Learning Your Numbers

I learned a lot of things watching Recount today. I learned a whole new respect for screenwriter Danny Strong, having admired his acting work for many years. I learned that a moment of Denis Leary's strongest Boston accent fills me with joy. I learned that if I'm already feeling the rage watching a politically charged movie is like asking for the pain to be prolonged (Please, sir, may I have some more?) But, most interesting of all I learned that all those questionable ballots (we can agree on the term questionable, can't we?) are sitting in a warehouse, accessible, you know, if anyone were interested in going over them again.

Wardrobe!

I have just taken the call telling me that we're doing the Mermaid Parade again this year! Our theme is floral, roses specifically. I've got three weeks to perfect my costume (including a theme-appropriate way to carry our extras and the birthday cake). I need temporary tattos, stat!

Anyone want to join us? We've got room in our posse as long as you bring your own glitter.

Who Knew I Could Love Her More

Dorothy Parker was the kind of woman I wish I had the talent or courage to be. Was she a white hot mess? It seems likely. Was she a stylish, incisive, brilliant hot mess? Of that I am certain. Then I came across this quote and decided she might be a little better even than that.

"Heterosexuality is not normal, it's just common."

In light of an intensely awful headache, due in part to my allergies, I can barely form sentences. It's OK, Dottie* says it all for me:

"Summer makes me drowsy.
Autumn makes me sing.
Winter's pretty lousy,
But I hate Spring."

It ought to be clear by now to all of you that I'm a fan of anything bawdy and Ms. Parker is generally remembered for that. Case in point:

"If all the young ladies who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, no one would be the least surprised."

You'd have to be a pretty brave artist to invite her to your opening night, that's for sure:

"This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force."

In short, she's the perfect companion for a Saturday night.

*I suspect she's plotting my death from beyond the grave for diminishing her name like that.

Color Me Enraged

When did I turn into the blogger who only regurgitates cute things from other places on the internet?


see more dog and puppy pictures

Who knows? Probably about the time I became composed entirely of white hot, blinding, frustrated rage. It's not important what about because it's just an accumulation of small things, fixable things even, but things which weren't on the to do list before and I now have to fucking work around those things before the things that were on the list can be counted as don....GAH! BLIND! THRASHING! KILL KILL KILL!

So, you know, not so much fit for company today, even internet company. I'm certainly not fit to write something elegantly crafted, or whatever I've been passing off as such here.

Probably this has to do with the fact that a dear friend of mine returned home from a long, unexpected journey on Wednesday but his home is not my home so I won't see him for two weeks and it doesn't seem real until I do. I am consumed with the uncertainty of not having proved to myself that he is back and all will be well. That frustration seems to be leaking all over my life.

You might want to step back. Don't want to get any on you.

Aawwww

I'm busy running around today. I'm also dead tired. This delightful captioned photo is so cute it's actually making my heart hurt. Enjoy and I'll talk to you later.


see more Lolcats and funny pictures

You Mean I WHAT?

I've had a spendy week. Time and money. Could have been worse, though.

I live chatted with the cable folks to see if there was any way I could reduce my monthly bill. Turns out I can't. However, I was informed that I've had HBO for months and didn't know it. I'm watching my first episode of True Blood now! I could certainly reduce my bill, I could quit having cable. It's far from necessity. I talked it over with Pony Express, though, and she said that even though she doesn't have TV she likes knowing she can come over here and watch. If I get stuck she might pay into the fund. I'm by no means stuck yet, just exploring my options, as they say, so I'll keep it. For her, of course, all for her. What are friends for after all?

Then I got one of those offers in the e-mail from Aerosoles and I just idly browsed and found out that they had my 9/11 shoes* on sale. Last I checked they weren't even making them anymore. $29.99 and comes in 3 colors. I went to the store on my lunch hour because I had to try them on and found the right size. In the store? $69.99. Seriously! I went back and bought them online in all 3 colors.

Then I met an old high school friend for dinner and had a delicious and not expensive sushi dinner with good saki. I haven't had saki in a while and it's a very good idea, in case you're in the market for a good idea.

I also bought my plane ticket to OR. Really glad to have that piece of the puzzle in place.

