know two important things about the past month.

1. I broke my chest on a pretty girl's shoulder.

2. Then I fell in love with the girl.

Are these things unrelated? If I was writing my own story I would throw out that plot faster than last month's baked beans. However, while I have some input on the plot of my own story I am not the ultimate editor. I did not intentionally break my chest nor fall in love... and yet there it is.

Both of these developments have required some adjustments. Breathing, for example, has insisted on being reconsidered. As has cuddling. Those also seem related.

Mill worker, Saturday afternoon, Lewiston, Maine, August, 1973

I can't tell you how much I love these photos. I want to crawl inside them.

Mill worker, Saturday afternoon, Lewiston, Maine, August, 1973:

Symbolic

Is it significant that ALL of the pictures I've posted over the last 6 weeks are about food?

Oh yes

Not at all a representation of my incredible Sunday night, in case you were wondering. (via)

Speaking of scarce resources...

The gay marriage campaign cost at least $9.6 million.

Those who supported the repeal of the state's gay-marriage law spent $3.8 million, while those who fought to keep gay marriage on the books spent $5.8 million. Voters repealed the law by a 53-47 percent vote. (via)

In case you were wondering, $9.6 million would buy 3,764,706 gallons of heating oil, pay for food stamps for 18,251 three-person families, or pay 1/40 of the state deficit.

I don't mean to imply that I don't value the work of all of the folks who worked so hard on the campaign. But I am and always have been ambivalent on the issue of marriage itself. And this new information just underscores it all.

My million dollar idea

I think I'd like to start a new online business: comfort food porn.

THE AUDIENCE: Young adults who miss being home--homesick college students, young adults who moved across the country to be away from their families, traveling professionals.

THE SEASON: November-March

THE CONCEPT: Ultra-close photos of regular people interacting with their favorite starchy goodness.

• people in baggy sweatshirts holding bowls of tuna casserole
• slovenly parents in pajamas leaning over steamy crockpots
• women with greasy hair in ponytails eating mashed potatoes
• a closeup shot of a glistening peanut butter and margarine sandwich
• men leaned back in barcaloungers with the jar of salsa propped directly below their chins

Would you watch?

Going Cheap! eBay Auction For One (1) Right To Marry

Can I sell mine too? Oh, wait..

Going Cheap! eBay Auction For One (1) Right To Marry: "

eBay, always so handy: “I’m an unmarried heterosexual woman, and since I probably won’t be using my right to get married, I would like to give it away.”

Hair

I don't identify as femme (why not? it doesn't fit how I feel. my gender can't be defined that easily. that is all) but I relate to a lot of what's being said here.

Ever since I've been growing my hair out (yes, that's all) I've noticed a distinct shift in who notices me and what kind of attention I get. It's all about the hair, folks. True story. Ask any middle schooler.

A couple of Sinclair's points that I enjoy**:

Not being seen as queer and recognized as radical by straight folks is a common complaint I hear from femmes. There is an added burden of constantly having to come out verbally, constantly having to remind the folks around you that you are queer, constantly having to deflect and defend yourselves against unwanted straight male attractions, since in this culture the display of femininity is presumed to be for the attraction of men, men’s gaze, men’s sexual advancement. It is seen as an invitation to being hit on, in fact. A girl out on the town and all dressed up in heels, dresses, lipstick, must be trying to “catch a man.” Of course, this isn’t true. Whoever this girl is, she could be wearing those things for all kinds of reasons, for her boyfriend, for her friends, for herself, for her wife. And this is constant. Walking down the street, catching a cab, on the subway, at work, at a party, at a play, at a concert, in a bar – everywhere a femme goes, her femininity is assumed to be for men and to attract a man.

(This is also, in fact, one of the reasons femme-ness is subversive, and feminist: it re-creates femininity not as a tool to catch men, but as an authentic mode of expression for onesself and for queerness, disrupting this idea that femininity is “natural” for women.)

