The Space Needle is My Neighbor

Headless Chicken Lives For 18 months

2008-08-24T22:41:00.001-07:00

But what really happened at the Super Eight?.........

Strange but true. A farmer from Fruita, Colo., thought he was just putting dinner on the table when he picked up an axe and beheaded one of his chickens. What happened next became the stuff of legend: The headless rooster bobbed and weaved back to the henhouse and lived for 18 more months. The animal, later dubbed Mike and celebrated with a festival, Web sites and various magazine articles, survived because the blade missed his jugular vein and a clot prevented him from bleeding to death. The axe blow landed high enough that most of the chicken's brain stem and one ear remained intact. Mike was fed and watered by inserting an eyedropper directly into his gullet. Sadly, he later choked to death in a motel room. Residents of Fruita remember Mike as "a big fat chicken who didn't know he didn't have a head."

Life, Death & All That Stuff That Happens In Between

2008-06-19T21:22:00.000-07:00

This is a before and after of my apartment, where I lived for the first seven years after I came to Seattle. A year ago I found myself being condo-ized out of my home in a campaign that could best be described as benign neglect. I won't devote any time to what that process looked like- it was excruciatingly difficult enough to just get through it, and it still pisses me off. As the apartments around me were being stripped down to the studs, I was finding myself to be going through a similar process. Finalizing a "divorce-in-waiting", putting my cat to sleep, slowly coming to the realization that my job was crushing my will to live; I was also stripping away the foundation, however illusory, that had supported me for the duration after my move from Chicago.

Let me tell you, I have attended more seminars and read more handouts on the subject of change than one person should ever have to endure in a single lifetime. I have gone through my share of "re-orgs" and "re-alignments", and in some cases I've had to play the part of the principal facilitator of a number of unpleasant endeavors. Change sucks. No matter what kind of positive spin you might convince people to believe in regarding the process of changing things up, we are creatures of habit. Bottom line. The one thing I haven't been able to figure out is when exactly this universal characteristic takes hold of us. As children, we crave the new- every single day. Eventually this excitement is replaced by a claw-like grip on every person, place or thing we've accumulated; be it keeping it all around us in the here and now, or hanging on to the memory of all of it-defying time to try and take it away.

I find myself waging a war with myself, every single day, to continue to embrace the new- to challenge myself to find the interesting, the fresh, the unknown, all the while watching the memory of family, place, and experience receding into the mist. I know it all resides within me somewhere; these are the flagstones upon which I have trod to get to where I am today, and which allow me to discover for example, how much I love learning about typography and graphic design and how I'm able to study and appreciate it from a much different perspective now; the perspective of having lived on this earth for five decades-plus, which is a pretty amazing context considering all that's happened in my lifetime.

One of the very important elements of my life that has fallen by the wayside over the last year is writing. When I started this site I would stay up late every night, faithfully reporting the craziest news of the day, or delving deep into my psyche to try and make sense of how I ended up in Seattle, and what I was going to do about it; how I could best make this an experience that would mark a positive turning point in my life. Things have changed for me; I now share the space where I live with another human being, and these are waters I haven't navigated in many years. The delicate negotiations required to obtain the necessary time and space are still somewhat indistinct to me. I remember being in this situation before, but unlike riding a bike, the skill doesn't come back so automatically or naturally. There's a lot of unlearning that has to be done, especially when you share one big space without rooms, or closets or even a few extra walls. Yes, it's a loft, and let me just say for both of us that even Mother Theresa would have a difficult time staying upbeat and productive 24/7 in this environment, but we're making it work, because we're both considerate to a fault. You, on the other hand, have been warned......

I've written before in fits and starts about wanting to get back to consistently tending to this site in the hopes of continuing to discover my literary voice. A very good conversation last night with my best friend convinced me that I do need to keep exploring what's in my head, making those vital connections and presenting the ideas that are summoned up from these internal excursions. The studs and the drywall are once again in place- now it's time to start redecorating.

Norway Arrests Woman For Carrying Cocaine In Wig

2008-06-19T16:57:00.000-07:00

OSLO, Norway - A British woman's bulging wig did not fool customs agents in Norway who realized she wasn't just having a bad hair day. The wig was concealing 2.2 pounds of cocaine glued to her head and customs agents detained her on suspicion of cocaine smuggling, authorities said Wednesday.
The 32-year-old suspect, whose name was withheld, arrived late Sunday at Vaernes airport near the city of Trondheim on a flight from Copenhagen, Denmark, the customs service said.
"The agent thought she had a great deal of hair and suspected that she was wearing a wig," the agency said. "The wig was examined and the agents found a bag of cocaine."
Norway's largest newspaper, Verdens Gang, said the cocaine was glued so firmly to the woman's real hair that police brought her to the local hospital to have it removed.
Kjetil Mjoesund, of Trondheim police, confirmed that it was glued to her head, but had no information about how it was removed. He said she was taken for a routine medical check.A court ordered the women held until July 15, pending a formal indictment and trial.

And Finally Tonight, In Case You Missed This.....

2007-09-26T20:42:00.000-07:00

Mom Births Her 12th baby — 17-pound Nadia
Siberian woman unaware of newborn’s weight until Caesarean section

BARNAUL, Russia - A Siberian woman who gave birth to her 12th child — doing more than her fair share to stem Russia’s population decline — was stunned to find that little Nadia weighed in at a massive 17 pounds, 1 ounce. Nadia was delivered by Caesarean section in the local maternity hospital in the Altai region on September 17, joining eight sisters and three brothers, a local reporter said.
“I ate everything, we don’t have the money for special foods so I just ate potatoes, noodles and tomatoes,” she told the reporter, adding that all her previous babies had weighed more than 11 pounds.

My Name Is Shadow

2007-09-26T17:15:00.000-07:00

I mentioned previously that I had a new cat, but didn't bother to give you as much as a picture, so here she is. This is Shadow.

Shadow is more than enough cat to make up for all of the cat characteristics that poor Gracie lacked. Where Gracie never once meowed in six years, Shadow WILL NOT STOP TALKING. Well, except maybe that one time. She also enjoys jumping up on her hind legs and rubbing against my knee in kind of a bucking bronco movement. You'd have to see it to understand how preposterous it looks.

Shadow is very attached to humans, and now I understand where her curious name came from. With a name like that, you expect to see a black cat, or a grey cat. One that isn't quite visible. Shadow was named Shadow because.......wherever you go, there she is. The unspoken rule is, Thou shalt not pick Shadow up, EVER, but she will not let you out of her sight. Needless to say, it's an interesting relationship, very much still in the developmental stages. Five different brands of cat treats later, and we've finally found one we like, thank you very much.

After Gracie's death, I was surprised to discover that I even wanted to get another pet, but I found myself looking at the Humane Society website not too long afterwards. When Mina died, I felt that I never wanted to have another pet. This time was different. There was a very palpable void that needed to be filled. When I saw this picture, I was done. Shadow looked like she was full of curiosity and couldn't wait to get off that lap to check things out. When I met her, the deal was sealed. God help me, since I later discovered that I'm the third owner to tackle her " high maintenance personality", as it was described in the adoption papers. Fingers crossed that the third time really is charmed, right? When she comes to the door to meet me, I can't imagine a life without her.

Mind Over Everything Else

2007-09-26T15:54:00.000-07:00

I've been battling my first real infirmity for the last three months; a herniated disc in my back. Over the years I've had various injuries to my back- a broken tail bone, (twice), ripped muscles, spasms; nothing that's taken an inordinate amount of time to recover from. I've always bounced back as good as new. Until now. Injections, PT, heat, ice, recreational drinking (ok, you are paying attention), I've been willing to try anything to master this major inconvenience. The frustration that I'm dealing with is driving me nuts. I've always been a really active adult, and proud of the fact that I've been able to run circles around people half my age at work. Until now.

Unlike a lot of people my age, I've never complained about the process of getting older, or denied that it was happening to me, like some of my friends. I absolutely hate the phrase, "It is what it is", as overused as it's been, but in this case, I guess I have to view it as an appropriate assessment of my situation. Damn. I know this isn't life-threatening, and I want to keep the proper perspective, but it sucks to get old. There it "is". The perception of self is what's taken the brunt of the injury. That, and the realization that when strangers look at me, they don't see the vibrant, glossy-haired, fashion-forward person I was when I was my favorite age- 39, by the way. That was a great time in my life; enough interesting travel, diverse jobs and creative endeavors under my belt to usually be viewed as the life of the party and someone you'd want to get to know. I had opinions. Now I have aches.

Boo Hoo. Don't get me wrong. I don't think I'm "over the hill", or finished. Please don't view this as a self-indulgent pity piece. I want to make it through this transition with as much grace and humor as I can gather up. Today is the first time I've attempted to really face these feelings and come up with my game plan. As you can tell, I haven't written anything here in a very long time and have justified it with various excuses, but now I'm beginning to know the real reason.

For a brief period of time, I had finally gotten to the point where my public writing became very personal. When I started this site, it was typically filled with humorous and entertaining observations, but very little about me. When I stripped away a lot of my need to amuse and got down to the real feelings and experiences, it was amazingly satisfying. I just couldn't sustain it, even with all of the catharsis that accompanied the process. I discovered that for me, it's very difficult to consistently write from that personal place, but without it, there's something lacking in my life. Perhaps if I'd kept writing through this particular experience I'd have a clearer perspective about it and wouldn't be feeling quite as lost.

I have a magnet with a picture of a woman looking in a mirror as she straightens her hat. The reflected image is of her as a young girl. The caption is, "We are always the same age inside". I've had this magnet for a very long time and I've always tried to be mindful of this phrase as I've gone through the world, meeting women in their 70's and 80's who are writers, artists, musicians, or just 'strong personalities' by profession. I've searched their faces for confirmation of this notion, because it seemed important to me. Now as I turn it over in my mind while writing this piece, it becomes somehow superfluous. My sense now is that it's not about always being the same age inside, but about being the same person and true to yourself , or how about maybe even a better person? That seems like a very worthwhile endeavor.

OK, about the picture that accompanies this post. About a month ago, when I was feeling my worst, and right before I took a disability leave from work, I saw a teenage boy walk past my store in the mall, wearing a t-shirt with this image. Please forgive me, but I couldn't stop laughing. I recreated the image myself, because I was determined to appropriate it for my recovery garb. Is it wildly un-P.C.? Of course it is, but if I'm gonna walk through this world again as myself, in whatever way I can manage, then it is indeed "Go Time".

Getting A Leg Up vs "Losing My Religion"

2007-09-26T12:32:00.000-07:00

Here are two unsettling and rather gruesome news stories that I found hovering just below the radar this morning. Is there a punchline lurking somewhere? I leave it to you.

Man Charged With Smuggling Iguanas In His Leg

LOS ANGELES - A man has been charged with stealing three endangered iguanas from a nature preserve in Fiji and smuggling them into the United States in his prosthetic leg.

Jereme James, 33, faces a single count of smuggling, according to a federal indictment returned in Los Angeles. The charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. Prosecutors say he stole the Fiji Island banded iguanas while visiting the South Pacific island in September 2002. He then brought the reptiles to the U.S. by hiding them in a special compartment he had constructed in his prosthetic leg, prosecutors said.