What are you spending your money on this week?

*The incredibly comfortable shoes that I walked home in on 9/11. I almost couldn't throw them away when the sole cracked straight through. They're light and easy and go with a ton of things. They make my feet happy, even when the world is crumbling around them.

Rush Limbaugh Is For Affirmative Action*

Two tiny political things I'm thinking about.

There have been a lot of things on the White House Blog lately about greening and environment and infrastructure and jobs. The Veep is on a tour with something called the Middle Class Task Force and a lot of what they're doing is working to find ways to create jobs while fighting "global warming." I suspect the things the task for are doing are quite good but Christ on a soggy town house cracker I hate that the government of a first world country is using so inaccurate a phrase in official publications and speeches. I make plenty of "you call this global warming?" jokes, I'll admit but who the hell listens to me? (By the by, thanks for listening to me, I really need that.) It's climate change. While some places and times will become warmer other places and times will become colder. Some will be wetter, some dryer and a hefty chunk of them may feature buildings and livestock flying through the air. It's about extremes in all directions not just in the direction of warmth so "global warming" is the wrong term. It's inflammatory and it invites misunderstanding which you have to admit is counter productive, no? Is it crazy that I want to fight climate change with words first? Maybe. But the first thing you have to do in a fight like this is recruit people to your side and recruiting is about language so get your terms right!

Secondly, I'm only partially kidding about the Limbaugh thing. I read somewhere (I can't remember where and if he's not going to cite his sources then I feel OK not digging around for mine. If that bugs you no end leave a polite comment and I'll find it.) that he's calling Obama (and someone else, can't remember who, Barbara Boxer maybe?) a reverse racist based on the short list for Supreme Court nominees. From what I've heard not one person on the short list has a penis. (Horrors!) I haven't heard but assume that few, if any, of the people on the list are Caucasian. So, does Mr. L feel we should include a man on the list just for the sake of interviewing across the spectrum? Isn't that how a lot of people describe Affirmative Action when they are pointing to its failings? It's all more complicated than that, of course, but my brain can't help nailing that point over and over again.

Here's a third, marginally political, thing I loved today. Inmates at Sing Sing are doing (or perhaps have just completed) performances of Macbeth. They do a play each year and this year's choice was controversial but, it seems, quite successful. FYI for the haters, it's an outside group that comes in to work with them on this so state money is not spent on the program. It's also not a unique program. Check out Shakespeare Behind Bars next time you're renting videos. Why would I advocate letting criminals have fun? Mostly because it's not about them having fun it's about working toward reform (Why do you think they call it a reformatory?) and these programs teach inmates skills they can take "over the wall," if you will. The rules for inclusion are, historically, quite tough and the result tends to be leaps forward in progress for participants in many skills (reading, writing, critical thinking, anger management, follow through, interpersonal relations and self-confidence to name but a few). I've worked in prisons and alternative education situations a few times and I really love it. For about a year I've been thinking about how I could incorporate that work into my life. Still working on it.

So tell me, what have you learned today?

*Welcome Rush Limbaugh fans! This title was written in "humor" font, in case your computer is not displaying it as such.

Photo Credit

Socially Butterflied

I am not the social girl but I have been and, apparently, will continue to be for a little while. What better topic, then, for today's 10 Things.

1. I saw Jessica Fletcher pound a couple of martinis (in character).

2. I fell in love with a couple of children while wishing that someone had designed and utilized a gem-encrusted harness for Elton John.

3. I had a solo dinner with somebody else's mentor and soaked up a full serving of information and advice and care. I am so lucky that those somebodies shared.

4. I laughed at the climactic action moments. I heartily apologize to the folks sitting in front of me who might have been quite serious about their Catholic church movies.

5. I spent two hours becoming wildly envious of everyone who has ever shared time, performance space or air with David Hyde Pierce.

6. Simultaneously I was wading through delightful Murphy Brown flashbacks.

7. I wandered around yet another part of Brooklyn I haven't spent much time in.

8. I ate a lunch of corn dogs, sweet potato fries and onion rings without irony. Or death.

9. I bought dinner to cook from these nutty folks.

10. I tried out a new joint in the 'hood on the spur of the moment. I don't recommend the prosecco but the service and the food were both lovely.