...You can’t choose who sees you when you walk down the street – you put yourself out there in a semi-public domain and you can’t pick who you interact with on a daily basis. But you can choose what those interactions mean. And here, you just have a more advanced sense of this sex-gender assumption than they do. You are right. They are not.

and also

What a complicated, heartbreaking, turning-ourselves-inside-out that coming to a new identity process is. And when it is not marked by physical proof, when someone looks the same, there is no particular indication that Something Big Has Changed, so how do we know? By speaking of it, by talking about it, by documenting it in some form. Still, so much of the data we take in is visual, so even when our minds take in that something is different, if we don’t see the physical proof, it might not register the same way. I think this is also partly why the process of coming out as a dyke often involves things like cutting one’s hair off – which is the rejection of femininity and the association that femininity is performed for the attraction of men, yes, but also a physical marker that something has changed.

These are just things that are “true,” according to our culture: femininity is a tool for the attraction of men; dykes reject this and therefore don’t have to perform femininity; if you are a dyke, you also come to a more androgynous gender identity as part of your dykeness. Sexual orientation and gender presentation are so tied together – that is the sex-gender assumption in a nutshell.

At a conference not too long ago (just before the vote, actually) I was talking to a small workgroup of LGBT folks. We were asked to describe what we imagined or wanted to focus on as a community after the election was over. I suggested that, as a community, we do some work around sexism, because most homophobia comes down to gender-based discrimination.

For example, how can you tell someone's queer? Unless they're making out with someone, you kind of have to go by gender markers. It's the gender transgression that is the problem, not the sexual orientation.

Why do some straight guys feel incredibly threatened by gay men and fixate on gay sex? Because gay sex is believed to be "feminizing" in a world where feminine=less power.

Why are transwomen subjected to violence more frequently than transmen? See the "feminizing" situation above.

Why, even, is marriage an issue? Because it's seen as making a mockery of the man-woman dichotomy.

Every single one of those folks around the table looked at me like I had two heads. There was a brief silence and then the conversation moved on, closing over my comment without any indication that it had ever existed.

Yes, okay. And there's a big part of the problem, in a nutshell, and why I have a hard time getting behind a lot of the queer activism that's going on right now. More on this later, I think.

**hee hee

Gravy

My family doles out responsibility for Thanksgiving Dinner. One aunt is cooking the turkey; another is mashing potatoes. My dad brings yeast rolls. I had really been hoping to try to introduce non-starch vegetables again this year. I need them to soak up the massive amounts of sugar I'll be eating. I feel guilty eating so many carbs without even the tiniest hint of green (no, frozen peas don't count).

My "weird" food habits are more of an issue than my sexual orientation. Shave my head and bring a "friend" home from college? Totally fine. Bring roughage to dinner? Create a scandal that echoes for years. The fact that I don't eat dairy is a constant source of amusement and mystery, and I gracefully bear a lot of jokes about the beans I love to eat.

Last year, in my eagerness to share the joys of brassica, I brought sauteed kale with garlic and soy sauce for Thanksgiving. Everybody politely took a tablespoon of it and drowned it in gravy or vinegar. There was a lot of it left at the end of the meal.

And then I was late calling them back this year to choose a dinner assignment.

"I'll bring a salad," I said.

"Umm..." my aunt said. "That would be good, except I don't really know where I'd put a salad on my Thanksgiving dinner plate. "

I know what she means. In our tradition, Thanksgiving dinner is strictly meat, fat, starch, and sugar. Vitamins need not apply. And salad wouldn't really blend in, would it? Plus, the combination of salad and gravy is horrifying.

"How about an appetizer?" she said.

Appetizer. A snack. Harumpf. I wonder if I've been assigned the powerless task of appetizer on purpose so that I don't mess up anyone's carbtastic meal. Ok, but I could do a raw veggie platter, sneak in some broccoli and kohlrabi--

"But your other aunt is bringing cut up vegetables and dip, and celery with cream cheese and olives, so..."