James came under scrutiny several years ago when someone informed U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials that he had several of the neon green iguanas, which are protected under an international treaty regulating trade in endangered species.

During an undercover probe, James told investigators he sold three of the iguanas for $32,000, prosecutors said. When a search warrant was served at his house on April 26, Fish and Wildlife agents seized four iguanas. Authorities suspect James may have bred the creatures to sell them.

James, who was not taken into custody, could not be located for comment. Authorities believe he had not yet retained a lawyer, and a call to a J. James in Long Beach was not immediately returned.

Man Finds Human Leg In Smoker

MAIDEN, N.C. - A man who bought a smoker Tuesday at an auction of abandoned items might have thought twice had he looked inside first.

Maiden police said the man opened up the smoker and saw what he thought was a piece of driftwood wrapped in paper. When he unwrapped it, he found a human leg, cut off 2 to 3 inches above the knee.

The smoker had been sold at an auction of items left behind at a storage facility, so investigators contacted the mother and son who had rented the space where the smoker was found.

The mother, Peg Steele, explained her son had his leg amputated after a plane crash and kept the leg following the surgery “for religious reasons” she doesn’t know much about. “The rest of the family was very much against it,” Steele said.

Steele said her son, John Wood, plans to drive to Maiden, about 35 miles northwest of Charlotte, to reclaim his amputated leg, police said.

And I Almost Forgot.........

2007-09-14T17:39:00.000-07:00

The Space Needle is no longer my neighbor! Reason being, my apartment was just sold for $450,000. (cough) I left in April, after watching the units around me being stripped down to the sheetrock. No more beautiful sunsets... but I do have access to this view if I can find the will to walk three blocks....... I may actually be closer, now that I think about it. Still, I miss seeing those incomparable sunsets right outside my living room window. Good luck suckers....you just paid almost a half a mil for a water heater so tiny you can barely get through one shower. (I know they didn't replace it, 'cause I went through the unit as a prospective "buyer".) Insert the Nelson "ha ha" here.

The Couch Of Not Caring

2007-09-14T17:28:00.000-07:00

That's right. I've been a total slug for six months. Well, not entirely. I have.....
1. a new apartment
2. a new cat
3. something that henceforth will be referred to as the "couch of not caring", where my behind has been residing for said six months. I'll be back. In the meantime, please enjoy this BEK cartoon which is in the first New Yorker I've picked up since April. My brain is like a cabbage,
just not as crisp.

Gracie

2007-03-09T15:23:00.000-08:00

She's gone. Gracie went to sleep very peacefully this afternoon at 2 pm. Her x-rays showed a very large mass that had pushed her esophagus down almost into a v-shape and her lungs were full of what we can only assume was a very aggressive cancer that had metastasized throughout her respiratory system. Her eyes remained open right through to the end, which I felt was so characteristic of how she had lived her life- on the alert in an attempt to be ready for anything that might want to cause us harm. Slowly her forehead slumped down onto her paws and she was done.

One thing I had forgotten about was how once I started writing on this site, I would sit cross-legged as I am now, in front of my coffee table with the lap top at eye level and Gracie would get on the sofa behind me and stare over my shoulder at the screen for hours at a time as I tried to craft a sentence or two. Sometimes I would lean back and touch my head to hers so she would know I wasn't completely oblivious to her presence. She wasn't crazy about this move, but she always tolerated it. I would think of the Cone Heads on Saturday Night Live when I did it and it gave me a laugh. Of course it's hard to accept the fact that she's not sitting here behind me, especially since I've only now been finally able to start writing again, but it is because of her, in part, that I have found my voice again. It's strange to feel that there's no life other than mine in this apartment. It makes the quiet that much quieter. In the six years that she lived here, I never heard Gracie meow once. She was the original Stealth Kitty. Now that she's no longer here, this ocean of silence is so vast and so overwhelming that I could almost drown in it. It is so very still in this room.

As my friend David said, this hard part is how we take care of our pets, too, and just as important as what we do for them in life. She'll never have to struggle to take another breath. I won't have to force another pill into her. Her pain is over and now mine is just beginning. I'm going to promise myself that I will temper it with thoughts of all that I had, and not just dwell on what I am missing. Thank you all for being so supportive; my old friends as well as my new ones. You've helped. You truly have.

The Sense Of Humor Is The Last Thing To Go

2007-03-08T12:20:00.000-08:00

And I plan on keeping mine for a very long time! (I am, however, starting to worry about our friend, Mr. BEK.... just a bit)

The High Price Of Pets

2007-03-08T11:24:00.000-08:00

I've spent the last week or so watching my cat, Gracie, becoming weaker and weaker as she's battled some unknown illness that's aggressively robbing her of her strength and taking away her ability to do the simple, funny things that I've grown to love about her so much in the six years that have passed since we rescued her from her life of living on the street. Gracie came into my life a few months after we put our other cat, Mina to sleep. After having a cat for 15 years and spending the last three tending to her various ailments as they developed, I was heartbroken when Mina died. I had only been in Seattle for two weeks and the day after the movers left, it became apparent that she was going into severe congestive heart failure and nothing could save her. The discomfort she was feeling was palpable. She crouched in a corner, unable to move and just stared at me. After she was gone, I was crushed. Here I was in this new city; displaced and feeling very much alone. Mina had been a very resilient character. When I brought her home from the shelter at the age of two, I had been advised that she'd probably hide under the bed for a few days until she got acclimated to her new surroundings. I opened the carrier and Mina hopped out and got right on the sofa and stayed there, defying their predictions. This was a time when I could have used some of her bravado.

Knowing the tender state I was in, Jeff hesitated at first to tell me about Gracie. He saw her every day, sleeping under a car in front of his apartment and occasionally coming up on the porch to eat some of the food that belonged to the kitties that lived in his building. Her days were numbered. She had to be rescued, and so she was. I put aside the sadness I felt and took her back to the same vet I had found to take care of Mina when we arrived in Seattle. Gracie had a punctured ear drum and all sorts of other problems. I cried in the waiting room as I felt all of the sadness at losing Mina welling up inside of me. After countless surgeries and procedures, Gracie recovered. The fur grew back on her previously naked and bat-like ears. She learned to trust me, somewhat grudgingly and finally began to sleep on my head, like a sentinel always on the look out for trouble. She'd sneak up behind me while I was talking on the phone. I'd turn around, look down, and there she was, because of course I was talking to her, wasn't I?

After spending thousands of dollars to prolong Mina's life; after all of the extraordinary measures I had taken- including giving her subcutaneous fluids while I held her on the bathroom vanity in the hotel room where I stayed until the movers came- I'm struggling with the decision to fight this battle once again. Hope is the thing that lives inside of all of us; after making the decision to put Gracie to sleep on Sunday night, and then finding myself unable to do it, I took her to the vet to see if anything within reason could be done. They gave her fluids, she ate a little food; hence the road sign- "You are now entering the land of false hope", I told myself as I left the doctor's office. Amazingly, her blood work and her vital signs are practically normal. The illness remains undiagnosed. Whatever is wrong with her must reside deep inside, just like my hope. She's on some medication and will probably be getting re-hydration therapy to see if we can jump start some kind of recovery. Her personality is returning, little by little. She jumped up on the bed. She watched me talking on the phone. I want to do the right thing. I hope I'll know it when I find it. These road signs are so confusing.

Woman Awakens For 3 Days After 6 Years

2007-03-08T08:27:00.000-08:00

Slips back into vegetative state after speaking with her family

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - A woman who went into a vegetative state more than six years ago awoke this week for three days and spoke with her family and a local television station before slipping back.

“I’m fine,” Christa Lilly told her mother on Sunday — her first words in eight months. She has awakened four other times for briefer periods since suffering a heart attack and stroke in November of 2000. “I think it’s wonderful. It makes me so happy,” Lilly told television station KKTV-TV. She also got to see youngest daughter, Chelcey, now 12 years old, and three grandchildren.

Before her relapse on Wednesday, Lilly told the station her biggest frustration was learning how to talk again. After years of being fed from a tube, eating was no problem. “I’ve been eating cake,” she said. Her neurologist, Dr. Randall Bjork, said he couldn’t explain how or why she awoke.

“I’m just not able to explain this on the basis of what we know about persistent vegetative states,” he said. A vegetative state is much like a coma except Lilly’s eyes remain open. Bjork said that he’s never seen a similar quality of awakening.

Bjork said that unlike the much publicized case of Terri Schiavo, Lilly is minimally conscious. He said she could awake again. After Lilly relapsed her mother and caregiver Minnie Smith said: “The good Lord let me know she’s alright, he brings her back to visit every so often and I’m thankful for that.”

When I saw this article today, of course I knew that I had to post it. It's kind of ironic, considering how it echoes my current difficulties with being able to communicate, albeit in a much more profound manifestation. For her, it's a very real and very serious situation, unlike my mere inability to assemble my thoughts into a coherent piece for this site as often as I once did. Whatever would it feel like to exist in her world? I do love the fact that she got to have cake and I hope she was able to savor every bite. It kind of reminds me of Warren Zevon's philosophy at the end of his life: "Enjoy every sandwich". Perhaps some day soon she can come back to her family and stay for a very long time and have a sandwich AND cake, and feel the love that surely surrounds her.

Happy (Belated) New Year!

2007-02-25T13:08:00.000-08:00

I realized that I posted absolutely nothing for the month of January, so although it's a little late, here's a photo of the Space Needle on New Year's Eve, taken by P. shortly after we had watched the Sonics actually win a game for a change. (the pointy object at the top is the Christmas tree made of lights that adorns the top of the Needle every year during the holiday season.). I don't know where they stand currently-apparently they just suffered their worst defeat of the season in Las Vegas (102-71), and they've lost a good majority of the games they've played this year, but the funny thing is; every time that P. goes to a game, they win. That's a lot of pressure to put on one person, so I've come up with the theory that it isn't really him, it's that other guy who always goes to the game when he does.

Just One Of The Reasons I Love Sarah Vowell- Make That Two Reasons

2007-02-24T23:05:00.000-08:00

I was thinking I'd like to write something about how much I love the way that Sarah Vowell writes, and tomorrow I hope I will. In the meantime, this was too good to leave lying around this evening. I can't tell you when or where she said it, but it's attributed to her on some website, and darn it, that's good enough for me. Besides- she was also the voice of Violet, in the movie 'The Incredibles'. She has her very own action figure!

"My simmering rage against the current president scares me. I am a more or less peaceful, happy person whose lone act of violence as an adult was shoving a guy who spilled beer on me at a Sleater-Kinney concert. Not that I want the current president killed. I will, for the record and for the FBI agent assigned to read this and make sure I mean no harm, clearly state that while I am obsessed with death, I am against it."

Warning! Writer's Block Ahead

2007-02-24T21:12:00.000-08:00

I have been stuck for a very long time. Stuck behind this huge obstacle which has silenced my writing voice for months now. The connections between myself and the world around me that I've always attempted to create, simply would not reveal themselves to me in any form. Trying to make art of any kind was an excruciatingly unfulfilling experience and the process continually led me to the same dead end where I would stand, surrounded by either my books and papers, or my pieces of wood and plaster until it was time to gather everything up and return it to its home; unchanged, untransformed and almost completely untouched, for that matter.