Just wait until you hear what's on tap for this week.

Bit?

I am finally again caught up with the Flickrizing. It didn't take as long as I thought. Amazing that I'm posting photos from as recently as 2 days ago! I hope your holiday weekend was more than satisfactory. I'm still working away, trying to finish things I wanted to have done. I'll get a lot done and a lot will remain undone and I'll have to be OK with it. I think I can manage. I need to work on my self discipline but, you know, baby steps.

Marching

Saintseester commemorated Memorial Day by posting some videos. She likes choirs and found a good one singing our national anthem. I thought that was a grand idea. I'm more of a brass ensemble or marching band kind of a person for my Star Spangled Banner needs and figured I could spring off her brilliant idea at my own angle. I love a really good rendition of the song, especially by, say, a world class drum and bugle corps. Wouldn't you know, I couldn't find one that did it for me. Mostly it's about the arrangement, I think, and I couldn't find one that was simple enough without it being pounded out in a steady drone like a death march.

As a teenager my Memorial Days were spent in parades. Usually the one parade which wound through every cemetary in my home town. When you start a town in the early 1600s you've got plenty of time to build up burial grounds. It was a long day, usually hot as blazes to boot. Along the way we played the Star Spangled Banner and listened to my friends play the dual trumpet echo version of taps over and over. At least one person would pass out, and if even one person didn't complain it was a miracle. We were teenagers, it's not an excuse but it does explain.

Even as a teenager, though, I was just barely wise enough to see what happened at each stop. Mostly we saw WWII veterans, both women and men, placing wreaths and speaking and reading the graves of their fellows. There was a sense of duty that filtered down to everyone involved, even we teens, so self-involved. In the faces of those we honored, though, memory was plain to see. For someone like me who places such a premium on the power of memory and memories seeing that, of course, stuck with me.

Best wishes for you and your memories today. Thank you to everyone who not only does but also remembers.

Miss Me?

Since Wednesday I've been flat out social and cultural and stuffing my maw with food. No limes (at left) but pretty much everything else in the known universe. I had garlic, basil & sun dried tomato pasta for breakfast. And not a little of it, either.

I missed you guys! I've been putting some pictures up on Flickr (if you don't click through you won't see an absolutely unique photo of the Happiest Kid On Earth aka: Little Seal so, you know, fail to click at your peril) and doing some writing and napping. A lot of napping today. Watch this space for reviews and links and pictures of crustaceans.

Does anyone want to come over and do my vacuuming for me? Pretty please?

Life Changing

Dear Clemo,

I saw Blithe Spirit last night. Effective immediately we are quitting our jobs and devoting our lives to performing the work of Noel Coward (or at least the first acts). I'll expect you Thursday week with a tuxedo, change of undies and fiddlesticks.

Cheerio!

Kizz

I'm A Giver

Chrome turned me on to a funny site today and I came across this quote which could not be more appropriately timed. I post it here for Clemo:

(314): I found the orange juice, it was hiding in the vodka...trickster.


There's more where that came from, check it out.

Reform or Reject?

Michael Vick is being released from prison today. He'll spend the last 2 months of his sentence confined to his home, which still makes his incarceration less than two years. He's also filing for bankruptcy and waiting to hear if the NFL will reinstate him.


After I read the news about his release I got to thinking about what I hope to see happen to him in future. I wasn't getting much of anywhere before I noticed a piece on Facebook by the Humane Society of the US. It seems that Vick has approached them asking to participate in their highly successful anti-dogfighting efforts and they have accepted. Though he doesn't say so outright, HSUS president, Wayne Pacelle, makes it clear that any organization that worked so hard to reform abused dogs rather than euthanize them should have the same attitude toward humans. If Vick fails to follow through with this initiative it will be his own failure, not that of HSUS, they will have done their level best to participate in his rehabilitation process. They also appear to have restricted his involvement in the program to human interaction, not putting him in charge of dogs.