Damn, now my crudite plan was foiled! I agreed to bring some kind of appetizer, and hung up in a panic. What was once a simple food assignment is now a mission--a challenge from the foodie gods to find some possible compromise that will be not only vegetable, but acceptable to my family's specific palate.

After a week of frantic internet-recipe surfing (interrupted only by critical Gaga infusions) I think I've come up with the perfect compromise: Bacon-Wrapped Brussels Sprouts.
They probably won't look like this, but they'll be SO DELICIOUS. And they will be EATEN. Now you're jealous.

So there

"The flu vaccine contains less mercury than a typical tuna fish sandwich." source via

Tag, I'm It!

Because I like to play nice....

Rules:

1. Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 random and or weird things about yourself.
3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
4. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Ok, the 7 things:

1. I like to eat sardines. Usually on crackers.
2. I'm a member of a dream group. We meet every week and talk about our dreams.
3. I failed NaNoWriMo. I blame the Yes on One folks, because... why not?
4. My only significant encounter with the law is one speeding ticket.
5. I've been so tense this week that, while I'm sleeping, I clench my hands until they are numb and bloodless. There is no one reason for this stress; I think it's a month-long accumulation. I need to get to the gym more.
6. In high school I used to play clarinet, bass clarinet, french horn, hand drums, and electric guitar.
7. I like to make my own beer and wine.

I'm going to break the rules because I dislike tagging people. However, I would LOVE to know seven random things about you, so if you posted them I would clap my hands with excitement. Really. Consider yourself tagged.

Tradeoffs

It turns out that being less anxious has made me into a little bit of a flake. I run late to things. I stay home and chill instead of doing things I said I'd do. I'm a tad forgetful.

I feel bad for everyone who is collateral damage to this, but I'll take flakiness over an anxiety-exploded brain any day of the week.

...

Because that's how it is for me these days. Just. ...

I didn't expect to feel so strongly about the election. I don't support marriage as The Cause for the queers; I don't think it's a very functional institution and I'm not interested in assimilating. I do support my friends who want to get married, though, and I understand that the conversation is already, happening. Can't stay neutral... moving train. Etcetera.

On Wednesday morning it sure didn't feel like a vote about marriage, though. It felt like 53% of the state voted against ME. And my chosen family.

Also, it's November, my least favorite month of the year. I would make links to previous posts that acknowledge my November-hatred, but I just don't have the energy today.

Speaking of funny google search results...

Yes, Google. That's exactly what I meant.

Sick Day Assignment

The Tween was sick this morning, so I gave her some tylenol, my Netflix password, and the phone, and went off to work. She was coming-down-with-something-sick, so I knew she'd be bored before long, and I didn't want her tubing out in front of Kim Possible all day. So my conditions were this: She had to watch a documentary--any one she chose--and write me a essay on it before she could go on to the fluffier stuff.

She chose Monster Camp, and I present to you her [spelling corrected] essay and review:

The movie I watched was called Monster Camp. It was about L.A.R.P.-ing (live action role playing). It was really good. My favorite person was the girl playing the Sea Elf. It was a lot like what [best friend] and I do. Everyone had a character. They were their characters.

The people LARP fights, mostly. It is not from a particular book; the people are medieval fantasy creatures. The people that go there say they LARP becuse it is a good escape from reality. The people in this movie are from ages 14 to 60. The movie takes place in (or around) Seattle. You don't choose your charater if you're a Monster, MAR (Movable Action Roleplayer), or newbie. COCs (Chooser of Characters) get to decide if you come regularly enough to stay a permanent character in the Plot.

The movie's 'message' is that it's OK to pretend, even if you are not a kid. My favorite part was seeing the costumes and makeup. My least favorite part was seeing a 30 year old man talking about how this was his 5th year of being a high school senior.

I would give this movie 4 stars for kids my age to watch. This movie made me want to LARP sometime.

As it turns out, she didn't end up watching any of the cable-tv crap I thought she'd like, because she ended up working on the movie and essay most of the day--and she seemed to like it. Which is just fine by me. Now it looks like I might get to teach my kid to play D&D.