When you are used to living within the creative process, when everything around you only serves as more and more inspiration to keep going- finding yourself without a voice, without any inspiration, feeling as if you have nothing to say- it all comes as a shock at first. Gradually the shock subsides, and a feeling of uneasiness and guilt begin to set in. For the last few months I have been floating aimlessly around in this tepid, flavorless broth of ennui. I would usually tell myself each morning that when I came home that night, things would be different. Something would surely happen during the day; I would hear a song or meet a person and my slumbering creativity would be inspired to wake up and get going again! Didn't happen. Through it all, I would have several different types of internal monologues going simultaneously and they would typically fall into one of two categories; both equally self-delusional and based on nothing more than 1. sheer denial or 2. an elaborately constructed rationale for why it was perfectly ok that I was going through this dry spell. Now that I think of it- at least if I had tried writing them down, it would have probably felt more productive than did the act of force-feeding myself the repetitive diet of b.s. I was using to sustain myself. At least at the end of the day I'd have had something tangible, albeit unreadable, to hold in my hands. I'll remember that for the future.......hmmm. And so now, for whatever reason, my voice seems to have returned today, and I am actually thinking about what subject I'd like to tackle tomorrow. So far, so good, I guess.

A Site For Sore Eyes

2007-02-24T19:29:00.000-08:00

I'm really shocked to see how much traffic I've had on my site, in spite of the fact that it's been sitting here in this dormant state for so long. I decided to do a little digging around through my site meter statistics to see where these hundreds of hits originated and I'm thrilled to discover they're mostly from a site that I feel is one of the best around. It's the work of another 'unknown' friend here in Seattle who I met when she happened upon my page, left a really nice compliment about my writing and put a link to my site on her much-visited page. Her name is Kim and her site is called Seattle Daily Photo. It's part of a web ring from around the world, all comprised of pages which feature images exclusively from one city or region. If you go to Kim's page, you will get an exhilarating 'visual whiff' of what makes Seattle such a great place to live. Her choice of images, as well as her composition, evoke such a beautifully considered, painterly aesthetic, that I insist you visit her site right now. So scoot on over there and see for yourself!

Still On The Job

2007-02-24T19:15:00.000-08:00

Thank God, at least BEK didn't slack off, and stayed at the helm while I slipped away for awhile.......

Additionally About The Oscars

2007-02-24T19:02:00.000-08:00

This actually looks like fun. Warning- don't click the link if you believe the show still has the potential to surprise. Another bit of good news- Carrie Fisher has returned as one of the principal writers for the show. All may not be lost, after all. Except for the part about Tom Cruise.....

The Oscars As Entertainment; I Remember Sacheen

2007-02-24T16:11:00.000-08:00

A quick review of this site shows that quite a bit has gone on over the last few months that I've completely failed to make mention of. (See, I said you'd need to bear with me- I'm already ending my sentences with prepositions). Groundhog's Day, Valentine's Day, even Mardi Gras, and yes, I did check and the Bourbon Street cam is still fully functional....but what about the Oscars! We haven't missed those and they're happening a bit earlier this year, I see. To tell you the truth, my film-awareness has diminished over the past few months, but I do have to feel it is through no particular fault of my own. To paraphrase; "It's the movies that got smaller- not us!". Directly in front of me is the annual Hollywood issue of Vanity Fair and I confess, it's been sitting here unopened for a couple of weeks. There's Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson on the cover. Did they even make any movies in the past year? (Don't get me wrong- I love 'em both). Ever since they did that hilarious bit a few years back, with Wilson dressed as Harry Potter and Stiller as a Hobbity-looking creature, I think they've come to represent the finest entertainment we can expect to see at the Academy Awards; the endearing, self-effacing behavior of those actors who realize that it IS all about entertainment and not the advancement of some very worthy, albeit tedious cause. Think Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins and, let us not forget Sacheen Littlefeather! A word about Sacheen, for those of you who might not remember the 1973 ceremony as clearly as I still do. Sacheen's real name was Maria Cruz, and until she stood in for Marlon Brando who won for The Godfather that year, her biggest claim to fame was as holder of the title of Miss American Vampire 1970. In a speech which ran to 15 pages in it's entirety, and of which only 45 seconds worth was allowed on the broadcast, Marlon, through Sacheen, declined to accept his Oscar in the name of the siege at Wounded Knee and the denigration of all Indians through their mostly unfavorable portrayal in films. The event provided a stunning moment when the majority of the audience (Hollywood Royalty! As Joan Crawford had always called them) booed Sacheen-Maria off the stage. Wow. Now that was some entertainment, and like Ben and Owen's performance, a moment certainly enhanced by the donning of a "costume", for Sacheen was no Indian, truly. In the insuing years, we've been treated to similar heartfelt speeches on behalf of various causes and there are certain 'issue-laden' performers who by the very mention of their name as possible attendees at the awards ceremony, increase the wince factor ten times over. I have read various reports that a show of protest against the war is planned for this year's Oscar event, including the likes of Dustin Hoffman, Michael Moore and Kirsten Dunst (???) While I definitely applaud their willingness to state their position publicly, don't we all occasionally deserve something as mindless as the Oscar event potentially can, and usually is shown to be, to ever-so-briefly get our minds off the troubling mess that our government has gotten us into? On Monday we can all go back to being the conscientious, upright citizens we know ourselves to be. OK? Granted, at this point it might take the resurrection of Ann Miller, with that mind-boggling creepy black pompadour of hers, in some gawd-awful, bombastic tribute to Busby Berekley, to even begin to temporarily, if only for a few seconds, eradicate the images of the destruction and destitution that have befallen Iraq since our arrival. In order to continue our efforts against this travesty, we need to unburden ourselves every once-in-awhile, in order to come back stronger and more dedicated to the purpose at hand. I hope you're with me on this one. Let the Oscars be a celebration of the craft that does bring all humanity to a greater level of understanding through the magic of storytelling on film.

I've Been Away......

2007-02-24T15:43:00.000-08:00

Well, not really away; Actually, I've been here all the time, but my life seems to keep getting in the way of my writing. Or so I keep telling myself. I want to come back, have been trying to come back, I NEED to come back; because the writing is the one thing I require above all else in order to be me. And so, here I am. Did ya miss me? I did. Just bear with me as I find my way to you again.

Merry Christmas, Everybody!

2006-12-24T00:04:00.000-08:00

All is well in the land of Fancy Pants. Thanks to everyone for your wonderful comments, correspondence and friendship in 2006.

True Love And A Shove

2006-12-03T21:12:00.000-08:00

There's something that's so very endearing about having a loved one playfully shove you out of the way for the sake of a joke, isn't there? And hopefully you were able to share the joke and even a good laugh with that loved one. Hopefully. I'd love to know what happened in the next panel, wouldn't you?

We're 'MetroNatural'; Thanks For Asking!

2006-11-29T18:00:00.000-08:00

OK, so I've been sitting on the idea for this post for about a month, but when I saw this BEK cartoon this afternoon, I knew the time had come to crawl out from under my "block" and make an appearance.

Last month the Seattle Convention and Visitor's Bureau announced that after spending 16 months and $200,000, their new tagline to promote tourism in the Emerald City was ready to be revealed. Imagine everyone's surprise when they awoke on October 22nd to find the word "MetroNatural" spray-painted atop the dome of the Space Needle. I learned about it while getting ready for work and watching everyone on CNN- even the weatherman, who opined that it might go over better if delivered while waving 'jazz hands' (!!!) make fun of the campaign. On national TV. On the 'most-trusted network'. The shame. Predictably, the reaction of the local citizenry was mixed. One proponent, apparently from the 'glass-half-full' camp, stated that "at least it (was) better than the new Washington State Bureau of Tourism's slogan; 'Say WA'". As P would say..."Way to be!"
The Seattle P-I posted a list of alternatives sent in by its readers. Here are some of the best:

Seattle: Wired and Jacked Up
If you're left, you're right for us
econostupid
Welcome to Washington, enjoy your stay, THEN GO HOME!!!
We hate Bush. Come join us
Seattle: Come look at the monorail
Seattle: Because Bremerton is too far away
Come visit. You can't afford the condos
If you love taxes, you'll love Seattle
Seattle: Left of Bellevue
We're green, mean and a tax-collecting machine
Seattle: Irony-free since 1992

Feeling the need to weigh in with his own take on the idiocy of the concept, P decided to craft his response in the form of a bumper sticker. I recreated it above so you could see it, and both of our vehicles are now sporting them. He also sent them around to people in town whom he thought would appreciate his point of view. No 'jazz hands' needed to convey this message. Like it says in the cartoon, it may not be 'the answer', but it's a damn fine retort. $200,000? Meanwhile, we've got people sleeping in doorways. But wait, it gets better....

As the city launches its campaign full-tilt, vowing to spend another $300,000 in the service of promoting this completely baffling and embarrassing slogan, our cars will slowly, yet defiantly crawl in silent protest as we make our hours-long commutes each way and each day, along the pitifully inadequate and massively under-funded freeways. One hour...10 miles! We will be mindful at all times, while sitting in our cars, that one (and oh yes, there are plenty more where this one came from; just check out the website) of the definitions of a true 'metronatural' is 'one who respects the environment and lives a balanced lifestyle of urban and natural experiences'. Personally, I'm not looking forward to spending an equal amount of time (6 years) roughing it in the rainforest to offset the amount of time I've spent enjoying Seattle's 'urban experience' while seated in my Ford Contour, in order to be considered an authentic 'metronatural'. Grrrrr. Oh well, "Way to be!"

I've Said It Before.......

2006-10-27T20:35:00.000-07:00

A Reminder From The Solid Fuels Administration -

2006-10-03T11:06:00.000-07:00

This poster is from 1944. Geez, where were they when I needed this reminder?
I'm already freezing and it's only October! Hope you remembered to order yours.
WARNING! Coal will not work in your gas tank. That sure is one pissed-off looking penguin. He must have tried it, too.

A Match Made In Heaven

2006-10-03T10:42:00.000-07:00

2001 - A Blog Odyssey

2006-09-29T14:06:00.000-07:00

"Those damn apes!"

(never thought I'd get this far.... Thanks!)

And In Case You're REALLY Interested....

2006-09-29T12:58:00.000-07:00

And let's face it - how could you NOT be? Ha ha....
You can listen to 'Gorecki' here.

It's easily worth the six minutes.

You've got the time, right?

Weds Sept 27th 6:01 am

2006-09-27T23:58:00.000-07:00

"Could we stay right here'til the end of time, 'til the earth stops turning......"
Lamb - 'Gorecki'

How long ago was it when I wrote about peak experiences? I said I knew I'd have more; I didn't expect that one was waiting to grab me this morning. Basically, as I've said before, I'm a fairly private person - guarded when it comes to both my own feelings and those of the people who are close to me. I don't want this site to deteriorate (what? that's a crazy word) into a shrine dedicated to the healing powers of love, but my life is being transformed so rapidly and so profoundly that I'm having a hard time keeping up and the inside and outside of me seem to be constantly changing places. Recently the inside seems to be more commonly on display. I've somehow become porous and very permeable and I find myself existing inside this huge bubble filled with people who love me and I find that I'm loving them all back. There's a fluidity to my daily life that seems to be generating quite a few exceptional moments as I pass from one state into another and back again. You know, at times like these I begin to wonder if these events aren't occuring for us all of the time; we just need to recognize them as they are happening.