There is the matter of what Vick will do with the rest of his life still to ponder. He's deeply in debt and got that way while making $10 - $12 million dollars a year. While he waits for the NFL's ruling he has a job with a local construction company and is being paid a reported $600,000 to participate in the making of a documentary so he's not without income as he works to rebuild a life. The first plan he presented to the bankruptcy court called for him to keep 2 houses and 3 cars. The judge, thankfully, rejected that offer out of hand and told him to go back to the drawing board. The fact that this interaction even happened makes me question Vick's commitment to reform in all areas of his life.


I hesitate to bring it up since I was planning just a short post to bring up the questions of the hour but there are wider questions about the prison system here, too. This guy has a job and a home of his own to go to when he's released. He has professionals assisting him with his financial difficulties and he's already in negotiations to return to his dream job. Not many prisoners find those sorts of opportunities upon their release. Did I tell you about the time a woman talked her way onto the bus on my way home one night? She'd just been released from the local detention center and all they'd given her was a piece of paper. She didn't have any shoes.

As far as I'm concerned I think it's imperitive that Vick never be allowed to be alone with animals again in his life. Same should go for all of the people involved in his ring. I also think the NFL should refuse to reinstate him. There might be wiggle room there but no way should he get to go back to doing what he loves and being paid exorbitantly for it. He can play as much football as he wants on any level, I guess, but he gets paid the same amount as anyone else doing manual labor at the stadium, you know? It can be his choice to do something more lucrative or to stick with the love of the game. We need a lot more athletes out there playing for the love of the game. Any company who requests his endorsement should be told in no uncertain terms that any product Michael Vick thinks is cool is seriously suspect in our eyes. He's shown poor judgment in almost every area of his life, that's not the kind of advice I'm looking for, frankly.


All of which, I suppose, makes me a little more stringent and a little more hypocritical perhaps than Mr. Pacelle and the Human Society. For now I'm OK with that but I promise to keep thinking about it.

*All but the last photo are courtesy of Google Images. The last photo is taken by me of my friend and neighbor, Bucephalus. I do not recommend you do an image search "pit bull." Many of the photos in that category are extremely disturbing.

10. Not Desert

Seems like the only right way to end a day like this.
A happy ending, if you will.
Just in case today made you sick of me.
Nighty night.

9. Amazing Grace

I got a postcard in the mail this evening announcing that Phylicia Rashad is taking over the central role in August: Osage County on Broadway. I saw the show last September with Zelda and it's a powerful, deep role and it's not something I would have thought of for Rashad but I bet she can bust it wide open. She's fortunate to get to play in that sandbox, too. God, what a great play! ("Eat your fish, bitch!")

I'm curious about how Rashad's presence will change the play. Of course every new actor to come into a play changes the way the machine works. They see different things in the writing and are drawn to different touchstones in the role and whatever they do will come out of their body differently than out of anyone else's. This, though, is more than that. August is a play about an old style upper middle class family in modern day Oklahoma. A white family, is what I'm saying, in a culture where racial distinctions are pretty clearly drawn. The writing touches lightly on the parallel between race and class distinction as it relates to Native Americans. There are no African American characters.

Now there's an African American actor in the lead role. I'm not saying that I think there's anything wrong with that. What I'm wondering is in what ways that will change the way audiences interpret the play. How will it change the race and class division message? How will it change the perception of the character? I'd like to see it again with Rashad as the lynchpin but I don't think I'm qualified to judge the differences since I've seen it before. I've already made judgements about the character and her motivations and back story. I could go analytical about the changes but I don't know if I'd be able to lose myself in the show enough to see it freshly. People seeing it for the first time, though, would be able to just see this woman as head of the family and doing...all those things I don't want to spoil for you.

Anybody out there planning to see August on Broadway soon? Let me know what you think. It's a glorious show, I think you'll like it.

8. Board

I have a talent for handling all things boring. Maybe it's because I spent a lot of time with adults as a kid so I had to wait for the age appropriate stuff. Maybe it's part of my genetic make up. Perhaps I'm just a dullard. We may never know.

It works out well for eating (I can eat the same thing for lunch every workday for about 6 months before it even occurs to me that it might not be yummy), for waiting (a snafu put me on a bench outside a restaurant waiting for my companions for about an hour, I couldn't have been happier), for commuting (I've been walking my commute for weight loss for how long now? And I'm just now getting bored out of my skull) but not so much for other things.