Hey Portlanders

A work-related question for you.... Do you ever avoid the Old Port because you feel unsafe there?

Middle Schoolers Coming Out

The NY Times has a pretty long article about coming out in middle school, including some interviews with kids in Maine.

I was guilty of my share of [disbelief], too, the first time I met Kera — then a 12-year-old seventh grader — and her 13-year-old best friend, Justin, last spring in a city in New England. Kera had small, delicate features. Justin had freckles and braces. They seemed like kids. Yet there they were at a bookstore coffee shop after school, talking nonchalantly — when they weren’t giggling uncontrollably about one of their many inside jokes, that is — about their sexual identities. Kera said she was bisexual. Justin said he was gay. The effect was initially surreal to me, and before long I heard myself blurt out, “But you’re so young!”

It's a thoughtful article, and the author acknowledges his own prejudices; the basic message is that the world isn't quite ready for these kids, but it can't stop them. I like that.

Baby pears

No, really. Baby pears.

I don't usually link to kottke articles but I couldn't resist.

Baby pears! Baby pears!

Milestones

I need to mention that at some point this month, this blog passed the 10,000 views level. I don't know what I think about that, but there it is.

Also, I think I've passed my four-year blog anniversary, even though the site only seems to be archived to early 2006. I distinctly remember blogging about Meg Perry's death, which happened in December 2005... so there's that.

It's an exciting time here in jennyjeezland. Keep on keeping on.

Med management

So a friend asked me recently about my experience with medication, based on what I have written, and I thought it might be helpful to share my response to them here. There may be other folks wondering the same thing and not wanting to ask outright... and also I want to talk about this stuff, publicly.

Because of what I wrote before, I've actually had several people share their own experience with depression and medication, and that's been great. I think that talking is a big part of eliminating the shame around depression and anxiety... and for me, talking has helped ease some of my own disappointment that this is not something that I can treat without medication. There is such a thing as a chemical imbalance. I don't like taking a pill every day, but I can't deny that doing so makes me feel like I can exist--unlike my own untreated feelings, which sometimes make me feel like I can't exist.

I don't think that medication is a permanent solution for me, but it's a tool that I'm using (along with really active therapy, exercise, and better communications in my personal relationships) to reroute the old thought patterns that got me into trouble.

So anyway, here's what I wrote to someone asking more specifically about my experience with meds. I edited the name of the medication out because I am uncomfortable sharing my current prescriptions publicly, but if you want to know leave I'll leave my email in the comments so you can contact me and I'll tell you:

The medication I take (an SSRI) was prescribed primarily for anxiety, with the added benefit of treating my depression. I'm not sure I made that clear in the blog post... But I think that my out of control anxiety made me depressed, so treating one actually was treating the other. And for some reason it's harder to talk about anxiety than depression.

What the medication did was kind of narrow the range of my mood, but not in a bad way. So I still get anxious or depressed sometimes, as people do, but it's like the volume got turned down and the feelings/moods are manageable. The other thing that I think the medication did is to make therapy more helpful, because once the volume was down on the feelings--once I wasn't in crisis all the time any more--I was able to talk about some of the things which *cause* the feelings, and that reduced the anxiety & depression even more.

I started with ****, which is almost exactly the same thing as the thing I'm currently taking (and a lot cheaper), but the pills have lactose in them, and apparently I am extremely sensitive to it.

I have taken other medications in the past (Paxil, Wellbutrin, and imipramine), but those were only for depression, and they didn't work well enough to endure the side effects--things like difficulty being creative, sexual dysfunction, weird body sensations, and increased anxiety. I also wasn't in good therapy while I was taking them, so that makes a big difference. I don't personally believe in medication without therapy.

But while there I have had some side effects (a bit of weight gain, some forgetfulness, a change in the way my body reacts to alcohol, and some stomach sensitivity to coffee), the benefits FAR FAR outweigh them.