I need to begin by saying that if you've never heard one of those Bose radios, by god, you've really missed out. I hadn't until today and now my life is irretrievably changed. P uses one as his alarm clock and when it came on, I swear it sounded as if the entire apartment was one big speaker. He sets it to KEXP, a local station affiliated with Paul (Microsoft) Allen's Experience Music Project; a behemoth of a building whose red roof I can see from my balcony. In the late afternoon the sun illuminates the dome-like structure, turning it into a giant radioactive beetle that looms over the tracks of the Monorail. The station operates from a ramshackle building just down the street; a facility more befitting of its humble origins as a kind of red-haired stepchild of the University Of Washington, whose legitimacy wasn't established until Allen infused hundreds of thousands of dollars into keeping it on the air. But I digress. Just taking an opportunity to tell you a little about Seattle; a topic I curiously write very little about- considering the title of this site. Did I mention it's finally become my home?

The music woke me immediately and I felt completely surrounded by it (Thanks, Bose!). I felt like I was in a movie. It was unreal, but at the same time, perfect. I later identified it as 'Gorecki', by a British group called Lamb. Reading the lyrics, which begin with "If I should die this very moment, I wouldn't fear - for I've never known completeness, like being here", I remembered hearing every word, but wasn't I asleep when it started? Was it creepy, was it transformative; what kind of an experience had it been? - every word resonated within me as something I had said in trying to describe to my friends how I was feeling as this new relationship developed. I'd even written the equivalent on another site; "It's taken almost six years, but it finally feels like home and I have one person and a helluva lot of soul-searching to thank for that. Oh yeah, and a little bit of marching through the jungle. :) If it finally got me to you, I'd do it all again." became "All I've known- all I've done- all I've felt, was leading to this". When I played it for a friend later this afternoon, her comment was; "That's your song - that's everything you've been saying. You have a song".

As I lay there, I felt so many different emotions. I felt exposed. I felt 'found out'. I felt exhilaration and peace at the same time. Bravery, Love, Exhilaration, Fear. There you go. Can you see how from my perspective, I now view everything as part of one incredible, integrated process that finally brought me to that moment? At some point, P either took my hand, or put his arm over me - I confess I can't remember that part exactly - but the physical touch was almost superfluous to the connection that I felt. It was a peak experience. Judging from what he's said since, I think perhaps that he was feeling the same way. Profoundly changed. Am I the type of person who would typically write publicly about things like this? I mean, you get the picture - there's a bed and bodies and music and feelings all over the place. Yeow! I suppose that's the bravery kicking in. The room was actually very still and I couldn't move. "Here is true peace, here my heart knows calm......".

Yes, I've put a lot of myself on this site recently and now to acknowledge to the world that you think you’ve found the person who finally not only gets you, but makes you a better person than you thought you could ever be, is a little scary and for someone like me, as I keep repeating, embarrassing, but it's too great a feeling not to take that risk. I’m also conscious of the fact that it might be hurtful to someone else to see a declaration like this. I don’t want to diminish any of the past; after all it is what led me here and it’s all been important. Along the way I’ve tried to absorb the lessons presented to me; some of them admittedly haven’t made much sense until now.

I’ve jokingly said that “soulmates are for sissies”, because I don’t really believe that there’s one person that we’re meant to be with. That’s a little too “rainbows and unicorns” for me. There may be hundreds, thousands, millions of people, within whom, if we only took the time, we might discover the same special qualities that help to form a connection like the one I have with this person. What is it that makes us slow down, open ourselves up and do it? I don't know. That's where the mystery and the beauty of falling in love reside. The one thing that makes this all so absolutely right is that it is about the feeling and not the thinking. At this point there are too many words here. I don't really need them. This is about emotion and one exceptional morning that has definitely changed my life forever. And so, one more time, I'm going to stand by and wait for the next amazing experience, because I know this is just the beginning. Again.

Has This Ever Happened To You?

2006-09-25T08:48:00.000-07:00

Two Doors

2006-09-22T00:41:00.000-07:00

I know people have been checking in here for the last couple of days, only to find nothing new and I do feel kind of guilty for disappearing for a while. Not that I didn't have good reason; the whole 'face incident' was traumatizing enough to make me want to crawl under the couch, ( if only my head would have fit!).

It's sometimes hard to strike a balance between living a life and writing about having one. A lot of things have happened in the past two weeks- some good, some sad, some itchy. Today was a day when I needed to take some time to think about all of it and decide what to do with what I've learned from everything that's happened. I realize that I've taken a few risks and put quite a bit of myself out there for everybody to see. I experienced some amazing gestures of friendship in my personal life as well as within the professional realm that I inhabit and I can't remember a time in the recent past when I felt more cared about. It felt pretty good and I think it helped me be a better friend to someone else who was having a difficult time. I will always be grateful for that.

A lot of the time when I write about things that are going on in my life, I tend to use a kind of code for what's happening- the people involved can always recognize what I'm talking about; others may have to guess or do a little detective work if they really want to know. Maybe they guess right, maybe they don't. It's not because I want to be mysterious so much as it is because I don't think the people in my life necessarily need to have themselves paraded through these posts for public consumption. Most of them haven't consciously signed on for that gig. I try to be kind and I try to be protective, because that's just the way I am (unless I'm worked up over some indignity....then look out!.... as you well know).

Today I made a decision to change a part of my life that's needed to be changed for a long time. I needed to do it so that I could move on to what feels as if it's going to be the best part of my life so far. A door that's stood part-ways open for a very long time is being closed and a new door has been opened. What exactly has happened? Well, maybe you'll guess right and maybe you won't, but while I am feeling somewhat wistful, I am also happier right now than I can remember being for a very long time. As I've written elsewhere, if I had to go through everything that's happened to me in the last six years to get to where I am now and to find what I've found; I'd gladly do it all again. It's good to finally be home.

I Was The Elephant Man's Stunt Double

2006-09-17T22:20:00.000-07:00

"The things we do for love" - 10cc

Geeeeeeeez, what fun I've had in the last 24 hours - plagued by some undiagnosed deal affecting my skin that made my face puff up like one of those fish, I was at the ER until 4:30 this morning and I don't mean 'Ecstasy Rave'.

They said that most likely the culprit was something I'd eaten, worn or looked at in the last day. That shouldn't be too difficult to pinpoint. Around 3, when the doc asked me if I was feeling better, I felt my face and replied weakly, but with conviction, that yes, yes, I thought I was! As soon as the first set of IV's was done, I gathered my dignity around me, along with my hospital gown and made my way to the bathroom. Memo to the Emergency Room- I don't think ya really need those mirrors in there. I can't imagine there are too many people who want that kind of startling visual-regardless of whether they're a patient or a visitor; I just don't think that kind of info needs to be committed to memory. In truth, I looked worse than I had when I walked in. Way to go.

I shuffled back to my room and waited for more treatment. The nurse had very kindly turned the TV on for me, but without a remote I was treated to all night long reruns of 2 infomercials; one for "Those God-awful Songs From The 80's!!!!" featuring Rick Springfield and his face-lift; the other "These Clowns Sold Me A Car Even Though I'm A ...........(fill in the blank with -black lesbian dwarf, genetically-confused hillbilly white guy, or gal who only works in strip clubs 2 weekends a months, but it's to feed her kids"). Holy Crap-which ring of hell WAS this?

Several hours later, I was pronounced well enough to leave the hospital- meaning it was safely the very middle of the darkest part of the night and the chances of me frightening a small child or an animal were minimal. Doped as I was, of course I got lost (yeah- AGAIN, and I'm starting to enoy it, OK?....) and found myself downtown, very close to my old job. I even turned onto a one way street the wrong way -didn't share THAT part before, did I? Wheeee.

Well, my face is getting back to what the world laughingly accepts as 'normal' for me and it'll be back to the workaday world tomorrow. Business as usual, with one exception; I won't be smelling like a bakery again, anytime soon. I spent the afternoon reviewing anything different that I might have come into contact with and I'm pretty sure that's what did it. Hope you like lavender. At least it's calming and non-toxic. I'm probably irresistable enough without it, but "If it's not too late, I'd like to apologize" anyway..........

Guilty of DWC — Driving While Canine

2006-09-15T10:57:00.000-07:00

BEIJING - Trying to teach an old dog a new trick fails miserably

A woman in Hohhot, the capital of north China's Inner Mongolia region, crashed her car while giving her dog a driving lesson, the official Xinhua News Agency said Monday. No injuries were reported, although the vehicles involved were slightly damaged, it said. The woman, identified only by her surname, Li, said her dog "was fond of crouching on the steering wheel and often watched her drive," according to Xinhua. "She thought she would let the dog 'have a try' while she operated the accelerator and brake," the report said. "They did not make it far before crashing into an oncoming car." Xinhua did not say what kind of dog or vehicles were involved, but Li paid for repairs.

(Not the actual dog-but how crazy is it that I found this pic on the first search?)

Back To "Business As Usual"

2006-09-15T10:20:00.000-07:00

September 14, 1989

2006-09-14T16:59:00.000-07:00

A long time ago, this was the happiest day of my life; surrounded by friends and family, bathed in good wishes and facing the prospects of a bright future. I only just remembered it a little while ago-funny how our priorities change; I thought I'd never forget- or be able to get over it, either. What a great thing that today is again a really happy one for me and I'm remembering the other one fondly now, too. One big circle, finally closing. It's all good, J. On to the new future.........already in progress for both of us.

xo

My Secret Life

2006-09-13T20:18:00.000-07:00

In the last few days I've had the opportunity to correspond at length with a friend I've never met; a man who from time to time will check to read my posts and occasionally leave a comment. He happened to see my post about my desire to really connect with my readers.
In the last couple of days, a friend of mine received some very sad news which has caused him to question a lot of what his life is about. He's a really wonderful, decent person, and I wish that I could do something to lessen his pain, but all I can do is stand by and wait. I feel somewhat helpless, but I feel that he will be OK at some point. I think he does, too. Time has the ability to do that for us. In the meantime, I have been hearing from people who want to help me as I wait and this new-found friend has offered much wisdom as he's shared the experience of losing his wife in the last year. I wrote this to him this evening and then decided-"This is what I've been trying to put out there all along-why not publish it and see what happens." And so I am.

Hi Again~

What an incredible story of love, forgiveness and redemption. You've taken an amazing journey, my friend, and how wonderful that there is more to come. For both of us. I've had a couple of emails from **** which would indicate that he may be processing things a bit at this point, and that the shock of the news has subsided a little. Perhaps.