The last time I tried to date a perfectly nice man met me at a party and made a perfectly nice inquiry about me to the hostess. The hostess gave me a verbal personal ad that should be on Match.com as a template for beginners and I agreed to an exchange of information. We went out to drinks. A few months later we went to a movie. After a time we may have done dinner and a movie. We saw a play once, that didn't go very well. This went on for over a year, with a few months in between each encounter, and, while I knew in my heart I was dodging him, I couldn't come up with a valid (in my opinion) reason for just never calling back. Round about that time he came to one of my bowling birthday parties. We had a perfectly nice time, my friends thought he was perfectly nice and he had to bail a little early to go to rehearsal which was, of course, perfectly fine.

Pony Express said to me, "That's just mean." I didn't know what she was talking about. "He so wants to kiss you. Like so much!" she teased. I did not want to kiss him. I had the grace to feel a little bad about that but I really didn't. I also mentioned how I never wanted to see him naked and I felt that was what was hampering my ability to return the poor guy's fucking e-mails. I begged her to help me figure out what my problem was, why I couldn't just give it the old college try with a perfectly nice guy. "Oh," she said, "I thought you knew. He's boring."

Oh god, it was so true. He was boring. He is boring still, I see him every so often at parties, but I don't feel guilty any more. Well, only a little guilty, he is after all perfectly nice and so I want perfectly nice things for him. I am not perfectly nice, I hope he realizes that. I am, however, fully petrified to try dating again because my Boredom Detector is completely non-functional! How will I work out whether I'm not trying hard enough or I'm bored to actual distraction?

Suggestions welcome.

7. Behold The Fivehead

It's been dreary here weather-wise. I hear it's been dreary most places, except the places with earthquakes. Today I had to run a work errand and when I got out there, cautiously bundled against unforgiving wind, it was actually really nice. After I finished my errands I walked around and eventually came to a public plaza where I could sit and read my book for a few minutes before returning to the desk.

Not long after I sat down I realized that my scalp was hot. Kind of really hot for a plain old warm day. I think my scalp is just out of the habit of being touched by Apollo's golden rays. (Not that Apollo.) The one year mark of babying my carved face came just as winter was beginning. I've pretty much been wearing a hat constantly since November of 2007. Lately, though, I've been lax. I even think my divot it becoming thinner (see photo), which I take as a sign of true healing.

May is National Skin Cancer Awareness month, you guys. (Friday is even "Don't Fry Day." Seriously.) It's a good reminder for me that to be lax is no longer an option. I need to find out where I put the SPF lotion for my face and see how the new hair cut holds up to my lovely hats.

Don't you be lax, either. If Grey's Anatomy has taught us nothing else this season it's taught us that melanoma can fuck a girl up, for real.

6. Starry Eyed

Here's one from my infamous starred file. (No, really, it's infamous, not famous at all.)

It seems, according to Gothamist, that Pfizer will be giving out certain prescription drugs to people who have lost their jobs. Seems like a nice thing to do, right? Like the way that JetBlue is allowing people to cash in unused tickets if they lose a job after making their reservation. There are caveats, it has to be one of their 70 most prescribed drugs, you have to have lost your job after January 1 and you have to have been on the medication for at least 3 months, but they don't seem unreasonable to me.

I have to admit that at first I was skeptical. It was their own fault, though. They announced the program by saying it would dispense "70 of our most prescribed medications including L1p1tor and V1@gra." That shit should come with a trigger warning, should it not? V1@GRA? Seriously V1@GRA? What about contraceptives or antibiotics? Does Pfizer do HIV meds? Where are those for the love of little green woodies?!?!? Huh? HUH?!?!?! Further inspection reveals that antidepressants, smoking cessation products and even contraception (REALLY? Yes, really!) are on the list of 70.

After reviewing the videotape, so to speak, I give a hearty thumbs up to the Pfizer Pfolk for reaching out to their fellow Americans while inspiring brand loyalty.

5. Yea Verily

This morning my good friend, D, said, "190 people get the Swine Flu and everybody wants to wear a mask. 10 million people have AIDS and no one wants to wear a condom."