So, basically, it's unfortunately a bit of trial and error with medications to see what you'll tolerate best. But I would recommend talking to the doc or psychiatrist who you want to go to about what side effects you're worried about and choosing one that doesn't have many of those. I like the site at drugs.com, where you can look up medications and basically get the same info they give you in those printout things you get in the prescription bag at the drug store.

Obama to Letterman: I Was Black Before the Election

I sometimes don't think it's possible for me to love the president more than I do, and then something like this happens:

Dan Savage (whose voice is the voice of my conscience, btw) says this about the above video

... just because Obama was black before the election and still managed to get elected doesn't mean that racism isn't a problem and that racists don't exist. Remember Obama Waffles? But politically Obama has to avoid the angry-black-man label—which is why he's being baited with racist images and slurs and will go on being baited until sometime after 2012—because it would hurt him with middle-of-the-road white independents who don't want to believe that America has a race problem still.

So our first black president can't call clearly racist insults or acts or motives racist. He needs a crazy ol' cracker like Jimmy Carter to do that for him—and then he needs to go on TV and dismiss and downplay Carter's comments. And Americans are simultaneously upset with Carter because he's right and grateful to the president for letting them—and the country—off the hook.

Savage is exactly right. I've been reading Obama's writing, and it's given me a little understanding of where he's going. He's opposed to the radicalization and separation that is happening with our political parties; he's a community organizer through and through. And I have a great appreciation for his understanding of race politics, and his bravery and willingness to be the trailbreaker.

Also, he's hot. And I don't even swing that way.

Become pencils after you pass away...

Become pencils after you pass away...: "

Nadine Jarvis's 'Carbon copies'... A little morbid, but a clever idea

Pencils made from the carbon of human cremains. 240 pencils can be made from an average body of ash - a lifetime supply of pencils for those left behind. Each pencil is foil stamped with the name of the person. Only one pencil can be removed at a time, it is then sharpened back into the box causing the sharpenings to occupy the space of the used pencils. Over time the pencil box fills with sharpenings - a new ash, transforming it into an urn. The window acts as a timeline, showing you the amount of pencils left as time goes by.

I don't think it's morbid. I think it's lovely. Write about me with me after I'm dead. via

Happiness Survey

A little while ago I agreed to participate in a study that uses my iphone (have I mentioned I got an iphone? iphone iphone iphone) to track my happiness. I responded to short surveys about 80 times over a period of several weeks about what I was doing and how happy I was.

I just got my first report back, and the results are interesting. And, they come in the form of charts, which you know I love.

Though I often feel lonely, I am apparently only slightly happier with others than I am alone:

Alone?

% Happy

It's no surprise to me that I like small groups bigger than large groups:


# of people interacting with?

% Happy

What is surprising is that the amount of sleep I get has almost nothing to do with my happiness:

%Happy

Hours of sleep

Have an iphone? Sign up for the survey here. Don't yet have an iphone? Writhe in jealousy, my friend.

I am now an adult... but it still strikes me at odd times. Like last night, when I realized that what I was most looking forward to was finishing the dishes and having a cup of tea in the backyard. Not that household cleanliness and hot drinks are bad, necessarily. But having that be the great joy of my evening--instead of, say, staying up till 1 around a campfire, or being kept awake by the torments of loooooove, or writing bad poetry about either of these two other things--felt suddenly very Grown Up. I immediately felt the need to go get a tattoo AND shave my head.

Except, you know, my job. And stuff.

A few weeks ago I had a long discussion with a friend about the difference between being a grownup and being an adult. Grownups have dead souls, was the implication. Grownups are done growing, and done changing. Grownups in the Little Prince grande personne sense. Which doesn't feel like what I am, but maybe I'm deluding myself? I do feel more stable, less volatile, more certain of myself and of the world. I am calmer and more likely to take pleasures from the contrast between hot tea and cool evening air than from uprooting my life on a whim. Maybe that looks like soul-death from the outside.