When I first moved to Seattle to join my husband; a move made to take a last-ditch effort at saving our marriage, I was pretty much alone all of the time. Work filled my hours for the most part, but I would walk around my neighborhood, The Capital Hill district, which is a mile and a half away from downtown Seattle, on my days off, just to be surrounded by people. In my solitude, as I grieved for everything I was likely to lose, I began to realize that what I took as scores of people all happier than myself, were actually people who more than likely had some difficulty that they were dealing with, too. We carry these things deep inside and there is no outward manifestation of pain for the most part, as folks make their way through the day. I guess I was connecting with humanity on a deeper level-choosing to feel connected to the suffering, rather than making myself feel more miserable and isolated by mistakenly cultivating this illusion that everyone in the world was happier than I. And so, to circle back; to look at us, few would probably recognize the pain of the losses that we've both endured. At least I hope not! :)

And yet, despite it all, here we are ready to take a chance again. I have a very dear friend who works in social services, with a background of working in sheltered workshops and the like. Now he's a benefits coordinator for the State of New York's mental health system. He's been my touchstone for years and I love him like a brother, mother and sister all rolled into one. At my lowest point, he provided me with a metaphor that has proved to be more helpful than five years of therapy. Emotions are like the weather; we are always passing through, they are transitory and ever-changing, and therefore when we feel at our lowest we need to remind ourselves that "this too, shall pass". We may move on to something better or something worse-but we can always expect them to change. Nothing endures forever- for better or worse. While to some this may be a depressing notion-especially when existing at some level of peak experience which we wish would never end-but I've come to realize the inherent thrill of the concept; because something even better may be coming. This is the hope that I've come to embrace and I hold onto it like the dearest friend in the world. I share this notion with you, although I sense that perhaps you already feel this way too. I hope so-and I wish you an ocean of weather for many years to come. Thanks for your wonderful correspondence.
This is the connection I hoped for in my earlier post. As I write these words, the thought strikes me that I may post this on my site-it's probably one of the truest and most honest thing I've ever written. Thanks for pulling it out of me!

Warm regards~

Loss

2006-09-12T04:02:00.000-07:00

"What the heart once owned and had, it shall never lose."

~Henry Ward Beecher

Finally, There Are Pancakes

2006-09-11T12:10:00.000-07:00

I really love carbohydrates. Finding a place where I can get them in the middle of the night is pretty cool. I think my bout of homesickness has finally found a cure at The Hurricane Cafe. No arugula or complicated sauces, (although there's definitely a place in the world for them, too). Just pancakes. And a lot of coffee. Just like back home. If you can live to 112 on a diet of waffles, then maybe with a late start in life I can make it to at least 90 if I keep going back for more. Thanks, P.

Bravery - Love - Exhilaration - Fear

2006-09-07T21:14:00.000-07:00

Well, I seem to have gotten through the better part of the day without any mishaps, despite the dire horoscopic warnings. I don't know how much I believe in that stuff, anyway-but it's always entertaining. On the drive home tonight I was thinking about what I'd like to write next. Something serious, I thought, since lately my stuff has been mostly all throwaway and kind of lightweight. Four words popped into my head; bravery, love, exhilaration and fear. As I slowly inched my way home for the most part, suddenly a clearing appeared, and then I was able to race across the bridge into the early darkening evening, thinking about what each one meant to me. I wondered "Why those four?"

When I was about twelve, my best friend and I would do pretend radio broadcasts. I had a small reel to reel tape recorder and we would tape shows and then play them back for our own amusement. Sometimes at night I would leave my transistor radio on, underneath my pillow. It was always tuned to WBEZ in Boston. Their on-air personalities were known from coast to coast. A nation of restless teens listened every night, as the midnight hour buzzed with the combined static and chatter of people reaching out for music and conversation. We were connected.

I haven't listened to any kind of talk radio in years....it's become so, so, well you know. "Insane" is the word that comes to mind. Where am I going with this? Well, I've been thinking- I really love to write, and this site has been my proving ground to discover whether or not I had anything worthwhile to say. It's a nice format-somewhat interactive, but limited. There is no dialogue, there is no back-and-forth. It's mostly just me, throwing words against the wall to see what sticks. Sometimes I capture someone's mind for a moment and get a reaction. I love it when there's a comment from someone I've never even met. Connections are really important. Connections are what get us through, every time. Are we connected?

Anyway, all this has gotten me remembering about the radio and how I wished when I was a teenage girl that I could have my own radio show when I grew up. I suppose this site is the obvious substitute for that unfulfilled desire. What's missing is your part. I really wish I could know what these words mean to you; what they remind you of, what your reaction is to seeing them together and whether you feel they belong together, or not. There's a lot of emotion in these words. They are powerful words. Put them together in any order you wish - since they came from my own thought process, the order that they're in obviously makes sense to me on some level. My mind summoned them up that way. Two very complimentary emotions bracketed by two others that are the flip side of each other and cannot exist without each other, for you cannot know what it is to be brave, until you have known what it feels like to be very afraid. Have you had a chance in your lifetime to experience each one of these feelings? Have you lived a life with at least some sense of love and the way that it can make you believe that anything is possible? I hope so, and many times over. And when you have been afraid, I hope you have looked into the deepest part of yourself and found that bravery did exist within your heart and that you used it well, to either save yourself or to save someone else in the world.

I don't have a way to speak with you so I can hear you talk about how you feel. I don't have a radio program; I don't have a number for you to call in and say what's on your mind. All I have is this site and the hope that you'll think about this post for awhile and then maybe talk to the next person you see about what these words mean to you. You don't even really need to talk that much. Just connect. Just feel. And live.

Uh Oh.......

2006-09-07T09:47:00.000-07:00

My horoscope has been telling me for days says this is going to be a really awful day for me, so please consider this an apology and a warning for all of the bad things I'm apparently going to do:

"I'm sorry -but wow, was that fun!"

Ryewire 'On The Rise'? - Done & Done!

2006-09-06T12:24:00.000-07:00

66,625 votes
#1 in Seattle
#6 in the country
What did it all mean?
We're still waiting to find out.......

and we may be waiting for a long time.

MySpace Has Taken My Soul - But My Brain's On Music

2006-09-06T11:40:00.000-07:00

The last thing my friend Steven said before I left work yesterday was: "Look out for MySpace - it'll take your soul!" Guess he knew what he was talking about, because last night I spent all evening over there. While I listened to 'Soon' by My Bloody Valentine on P's site about a million times, I was busy trying to format my own site. (He'd better leave that song up for awhile, because I really like it, but hey, it's his site.....). Little by little, people began to appear. Emails were sent. Oh dear. MySpace was beginning to take away brain cells, too. Earlier in the day I had gotten a notice about what looked to be a really interesting book, 'This Is Your Brain On Music'. I had planned on writing a little something about it over here, because you like that kind of thing. Me, too. Now it seems I'm taking the slacker's way out by merely giving you the link to the Amazon review, because I just can't get enough of listening to 'Calm' by Maritime, which is the song I put on my site (an example of my brain on music). If you've got any questions after you read the review, c'mon over. I'm the one with a 'cat head on a stick' for a profile. Ping!

Got Any Plans For Labor Day?

2006-09-04T13:21:00.000-07:00

Oh my................

Man Lived To 112 On Diet of Sausage And Waffles

2006-09-02T12:44:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES - George Johnson, considered California’s oldest living person at 112 and the state’s last surviving World War I veteran, had experts shaking their heads over his junk food diet. “He had terrible bad habits. He had a diet largely of sausages and waffles,” Dr. L. Stephen Coles, founder of the Gerontology Research Group at the University of California, Los Angeles, said Friday. The 5-foot-7, 140-pound Johnson died of pneumonia Wednesday at his Richmond home in Northern California.

Johnson, who was blind and living alone until his 110th birthday when a caregiver began helping him, built the Richmond house by hand in 1935. He got around using a walker in recent years. Johnson was the only living Californian considered a “supercentenarian,” a designation for those ages 110 or older, Coles said. His group is now in the process of validating a Los Angeles candidate who claims to be 112 years old. Coles participated in an autopsy Thursday that was designed to study Johnson’s health.

“All of his organs were extremely youthful. They could have been the organs of someone who was 50 or 60, not 112. Clearly his genes had some secrets,” Coles said. “Everything in his body that we looked at was clean as a whistle, except for his lungs with the pneumonia,” Coles said. “He had no heart disease, he had no cancer, no diabetes and no Alzheimer’s. “This is a mysterious case that someone could be so healthy from a pathology point of view and that there is no obvious cause of death.”

Sweet!

2006-09-01T20:23:00.000-07:00

So this is how things stand on a Friday night. Number 7 in the whole country.
Just a couple more days to go.................

No Salesman Will Call - Vote For My Friends On MTV2

2006-08-31T02:16:00.000-07:00

OK, so I've never asked you guys to do anything except read my little posts, but that's about to change. MTV2 is hosting a national competition on their site for the best bands in cities across the country. The top 2 per state (100 bands total) will put together an audio clip (song + interview) for college campuses around the U.S. to be narrowed down to 12 bands. Those 12 will compete at the MTV2 studios in NY to reduce the field to the finalists (2-3 bands voted on MTV.com) who will perform a live show. The winner gets $50,000, an MTV.com web page, and possible appearances on MTV Rock for a week. RYEWIRE, pictured above, is currently the #1 band in the Seattle area and they rank somewhere around #10 nationally (the other "#1" band on the site didn't register in time and so they're not actually in the running ). Could you take a minute to throw some votes their way?

I promise I'll never bother ya for anything else, and that includes the pony that I ask for every Christmas! The contest runs through Sept. 4th.

XOXO - FP

The Silversun Pickups - Another Cool Band

2006-08-29T20:44:00.000-07:00

I find a lot of really great new music on my own- thank god- but sometimes it's good to have a little assist. The Silversun Pickups is a really great band that a musically-inclined friend with excellent taste turned me on to. With my typical "day late-dollar short" awareness, I missed them at the Capitol Hill Block Party in July, but the good news is that they'll be back in October. Yea!!!

Homesick Pt. 2

2006-08-29T19:24:00.000-07:00

This is a picture that my friend David drew, back in the 70's. He just rediscovered it today and sent it to me. (I added the color). I don't know that it was specifically supposed to be me, but the hairdo is suspicious.....and familiar, isn't it? When I was younger, people always thought my hair was a wig. I think it's a little too worn out now to be confused with dynel. (historical note: dynel was a shiny synthetic material used to make cheap wigs a long time ago.....)

Homesick

2006-08-29T02:47:00.000-07:00

Well, you met her there on a New York City stair
You were throwing up on your shoes
Tryin' to write the great book when it really had you shook
With a bad case of wintertime blues

So you drag her down to the ragged side of town
She had a taxi to carry her home
Then she left her handkerchief there beside you on the seat
As if to emphasize that you were all alone

It smelled like springtime and you were just a boy
And all the lilacs in Ohio
All the lilacs in Ohio. There ya go.
In the city streets and the dirty winter snow

All the lilacs in Ohio - hio.
Well, she's the love story you speak of
When you talk to Sam at the bar
But it's in the details your story often fails

Yeah, close, but no cigar
And you might see your own ass in a double whiskey glass
But you'll never erase her smile
And you'll never write it down, never find her in this town

Of phantom dreams and fingernail files
It was springtime, and you were just a boy
And all the lilacs in Ohio
All the lilacs in Ohio. There ya go

In city streets and the dirty winter snow
All the lilacs in Ohio - hio
So you pin her handkerchief to your clean white linen sheets
And you unmake your bed, crawl in

You imagine her there and you're tangled in her hair
And she smells like flowers again
And it's springtime, and you were just a boy
All the lilacs in Ohio

All the lilacs in Ohio. There ya go
In the city streets and the dirty winter snow
All the lilacs in Ohio - hio

John Hiatt - from the album 'The Tiki Bar Is Open'

Cupid Hits The Unemployment Line

2006-08-28T00:33:00.000-07:00

Memo To The Windy City - Don't Stop Drinking Quite Yet!