You know how sometimes you're trying and trying to make a certain point without belittling the other person's point of view but you really feel that there's something crucial they're missing even though you can't put your finger on it? That's how I've been feeling about the H1N1 hoopla. I understand it's something we should be aware of and watchful for. I do not understand how it is the trumpet that herald's the end of the world.

D put his finger on it. Do you really need a pandemic to fear? Look no further.

And put on a condom while you're looking.

4. Freon Won't LIft It's Shirt for Beads

This morning as I was assembling my lunch in the kitchen there was a crunchy sort of bang followed by a low, steady hiss. I'm right near the street and the exact point in the street where our garbage is picked up and there's been a lot of road work lately so I wasn't immediately excited. The cats were unamused, also quite fluffy with fear. It was the hissing that made me investigate. Someone untidily drops a dumpster out on the street and it doesn't leave behind the hissing noise of a mishandled balloon. Nothing out the kitchen window, ditto the living room one. Nothing in the courtyard or by the gate that I could see from my angle. By chance I checked the other bedroom window on my way by, the one that looks out on the roof of the ground floor, right above the drain.

Someone's air conditioner had fallen from the floors above and landed directly on the drain cover, smashing it to pieces. Unsurprisingly the drain seems to be working better now. So the good thing to come out of this is less standing water and therefore less chance of West Nile. The AC unit was leaking gas, freon I assume. Other than that the damage to it seemed negligible, though I wasn't about to go out there and check.

I called security, asking them to tell maintenance but I don't anticipate much from that route. I got to work and, after settling in, called the manager's office. Of course no manager was in yet and when I called back he'd gone to a meeting. I left a detailed message but again, I'm not going to hold anyone's breath while I wait for the elusive call back. I also wrote an e-mail to the blog for my apartment complex. It wasn't a complaint, more a plea to get the word out that people need to be careful putting their units in and taking them out (dirty!). I had mine semi-professionally installed last year (to the tune of $100 each, so they've remained right where they are and will do so for the forseeable future) because I didn't want to be responsible for a malfunction that could cause anyone injury. One of my AC units can only fall 1 foot harmlessly to the aforementioned roof but the other one is directly over the front door of the building. Nobody likes the lady who smooshes a kid with her modern convenience, you know?

I called ChemE before I left home to see if she could think of any freon-related reason that I should be more forceful about getting someone to clean that shit up before I abandoned my animals at mini ground zero. She had me google the safety standards and we went over them together.

Me: It has no flash point, that's got to be good, right?
Her: (giggling) Yes. That's good.

3. Slobberfest

Emily got a major smackdown this weekend. It was, as the saying goes, a totally righteous bust and yet she failed to be surprised.

There's a very long story about how nervous she was when she arrived and how the other dog in the house taught her how to play and how sweet that was. It was sweet and yet, the result is that the only way she knows how to play is to poke another dog in the neck until he runs so she can chase him. Some dogs (Bobby, Ben, even Teddy) are fine with that and others (pretty much any adult female dog every born) think that's a good way to start a bar brawl and yet others fall in the middle.

This weekend we were invited to Kath & Alex's for a pleasant dinner among adults with dogs. It was all going very well (mmm, fresh fruit margaritas) until Emily began to poke a poor, sweet one year old pup and he didn't understand the game. I was thinking about calling Em over to give him a break but his people seemed to think it was OK for him to tough it out and yet I wasn't so sure it was fair and in the blink of an eye he stood up for himself!

I, for one, was kind of proud of him. It was clear that we humans needed to intervene but it was equally clear that no one was serious about inflicting harm. He essentially leapt on Emily, pinning her flat to the ground and yelled in her ear. While trying to save our heirloom drinks glasses from the melee we reached in and extracted our dogs, giving them each a stern talking to. I looked the girl over on general principles but, as expected, found no damage. She was, however, covered in dog spit from the tips of her ears to her barrelly chest and, as is typical of her, had no idea what had just happened or why.

So, what did I do this weekend? I went out winning friends and influencing people all the live long day. My dog helped.