And then Jenny Holzer, as part of her work Truisms posted this message on Twitter the other day:



While I've accepted most of her other truisms as, well, true, this one stuck in my gullet. Which I says more about me remaining partially adolescent than it does about the truthfulness of the statement.

I want to end with a conclusion that starts, "But then I..." Unfortunately, there is no conclusion. My self is in tension with myself. Is becoming an adult like selling out? Did all of the adults I knew as a young person--people who seemed so together and responsible and boring--all feel like this? Yes, and yes. Looking forward to more of this.

Smoke and ashes

I love watching Mad Men, but it makes me want to smoke and drink like crazy. Everyone smokes. Everyone drinks. All the time. I remember ashtrays in movie theaters and hospital waiting rooms, but it seems like a dream of the Dark Ages. Was life really like this? It doesn't seem possible.

My grandmother used to tell the story of how her doctor thought she was gaining too much weight during her pregnancy, and encouraged her to start smoking to help her not eat so much.

I think that was an entirely different world, an alternate history. How could we have been there and ended up here?




via

The Daily Death: When A Celebrity Dies Every 15 Minutes

The Daily Death: When A Celebrity Dies Every 15 Minutes: "

In the future, a famous person will die every fifteen minutes. Already it’s happening. The ascent of the microcelebrities, the 24 hour news cycle, citizen journalism, and our darkest fantasies all collide on Twitter now. The website’s rhetorical question “What are you doing?” sometimes feels more like “Who died today?”

Every day on Twitter, news of another death. Les Paul, John Hughes, Farrah Fawcett, those big names, but also the editor at this publication, the founder of this startup, the people who we might not all know, but someone you know knew them and they are using the space to remember them.

Sure, Maria Shriver’s euology made me sit up straighter and think I want to be like that. But, I mean, was I supposed to be shocked that Eunice Kennedy passed on? I guess it’s small talk of a darker sort. You could talk about the weather or whose heart stopped.

Fall Plans

Mmmm.... Venison.... Hopefully coming to a freezer near you. I'll keep you posted as plans progress.

Bwahahaha!

Michael Heath can always be counted on for some rainy summer entertainment. I hope you enjoy this as much as I do. And keep on keeping on, my queer friends: I'm not such a fan of the hot weather anyway.

A ‘cloud of error’ hides the ‘light of reason’:

"Our crops are faring like our moods. The potato crop is blighted, and corn and fruit fields wither. In one historic building in Augusta, rain flooded the basement, as water from another source poured down through the ceiling and extinguished a century-old chandelier.

Few people would be bold enough to suggest the cause of the endless rain and gloom, that the moral climate in Maine has caused the sun to hide its face in shame.

Worse than the rain is the fact that Maine voted in homosexual “marriage.”

In May, our elected officials overturned a law of nature, and in its place paid honor to evil and unnatural practices. Our leaders allowed a cloud of error to hide the light of reason, and then the rain began. How fitting that this eclipse of human reason is mirrored by the disappearance of the sun!"

Agri-Intellectuals

It's nice to see a logical, well-written reply to the locavore/small farm/slow food movement. But I still think this writer is wrong

The Omnivore’s Delusion: Against the Agri-intellectuals — The American, A Magazine of Ideas:

"On the desk in front of me are a dozen books, all hugely critical of present-day farming. Farmers are often given a pass in these books, painted as either naïve tools of corporate greed, or economic nullities forced into their present circumstances by the unrelenting forces of the twin grindstones of corporate greed and unfeeling markets. To the farmer on the ground, though, a farmer blessed with free choice and hard won experience, the moral choices aren’t quite so easy. Biotech crops actually cut the use of chemicals, and increase food safety. Are people who refuse to use them my moral superiors? Herbicides cut the need for tillage, which decreases soil erosion by millions of tons. The biggest environmental harm I have done as a farmer is the topsoil (and nutrients) I used to send down the Missouri River to the Gulf of Mexico before we began to practice no-till farming, made possible only by the use of herbicides. The combination of herbicides and genetically modified seed has made my farm more sustainable, not less, and actually reduces the pollution I send down the river. "

Kind of wish I was there

OK, Go

Summer has now, finally, officially, begun in the jennyjeez household. Last night I went swimming at the Kiwanis Pool, ate a soggy italian sandwich, got an ice cream cone (well, a sorbet cone), and played my guitar.