2006-08-25T12:07:00.000-07:00

We'll let you know when your "modern, fresh shopping experience" is ready!

CHICAGO (AP) - The owner of the Carson Pirie Scott department store announced Friday that it is closing the historic store because of a drop in sales and rise in operating costs.
The store is located in a building designated a National Historic Landmark and designed by famed architect Louis H. Sullivan in the late 19th century. The store was originally built in 1898-1899. There have been additions over the years, including a 12-story south addition in 1905-1906. According to the city's department of planning and development Web site, the store is "one of the most important structures in early modern architecture, famed for its influential modular construction and design."

"We are very proud of Carson Pirie Scott's rich tradition in Chicago -- a tradition that has prospered for more than 150 years ..." Bud Bergren, Bon-Ton's president and CEO said in a statement. "Unfortunately, this facility is more than 100 years old and no longer supports our efforts to provide quality customer service by giving our customers a modern, fresh shopping experience." The store is expected to close in March, 2007.

A New Kind Of 'Drunk Call' List

2006-08-24T20:38:00.000-07:00

I have a friend who's compiled a convenient list on his myspace site of the people he'd be most likely to call after a drinking binge. Today, with the publication of Forbes magazine's list of 'America's Drunkest Cities', I can now go him one better by compiling a list in order of how likely it is that I'll receive a drunk call from a friend in most of the cities I've lived in.

Here's a brief overview of how Forbes put it all together:

To determine the rankings, Forbes started with a list of the largest metropolitan areas in the continental U.S. Thirty-five candidate cities were chosen based on availability of data and geographic diversity. Each city was ranked in five areas: state laws, number of drinkers, number of heavy drinkers, number of binge drinkers and alcoholism. Each area was assigned a ranking in each category, based on quantitative data, and all five categories were then totaled to produce a final score, which was sorted to produce the rankings.

Four of the cities I've lived in appear on this list, starting with my hometown of Columbus, Ohio, which ranks #3. Go Buckeyes!!! With the three-hour time difference, I'll be expecting to hear from you around 5 AM. Great. Just about an hour before I get up. Based on your ranking, along with the fact that there isn't a damn thing to do there, you get my vote for most likely to call!

Here are the rest:

#6 - Chicago - two hours ahead. You'll probably head right back to work from the bar, because the commute takes five hours.
#12 - Seattle - I'm here, but you'll probably decide to get a new tattoo.
#19 - Portland, Oregon - same time zone, but you'll be looking for your lost pet ferret.

Anyway, in case you decide to bypass these other options, I'll be waiting to hear from all of you, from all across this great booze - infused country of ours. And don't forget to remind me that I'm the "best friend you've ever, ever had, man", 'cause I'll be feeling exactly the same way about you.

The Peak Experience

2006-08-24T15:10:00.000-07:00

"Human beings do not realise the extent to which their own sense of defeat prevents them from doing things they could do perfectly well. The peak experience induces the recognition that your own powers are far greater than you imagined them." – Colin Wilson

Peak experience: A term used to describe certain extra-personal and ecstatic states, particularly ones tinged with themes of unification, harmonization and interconnectedness. Participants characterize these experiences, and the revelations imparted therein, as possessing an ineffably mystical (or overtly religious) quality or essence.

American psychologist and philosopher Abraham H. Maslow (1908-1970) coined this term to describe nonreligious quasi-mystical and mystical experiences. Peak experiences are sudden feelings of intense happiness and well-being, and possibly the awareness of "ultimate truth" and the unity of all things. Accompanying these experiences is a heightened sense of control over the body and emotions, and a wider sense of awareness, as though one was standing upon a mountaintop. The experience fills the individual with wonder and awe. He feels at one with the world and is pleased with it; he or she has seen the ultimate truth or the essence of all things.

Maslow described peak experiences as self-validating, self-justifying moments with their own intrinsic value; never negative, unpleasant or evil; disoriented in time and space; and accompanied by a loss of fear, anxiety, doubts, and inhibitions.

Peak experiences render therapeutic value as they foster a sense of being lucky or graced; release creative energies; reaffirm the worthiness of life; and change an individual's view of himself or herself. Maslow cautioned against seeking such experiences for their own sake; echoing the advice of the mystics who have pointed out that the sacred exists in the ordinary. Maslow further believed that domestic and public violence, alcoholism, and drug abuse stem from spiritual emptiness, and that even one peak experience might be able to prevent, or at least abate, such ills.

I'm not sure what got me mulling over this subject today; could have been a number of things. I was working on a new cd cover and decided to combine an image of George Mallory, the famed lost climber of Everest from the 1920's, with a photo from the recent exploration that discovered his almost perfectly-preserved remains. Sounds gruesome, I know, but the title is going to be "What Was I Thinking?" You'd have to see it to get the joke, I guess. The typical 'me' thought process. Maybe my mind was doing a little free-associating. After all, a lot of therapists incorporate outdoor adventures into their sessions; experiences which are designed to jolt people into feeling the power and mystery associated with connecting with their surroundings. Sometimes these therapies include mountain climbing.

Anyway, I'm here to say that I believe in the existence of these experiences because I've had more than a few over the years and in some very unlikely places. That's what makes them so amazing. You can't practice for them, you can't set up a situation to make one happen. They take you by surprise and there you are, which is the coolest part. My most awe-inspiring one occurred about 16 years ago. Regrettably, I can't completely summon up the exact feeling of that afternoon, but the memory of what it was like is still so powerful that I'm encouraged to feel that I will have more like it someday. It may come tomorrow or it may be another 16 years, but I'm ready whenever it gets here. I'm not going to go into describing the circumstances or talk about who else was present on that extraordinary day. You know who you are, and you know what it was like, and that's all that matters. I just wanted to say thanks for being there. Until next time........

Pluto Gets The Old Heave-Ho

2006-08-24T11:36:00.000-07:00

Capping years of intense debate, astronomers resolved Thursday to demote Pluto in a wholesale redefinition of planethood that is being billed as a victory of scientific reasoning over historic and cultural influences. But the decision is already being hotly debated. Officially, Pluto is no longer a planet.

"Pluto is dead," said Mike Brown, a planetary scientist at the California Institute of Technology who spoke with reporters via a teleconference while monitoring the vote. The decision also means a Pluto-sized object that Brown discovered will not be called a planet. "Pluto is not a planet," Brown said. "There are finally, officially, eight planets in the solar system." The vote involved just 424 astronomers who remained for the last day of a meeting of the International Astronomical Union in Prague.

"I'm embarrassed for astronomy. Less than 5 percent of the world's astronomers voted," said Alan Stern, leader of NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto and a scientist at the Southwest Research Institute. "This definition stinks, for technical reasons," Stern told Space.com. He expects the astronomy community to overturn the decision. Other astronomers criticized the definition as ambiguous.

The word "planet" originally described wanderers of the sky that moved against the relatively fixed background of star. Pluto, discovered in 1930, was at first thought to be larger than it is. It has an eccentric orbit that crosses the path of Neptune and also takes it well above and below the main plane of the solar system. Recent discoveries of other round, icy object in Pluto's realm have led most astronomers to agree that the diminutive world should never have been termed a planet.

The resolution: The decision establishes three main categories of objects in our solar system.

Planets: The eight worlds starting with Mercury and moving out to Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

Dwarf planets: Pluto and any other round object that "has not cleared the neighborhood around its orbit, and is not a satellite."

Small solar system bodies: All other objects orbiting the sun.

Working Both Sides Of The Room

2006-08-22T01:30:00.000-07:00

The Outsider And Me

2006-08-20T17:52:00.000-07:00

"This image has enough to go off like (a) 100 sticks of dynamite" - Henry Darger 1892-1973

Henry Darger, an elderly recluse, spent his childhood in Illinois's asylum for feeble-minded children and his adulthood working as a janitor. He lived a quiet, nearly solitary existence, but his imaginary life was exciting, colorful and sexually provocative. When he died in Chicago in 1973, his landlady discovered in his room 300 paintings, some over 10 feet long, and a 15,000-page illustrated novel (The Realms of the Unreal), which told the epic story of the virtuous Vivian Girls leading a child slave revolt against the evil Glandelinians.

I just returned from seeing the Henry Darger exhibition at The Frye Art Museum. I am still attempting to process what I saw and the feelings that arose from viewing the work of this outsider artist who was diagnosed at the age of six as "having his heart in the wrong place" and was then sent to live in an asylum until he engineered his own escape at the age of 16. I saw the documentary on Darger, 'In the Realms of the Unreal' about a month ago, somewhat apprehensively because I have a very strong, visceral reaction to anything having to do with asylums and institutions for the 'not-quite-right' among us, owing to some personal experience involving a family member who died in such a place. Believe me when I say an experience like that never, ever leaves you. As difficult as it was to watch, I know I will see the film again when its creator, Jessica Yu screens it in October, because the world of Henry Darger now resides in my head and it's not leaving, either.

After finally succeeding in making his escape from the asylum after a series of failed attempts beginning when he was six, Henry spent the rest of his life under the radar, working as a janitor and sometimes attending as many as 5 masses a day at the neighboring Catholic church. All the while, he was orchestrating and documenting the battle that quietly raged on in his mind. From the age of 19 until his death at 81, in his tiny one room apartment in Chicago, Darger created the epic known to us as 'The Story of the Vivian Girls, In what Is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion'. 15,000 pages. Whew.

I haven't read any criticism or analysis of Darger's work. I would rather react and respond in ways that are meaningful to me and unfiltered by the impressions of others. It is my belief that to define and delineate it in a scholarly manner only plays into the hands of those whom Darger was trying to elude; the established hierarchy of the entire world as we know it. His experience told him it was simply not to be trusted. Faced with what I see around me these days, how can I not concur? He created the war of the Glandelinians and the Vivian Girls in order to right the wrong that had been done to him as a child and to illustrate the inherent cruelty that he felt the world held in store for children and that they must be protected from, no matter how great the cost.

Punctuated with riotous bursts of colorful flowers, birds and incredible weatherscapes, the land inhabited by the Vivian Girls is at once both frightening and fantastic. Mention must be made of Darger's adeptness at synthesizing imagery from the popular culture of the day into his work. One can see the stride of the Morton Salt girl as well as the posture of the Coppertone Suntan Lotion baby in his drawings. The other-worldly insects and oversized foliage directly reference the cartoon 'Buck Rogers in the 25th Century', as well as the thousands of other archived newspaper and magazine clippings found after his death. The message that I take away after seeing just a small sampling of his work is that art does flourish best and most authentically in these naive expressions created by 'Outsiders' who feel to their very core what it means to be on the inside and have rejected that existence in favor of living in a world of their own making.