2. 5 Alarm Chili

Chili saw Angels & Demons on her date night last night.
She woke up this morning and suggested Pierfrancesco Favino as a subject for a Hot People post.
Pleasant dreams my dear?

1. Explanatory

My life MO is, when I get overwhelmed or put off by a project, to interrupt it with something else. Things will get sticky, I'll get discouraged and WHAM! I'll have the most brilliant idea ever about something in the opposite direction and it will need action immediately. As long as I don't abandon Project A entirely it's a pretty good mechanism for unsticking the syrupy feeling. However, the temptation to abandon is always quite strong.

I have not been whole hog into 10 Things Tuesday for a few weeks, perhaps you've noticed. Today I was despairing, wanting to participate, not wanting to do random, not having any good theme ideas, blah blah blah. Then came the brilliant, ridiculous idea. I will do 10 posts today. Longer than my Fwitter things, shorter than an in depth post and 10 all together (no more, no less!) by the time my head hits the pillow.

The best thing about it? It's going to distract me from all the life projects I really should be spending my time on today!

On The Horns

I'm conflicted about the use of the Pictobrowser now. I love the look of it and I feel very fancy using it but I realized today that if you look at them here and don't click through then you miss all the comments I made on Flickr. On the one hand I don't get as many hits on Flickr (in theory) but on the other hand people who read here and are disinclined to click through will see more of my photography. So pretty, as I said, but it means that you don't know the story behind that wonderful young woman smiling with the crown and you don't know about that Neopolitan mix and why I don't have a headshot of him or why Dyn-o-MITE is Dynamite or any of the other tiny stories I came across on Saturday. I don't know how I feel about it or if it matters how I feel about it. Surely I could just mix it up, link sometimes and Pictobrowse sometimes, right?

How do you feel about it?

Some Guys Who Look Like Other Guys

Ben Mackenzie (The OC, Junebug, Southland) looks like...
Kevin Connolly (Entourage).
But Connolly doesn't look like...
Dave Annable.
Mackenzie doesn't look like Annable either.
See? But Annable does look a little like...
Adam Brody (Gilmore Girls, The OC, Thank You For Smoking).
Guess I'm just feeling kind of visual this evening.
Which isn't so much a bad thing.

Crapping Up Your Weekend

Or uncrapping it, actually.

Yesterday I was one of the volunteers for the PUPS Poop Pick Up Contest. It took a remarkably short time and we didn't have as spirited a sense of competition as the last time we held a contest but a lot of cleaning up happened and a lot of fun was had nonetheless. The rules were that poop and trash were allowed but dirt, sticks and stones were not. The winner retrieved 2.5 lbs of poop and 8 lbs of trash, single handedly cleaning up one of the park's playgrounds, but he would have won on the weight of the crap alone. It was a good way to kick off It's My Park Day and I really hope that the folks who were complaining about "all" the dog owners both notice and appreciate it.



This is my first crack at using Pictobrowser. How do you like it?

Best Or Worst Night Of Your Life? You Decide

see more pwn and owned pictures

I got up very early this morning to talk to strangers about excrement. I'll explain later, with pictures.

What are you doing this morning?

The Host

I know I am often behind the times. I try to keep up but it's hard.

I just heard that he's hosting the Tony Awards this year!

Now that is music to my ears.

It's magic, I tell you.

I

simply

cannot

wait!

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I remain fascinated and a little unnerved by the entirety of Facebook. I love it and I have a lot of fun with it but it's still a foreign country to me. I'll have been reading religiously for a week and wonder why people ask where I am. I'm here! I'm reading! Oh, but I'm not updating my status or commenting on other statuses (stati?) so you can't see me. I'm lurking like a peeping perv. My favorite part remains stalking the photos. It's a little gift from the Facebook gods when someone I know is tagged by someone I don't know because usually I can see the whole set of pictures! To some access to a stranger's family album seems worthless, to me it's like candy. By the way, I loved your community theatre production of Pippin, please post video!