Too bad it's already August. I'm going to have to work hard to fit a whole summer into this month.

Independence Day

What goes into fireworks (via chart porn)

Toot, toot

Internet heroez:

Click To Play

Public Privacy

I really like social media. Given the limitations on my social life that are inherent in single mom-hood (i.e. most evening-type hanging out has to be done at my house), sometimes online is the best way to get any friend-time in.

Is it sometimes shallow? Sure. But so are the non-online conversations I have with friends, too. I mean, IRL I like talking philosophy and literary theory and queer politics and everything, but I also like talking about how much I don't get the show Wipeout or what color socks I wear.

The bad thing about social media, as far as I can tell, is that everything is documented, and things that would be past and gone in a conversation are visible for potentially ever. And, unfortunately, people act as if their online interactions are private conversations--responding without thinking--when it's actually more like shouting in a really big room full of people.

Case in point: Alice Hoffman, a well-known writer, went kind of nuts on Twitter when she got a bad review. All of the things she's saying are perfectly reasonable things to think and feel and talk about with friends, but it's like she's forgotten that she's saying them in public. Or, if she hasn't, this way of addressing of the issues strikes me as kind of passive aggressive. Why not write an op ed? Or issue a statement through her publicist? Or write an open letter to the reviewer?

As it is, she comes off as petty and nasty and unprofessional, because what she's having trouble with is a *professional* relationship: she writes books and people read and review them. She might as well be angry with the mail carrier for bringing the mail.

Uncool

Proving that I am once again the least cool person ever (just ask my tween, she'll confirm for you), I am now going to complain about the weather.

Gripe, gripe, whine, moan (pause to scrape off mildew, repeat)...










Did I mention that this is my vacation week? It is. The good news is that I've finished a lot of house projects, but I was hoping to get at least a LITTLE Vitamin D on this vacation. Not a lot, just SOME. Instead I'm growing vestigial gills.

Haunted

I like to listen to podcasts when I'm doing unpleasant things, like the dishes, or working out. Some people like music for this purpose. I generally don't; music doesn't have enough words to distract my busy busy mind.

So this weekend I was catching up on some old This American Life episodes while cleaning up, and heard this story of haunting, explained here:

Some nights after I have been in bed for a while, I have felt as if the bed clothes were jerked off me, and I have also felt as if I had been struck on the shoulder. One night I woke up and saw sitting on the foot of my bed a man and a woman. The woman was young, dark and slight, and wore a large picture hat. The man was older, smooth shaven and a little bald. I was paralyzed and could not move, when suddenly I felt a tap on my shoulder and I was able to sit up, and the man and the woman faded away. Sometimes, after I have gone to bed, the noises from the storeroom are tremendous. It does not happen every night; perhaps a week or ten days will pass, and then again it may be several nights in succession. Sometimes it sounds as if furniture was being piled against the door, as if china was being moved about, and occasionally a long and fearful sigh or wail.

It turns out that they were being poisoned. They called a doctor:

He examined the house thoroughly from top to bottom and interviewed the servants. He found the furnace in a very bad condition, the combustion being imperfect, the fumes, instead of going up the chimney, were pouring gases of carbon monoxide into our rooms. He advised us not to let the children sleep in the house another night. If they did, he said we might find in the morning that some one of them would never wake again.

It makes me wonder about "ghostly" experiences of my own. Were they just bad air? Will anyone ever explain alien sightings this way, or just ghosts? How about unicorns? Are all the ramblings of the mind preventable?







images from http://www.ghoststoriesandpictures.com/

Can't resist

In light of my previous love for Brett Michaels, it would seem amiss for me not to share this brilliantness:



And to think I flashed that guy once. Sigh.