Substitute The Phrase "Moonwalk Tapes" For Woodpecker

2006-08-16T10:13:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON - NASA scientists have joined the search for the elusive ivory-billed woodpecker, long thought to be extinct but recently sighted in Arkansas. NASA used a laser-equipped research aircraft to fly over the Big Woods area of the Mississippi Delta to learn more about the big woodpecker’s potential habitat, the space agency said Thursday. Scientists from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and the University of Maryland used an instrument that sends pulses of energy to Earth’s surface, where light particles from the lasers bounce off leaves, branches and the ground and reflect back to the instrument.

These signals give scientists a direct measurement of the height of the forest’s leaf-covered treetops, the ground level below and everything in between, NASA said in a statement. “We’re trying to understand the environment where these birds live or used to live,” said Woody Turner, a NASA scientist. Knowing the thickness of ground vegetation, the density of tree leaves and other factors including closeness to water and age of the forest might help in the search, he said.

NASA’s aerial effort is part of a quest that began in 2004 after a kayaker reported spotting the woodpecker along the Cache River in Arkansas. Before that, there had been no confirmed sightings of ivory-bills for half a century. Bird experts have searched on the ground, looking for nesting spots, leaving remote-controlled cameras and audio recorders in places that seem likely habitats for the woodpecker. But so far they have captured no confirmed images or sound recordings of the creature.

In 2005, researchers published a report in the journal Science that at least one male ivory-bill still survived, but this finding has been challenged. The NASA-University of Maryland project aims to give detailed information about the bird’s habitat to searchers on the ground, who can use it starting this fall to look for new evidence of the ivory-billed woodpecker’s possible survival.

Saved By Silicone: One Woman’s Close Call

2006-08-15T19:18:00.000-07:00

Shrapnel from rocket lodged in implants, sparing Israeli woman

JERUSALEM - An Israeli woman's breast implants saved her life when she was wounded in a Hezbollah rocket attack during Israel's war with the Lebanese group, a hospital spokesman said Tuesday.

Doctors found shrapnel embedded in the silicone implants, just inches from the 24-year-old’s heart. "She was saved from death," said a spokesman for Nahariya Hospital in northern Israel. The woman has been released from the hospital.

And..........

2006-08-15T09:55:00.000-07:00

Search is on for original Apollo 11 footage

On July 20, 1969, astronauts first landed on the moon. On that day, a special video camera designed by Westinghouse, hardened to survive the harsh lunar atmosphere, sent high-quality images of the event back to Earth. Unfortunately, these exact images were not the ones viewed by millions of people around the globe. The video images produced by the camera were incompatible with commercial television broadcasting equipment, so NASA engineers used a simple workaround. They aimed a commercial TV camera at the display feed and, voila, the lower quality, ghostly images of Neil Armstrong stepping out of the Eagle lander that were are so familiar with, were transmitted. The high quality feeds were not seen outside of Mission Control in Houston.

In the ensuing years, these high quality tapes were moved from one storage facility to another and subsequently lost. NASA is trying to find them as the magnetic tape on which they are stored degrades over time. Similar NASA tapes have turned up in the garages of one time NASA engineers as well as the Goddard Space Flight Center (where the collection is supposed to be housed). So, do you know where the Moon Landing tapes are? If so, NASA wants to know.

News On The Hour

2006-08-15T09:46:00.000-07:00

What we're following today:

As stories about Dell laptop fires spread, Dell has decided to recall 4.1 million laptop batteries, a Dell insider told ConsumerAffairs.Com. The insider, ex-Dell engineer Robert Day, said the problem appears to be caused by batteries Sony manufactured for Dell between 2003 and 2006.

A source at the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission, who did not want to be identified, confirmed the recall but said full details would not be made available until early tomorrow morning.

A Dell spokesman confirmed the company had "negotiated conditions of the recall" with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. It will be the largest electronics-related recall ever conducted by the agency.

On August 3, ConsumerAffairs.Com reported the story of Thomas Forqueran, stranded at Lake Mead State Park in Nevada after a Dell laptop set his vintage truck ablaze. That story came in the wake of two other summer Dell laptop blazes -- one in which cameras caught an exploding Dell laptop at a conference in Japan. The other took place in Illinois where a Dell laptop spurted flames for over five minutes and forced an evacuation of an office building.

I Have A Permission Slip

2006-08-14T11:49:00.000-07:00

Because today is my Saturday and I deserve it. Please be nice and don't pull my ears.

Is It Fate?

2006-08-13T08:17:00.000-07:00

Overheard At The Airport Today

2006-08-10T22:40:00.000-07:00

I was watching CNN and they were showing women lined up in front of these giant trash bins, emptying their purses of all of their makeup. One woman, after throwing away $100 worth of stuff (which these days, was probably two items) said:
"You'd like to think that somebody knew what they were doing, and that all of this is necessary, but I don't think you can blow up a plane with blush."

Thoughts Better Kept To Oneself

2006-08-10T07:16:00.000-07:00

Coming Soon

2006-08-07T00:05:00.000-07:00

The Eternal Allure Of Anna Magnani

2006-08-06T21:19:00.000-07:00

When I was five years old I accompanied my mother to see a film of a Tennessee Williams play called “The Rose Tattoo”. Back in the 1950’s there were no film ratings and no prohibitions about taking children just about anywhere. As a result, I ended up in some pretty strange situations – but when you’re a kid, it’s all just “More fun!” Today, if I were a five year old, I probably wouldn't be allowed to get within 20 feet of a theater showing this kind of steamy content. I’m not sure why I've always remembered this experience; I don’t even remember the plot and had to look it up to see what it was about. Perhaps it's because it was probably one of the last times my mother and I went anywhere in her little yellow Nash Rambler before she got sick. Magnani plays an Italian widow who’s withdrawn from the world, living in Louisiana and raising her teenage daughter. Big fun ensues when she discovers that the husband who's loss she's been grieving over for years had been two-timing her right up until the day the cops shot him for some petty crime. The "other" woman defiantly gets a rose tattoo like the dead man to commemorate their illicit love. Burt Lancaster shows up with a bad haircut and then also buys himself a $2.50 tattoo like the husband’s, trying to find a way into Magnani's heart. (Wrong!) It just occured to me it would have been pretty funny if by the end of the film, everyone in the audience ended up getting a rose tattoo as well. The plot is pretty over-the-top, and definitely not one of Williams’ better efforts, but it served as an excellent showcase for the depth and breadth of Magnani’s ability to throw one heck of a never-ending tantrum. She won an Academy Award for Best Actress for this film. See Rossellini’s “Open City”, if you want to see a truly heart-breaking example of the nuanced performance she was capable of creating.

Born March 7, 1908, in Alexandria, Egypt, Magnani was raised by her grandmother in the slums of Rome. She studied acting at Santa Cecilia's Corso Eleanora Duse but began her performing career as a nightclub singer before moving on to variety theaters and stock and then to film. She worked with all of the greats; Visconti, Pasolini, Renoir.

Middle-aged when she became "a star," Magnani had already spent 20 years putting together the persona with which she would be forever identified: a vital, physical woman of the people, brimming with bawdy wit and tragic depth. Revelling in her own glorious decay, she would never shy away from a role just because she was afraid it might make her look bad; the cornerstone of her art was instinct, not image -- less technique than unbridled ego. When Magnani played a mother, as she often did, there was never any hemming and hawing about the potential pitfalls of self-sacrifice -- and when she played a hooker, which she often also did, it was no Pretty Woman. I can’t think of an actress working today who embodies the same passion and intensity that she brought to every role. She appeared in her last film in 1969 and died in 1973.

As a young adult, I had a Fotofolio postcard of Magnani on my dining room table. She was in profile, pensively clasping a bullfighter’s jacket. The table also served as my workspace for my collages and constructions, so I spent a considerable amount of time in the presence of that image. It was a beautiful picture and I wish I knew where it was now. I’ve found what I consider an acceptable substitute to accompany this post, but the emotion conveyed is a very different one. Nevertheless, isn’t her face amazing?

I've Been Meaning To Mention This For Awhile

2006-08-05T02:45:00.000-07:00

Personally, I felt that the revolution had a better beat and was easier to dance to than the album.

1500 Hits Tonight

2006-08-05T00:03:00.000-07:00

I was pretty surprised tonight to see I've reached 1500 hits on this site since it started in February. I'm happy.

Project Runway - "I'm Underwhelmed"

2006-08-02T17:04:00.000-07:00

As much as I hate to do it, I'm going to have to appropriate Michael Kors' signature comment to describe how I feel about the new season of Project Runway. The designers all seem so......creepy or weird or just plain forgettable, I guess. Tonight is the episode where somebody gets disqualified and is sent packing. Shocking!!! Who cares. My vague impression of this crop of competitors is that there's an anorexic Geena Davis lookalike who hates dogs, a very "ggggggay" ( expression courtesy of last season, when we still cared) southern boy with a fabulous! complexion, some guy with a Maori tattoo around his neck like a collar, (ouch!), a skinny smart-ass guy who insists on doing everything "his way" and still doesn't get eliminated, (yeah, we know where this one's going-right to the final three), someone named Uli who when she talks, sounds like we think Bjork would sound if we ever heard her talk, and then there's a bunch of other people. Guess I'll just have to wait around for the next season of Top Chef. At least there's sharp implements ("Please pack your knives and go!") with that one, and unforgettable phrases like, "I ain't your bitch, bitch".

Are We All On The Same Page Now? - Mel Gibson Has ALWAYS Been An Asshole

2006-08-02T15:05:00.000-07:00

I just wish that years ago, when Mel Gibson was discovered to be the raging homophobe that we all know him to be, everyone had denounced him as vigorously then as he is being denounced now. If the public outcry had been of this magnitude back then, maybe we wouldn't have to be subjected now to this horseshit (there, I said it!) round-the-clock analysis of whether or not his career is over. Perhaps we could have used this time to focus instead on the fact that the Middle East is rapidly turning into a giant ashtray. Perhaps.

While we're on the subject, Lou Dobbs and 'Howitzer Blow-up Guy' (Wolf Blitzer), go f- yourselves. We'll wait over here.

Forget The Lemonade Stand

2006-08-02T12:18:00.000-07:00

Hey Kids - here's a great way to augment your allowance this summer!

Rare Cloud Formation Seen In Antarctica

2006-08-02T09:20:00.000-07:00

Polar winter produces nacreous clouds, -189 degree temperatures. Penguins from Rio (see previous post) express appreciation for spectacular salutation.

HOBART, Australia - Some of the coldest temperatures on Earth brought a rare cloud formation to the skies over Antarctica, scientists said Tuesday.
Meteorological officer Renae Baker captured spectacular images of the nacreous clouds, also known as polar stratospheric clouds, last week at Australia's Mawson station in Antarctica.
The clouds only occur at high polar latitudes in winter, requiring temperatures less than minus 176 Fahrenheit. A weather balloon measured temperatures at minus 189 Fahrenheit on the day the photos were taken. Resembling an airborne mother-of-pearl shell, the clouds are produced when fading light at sunset passes through water-ice crystals blown along a strong jet of stratospheric air more than six miles above the ground.