The flow of photos was more of a trickle last night, though, so I went tromping through my friends list checking to see if anyone had uploaded new photos. I noticed a recent Facebook friend, a woman I went to high school with, hell a woman I went through at least 6 grades with and maybe more, whose photos I had never checked. So in I waded, delirious with joy. There she was, clearly still close to some of our other classmates, and her sisters were represented but not tagged, stalling me for a good five minutes while I tried to remember their names, I still haven't come up with all of them, and there she was on her wedding day, if my fashion sense isn't wrong she's been married quite a long time and of course there were pictures of her kids. One whole photo album was of her 3 kids, 2 boys and a girl, between the ages of probably 11 and 6. Then in a separate album labelled "random family" there happened to be 2 pictures of a baby. Since all babies basically look like Winston Churchill with a good buzz on I would have skimmed over them had my eye not caught the caption. The caption gave his full name, his date of birth and, four months later, his date of death. Two dates long before Facebook was even an idle bar conversation fueled by imported beer and bravado.

Some might say it's weird or even inappropriate of her to lay that information out there like this. I, however, think it's perfectly acceptable behavior, and kind of brilliant. You don't lose a child like that and not have the experience shift your entire being. Out there on Facebook we're all combing through updates and wall posts and photos and lists of interests to see which parts of old friends are the same and which are different. "My son died when he was 4 months old." It's not something you can put in a 50 words or less reintroduction note and yet it's pertinent, vital even. She was, I'm sure, proud of him, her first born, and she has beautiful photos and she's generously shared them with us, in the process giving us a glimpse of the pivotal pieces of her life that don't fit into a pithy update or online chat program.

I wanted to say something but I didn't know what. There aren't any other comments on the photo and clicking the "like" button seemed both inadequate and easily misunderstood. I certainly don't like that he's dead but I do like the giddy Churchillian look of him propping himself up on a blanket in the grass. I clicked and hovered and thought for a bit before reminding myself that sometimes the right thing to say is nothing at all. It's enough to have witnessed and felt and to let that inform how I move forward.

This Facebook thing, it continues to surprise me at every turn.

Milestone

At a small birthday gathering many years ago we celebrated a friend turning 40. Her father had given her a mug covered in writing about the perils of being 40. She picked it up and started to read, suddenly she lengthened her arm, then brought it back in, telescoped back out trying desperately to find the spot where things would come into focus. We then joked mercilessly about how old and decrepit she was.

I turned 40 in January, maybe you remember, there was a party and a crown. Before today I hadn't noticed any of the signs of aging in particular.

This morning the subway was crowded. I needed to try to be close to on time, though, so on I smushed, determined to read my book to distract myself from the discomfort and the raging, yeasty hatred of humanity. I found myself sardined in so tight that at the level of my eyes the book was crammed no more than two inches from my nose. I could not make sense of the print. It was horrible. Since my glasses are relatively narrow lensed I happened to notice that things were clearer without the specs. I spent one whole stop angling my head unbelievably awkwardly to read the sentences just below my glasses and finally realized I could just take them off. So I propped them atop my head and happily read straight through to midtown.

In my mind's eye I looked just like my ex-boyfriend's mother, glasses perched atop suburban hair cut, looking down my nose at a book. Really wasn't ready for that.

Retraction

And when I said Wedding Crashers yesterday
I really meant Swingers. Whoops. Common denominator, Vince Vaughn.
Sorry Jon and Vince, I promise it's not that I don't know the difference, it's just that my brain wires went all crossy.

Fixated

You know how I get fixated on things. Sometimes people. Lately it's this guy, Jon Favreau.

No, not the one from Wedding Crashers.

The one who's a 27-year-old phenom head speechwriter for Barack Obama. He's the guy who crafted the campaign slogan, "Yes We Can."

As I poke around I find that (as of the end of January) he has a girlfriend, a beautiful young lady; former campaign worker, current White House Aide who once posed scantily clad for Maxim. A lot of people are calling that a black mark against her but to me it sounds more like she's a well rounded, practical woman.

He's young enough to make pronouncements like this is the last political job he'll ever have. He's too young to really know if that's true.
He's old enough to be completely in sync with a President and able to craft that knowledge into words and sentences and paragraphs that speak to a nation. Obama has even told the press that Favreau can read his mind.

Well, if Favs, as his friends call him, wants to read my mind I guess there's only one thing to say...

Yes you can.