No Scissors Needed

2006-08-02T02:40:00.000-07:00

My internal clock is completely out of sync tonight. I woke up at 8 PM, thinking it was 8 in the morning. Drank my coffee, had some yogurt and wondered why the day was starting off so overcast?!? Now I'm sitting here at 2:30, predictably unable to get back to sleep. This site, i-dressup.com, is a lot of fun and with hundreds of pages featuring many different designers, celebrities and clothing companies, I can probably sit here until the real morning comes and never get bored, clicking through this online version of paper dolls. Who wouldn't want the chance to put Mariah Carey in a burqa? Well...actually the choices aren't that wild, but surely we can find something better than that sausage casing she was shoved into for her appearance at the Grammys.

Seems Like Only Yesterday......

2006-08-02T00:27:00.000-07:00

I Recognize The Name, But Not The Face

2006-08-01T22:10:00.000-07:00

Bar server checking patron’s age is handed her own driver’s license

WESTLAKE, Ohio - A bar waitress checking to see if a woman was legally old enough to drink was handed her own stolen driver's license, which was reported missing weeks earlier, police said. "The odds of this waitress recovering her own license defy calculation," police Capt. Guy Turner said Monday. Maria Bergan, 23, of Lakewood, was charged Sunday night with identity theft and receiving stolen property. She was arrested at her home in suburban Cleveland and was jailed in Westlake to await a court appearance. The 22-year-old waitress, whose name was not released, called police last week and said she had been handed her own stolen driver's license by a woman trying to prove she was 21. The woman, who became suspicious of the delay as the waitress went to call police, fled the Moosehead Saloon, but her companion provided her name. The waitress said she had lost her wallet July 9 at a bar in Lakewood. She also had a credit card stolen. The stolen card has been used to make $1,000 in purchases, Turner said.

Chilly Willy Misses Out On Carnivale

2006-08-01T14:31:00.000-07:00

Penguins to get a free lift home after washing up on beaches in Rio

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Brazil’s air force and navy will transport more than 100 penguins to Antarctica next month after the flightless birds were stranded on Rio de Janeiro beaches. Penguins arrive from the Antarctic Circle on ice floes that melt in the vicinity of Brazil’s shore and the birds wash up on Rio beaches every winter.
Typically, many of the birds are sent to local zoos. A plane carrying equipment for an Antarctic naval base will take the penguins to Brazil’s southernmost region next month, an air force spokesman said Monday. They will continue their journey on a naval ship, which will release them into the ocean in their Antarctic habitat.

Getting Fresh

2006-08-01T05:04:00.000-07:00

With reports coming in from my friends all around the country that the mercury is going through the roof - resulting in sweltering temperatures, freak thunderstorms and fish walking out of the sea, I thought we might enjoy taking a break and freshening up a bit. In these trying, sweaty times, nothing fills the bill like a moist towelette. I saw a feature on this last night on the Food Network. It's the Online Moist Towelette Museum. There, that's better isn't it? Now, off you go.......

What's Cookin'?

2006-07-27T23:29:00.000-07:00

Just a taste from this week's New Yorker:

The sleeping pill Ambien seems to unlock a primitive desire to eat in some patients, according to emerging medical case studies that describe how the drug’s users sometimes sleepwalk into their kitchens, claw through their refrigerators like animals and consume calories ranging into the thousands.
—The New York Times

THE AMBIEN COOKBOOK
By Paul Simms

Sorpresa con Queso
Ingredients:
7 bags Cheetos-brand cheese snacks
17 to 19 glasses tap water

5 mg. Ambien

Place Cheetos bags in cupboard.
Take Ambien, fall asleep.
Wait 2-3 hours, then sleepwalk to kitchen, tear cupboard doors off hinges in search of Cheetos.
Find Cheetos, eat contents of all 7 bags.
Fall back asleep on kitchen floor.
When awakened by early-morning sunlight, get up and say, “What the—?”
Wipe orange Cheetos dust from fingers, face, and hair.
Drink 17 to 19 glasses of water from kitchen tap.
Return to bed

Icebox Mélange
Ingredients:
Entire contents of refrigerator
1 Diet Snapple
5 mg. Ambien

Take Ambien, fall asleep.
Wait 2-3 hours, then sleepwalk to kitchen.
Devour everything in refrigerator (including all fancy mustards and jellies, iffy takeout leftovers, and plastic dial from thermostat).
Belch loud enough to wake wife or girlfriend. When she enters kitchen, bellow, “Can’t you see I’m working here?”
Fall asleep on kitchen floor.
After 4-5 more hours, wake up on subway, fully dressed from the waist up, drinking a Diet Snapple.

So Much For The Accordians

2006-07-27T10:15:00.000-07:00

New day. New post. Somebody sent this to B and I think it's pretty cool. This is a night time shot of a tornado that went through Sedalia, Missouri in the spring. I've never seen anything like it and I come from the Midwest. If I had, I might not be here now. Click on the picture for a better look.

And As A Result.........

2006-07-26T11:28:00.000-07:00

Now I'm gonna be thinking about accordians all day! Perfect.

Me To The World - "Uh, We Have To Talk"

2006-07-26T11:06:00.000-07:00

Yeah, you do know I have some twisted need to check my horoscope every day. What to do about today's? Oh, probably nothing, but it makes for a good read. Random thought; I like accordian music very much. As for your horoscope.....you don't wanna know, but I recommend you stay away from sharp objects.

This is the right moment, FancyPants, to extricate yourself from relationships that you feel have seen their day. This won't be easy to do, but you must. In both your professional and private life, you are too hesitant to get out of situations or obligations that are distasteful to you. You are afraid of hurting people or of making them mad. But, in the end, you are hurting yourself. Give more importance to your own needs, and follow your own path.

"Scenes From A Mall"

2006-07-25T22:30:00.000-07:00

Not just the title of a Paul Mazursky film starring Woody Allen and Bette Midler; this has become the background dialogue of my existence since I started working at a shopping center again after being 'mall-free' for a decade. Wow.

World Still Going To Hell - Seattle Already There!

2006-07-24T00:15:00.000-07:00

It's midnight. It's 82 degrees. Gotta go see if I left any pets or kids in the car, "even for just a few minutes". Screw the neighbors, though. They're too busy destroying what used to be a nice building and I ain't checking on 'em unless they return the elevator emergency phone.

Report: Kim Jong Il Takes New Wife

2006-07-23T17:11:00.000-07:00

Widowed N. Korean Leader Marries His Former Secretary
- Sources Describe Kim Ok As "Cute"

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has taken his former secretary as his new wife, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported on Sunday, citing sources familiar with the country.
“I heard Kim has been living together with a woman named Kim Ok, who was his secretary, since Ko Yong-hi (Kim's wife) died two years ago,” Yonhap quoted a South Korean government source as saying.
She studied piano at the North’s elite Pyongyang University of Music and Dance and worked as the leader’s secretary from the early 1980s. Kim Ok also travelled with him when he made a secret visit to China in January and met Chinese leader Hu Jintao, the news agency said.
“She is a cute woman rather than a beauty like the leader’s previous wives or live-in women,” another South Korean government source said.

So I did a Google image search to see what she might look like and put together a collage of some of the results for 'Kim Ok'. One of these lucky ladies, or this set of triplets, or perhaps this tray of sushi, is the new first lady of North Korea. Congrats, you newlyweds! My personal pick is the teenage slacker-girl, because Kim deserves to feel some of the hell he's put us through with that missle testing. Even better if she's the one with "Jesus in her toast" on MySpace.

That's One Jesus On A Raft - Hold The Mayo

2006-07-21T21:08:00.000-07:00

Faith-Based Diet Says Reach For Bible Instead Of Ben & Jerry's

For years, Cherri MacPherson lived in bondage, a prisoner of her own obsession with food. The Brier, WA woman worried about what she ate and fretted about exercise. She collected low-fat cookbooks, trying to learn a new way to eat after a childhood of hearty farm fare. She tried one diet after another. The pounds slipped off and then back on no matter what she tried. "Jogging, the treadmill, aerobics; I was the aerobics queen," MacPherson said. She'd be at the gym "5:30 in the morning religiously." (insert your own joke here- FP) "It was bondage, and I was in a prison. (I know, I know; there's that 'b' word again.....FP) If I went on a vacation, I'd be afraid to eat." After the birth of her fourth child, the weight came on with a vengeance. MacPherson, 5 feet, 4 inches tall, weighed 175 pounds at her heaviest. (Visualize that 'Square-Sponge-Bob-Guy', or whatever his name is. That's the kind of figure we're talking about here).

For a while, she tried to be satisfied with her new larger self. "Deep down, it was hard to be happy," she said. Then in 1997 a friend gave her a set of tapes from a Bible-based weight-loss program. It was the beginning of a transformation for MacPherson, outside and in. She would lose more than 50 pounds, strengthen her faith and develop "a beautiful new way of looking at it all." The program MacPherson used, the Weigh Down Diet, sounds too good to be true: no dieting or exercise, no supplements, pills or surgery, no forbidden foods. Instead, participants are advised to eat only when hungry and to stop eating when satisfied. And, more importantly, MacPherson said, they're encouraged to replace a fixation on food with a passion for God.
Too often, people eat to fill up a void in their hearts rather than nourish their bodies, MacPherson said, and that is a distortion of what God intended for humans. "Instead of eating for comfort, we should be letting God take care of our heart," MacPherson said.

Participants are encouraged to read Scripture if they are tempted to overeat. Listening to God's will and not her own was difficult in the beginning, MacPherson said. When she'd falter and eat more than she should, "I'd pick myself up, say 'I'm sorry' to the Lord." MacPherson found other benefits besides a shrinking waistline. She said she felt happier, more patient. Life is better now, not just because she is thin but because she developed "a deeper relationship with God," she said.

The Weigh Down Diet isn't new. Gwen Shamblin, a registered dietician from Nashville, Tenn., began taking her program to churches in 1992. It is not the only diet program to connect faith and weight loss but it's one of the most prominent. In 1997 Shamblin published a best-selling book outlining the plan, "The Weigh Down Diet." Today, the program continues to grow, with more than 30,000 Weigh Down Workshop locations in all 50 states, Canada and overseas.
An eight-week session costs about $125, which includes materials and weekly support meetings. Members typically take more than one session with later sessions offered at a reduced price, MacPherson said. She believes in the program so strongly, she now volunteers to lead sessions of the program as a coordinator, a position she receives no compensation for. She stopped attending her church and went to a local group connected to the same Tennessee-based Christian fellowship that the diet's founder attends. "I just know what it has done for me," she said. "It's changed my life."

The picture I used with this post is from some clueless MySpace kid; she claims to have seen Jesus in her Wonder Bread toast at breakfast time.....Personally, I could almost make out his image in the picture, but I decided to enhance it anyway. It's toast. It's Jesus. End of story. OK...Jesus with a ciggy. Dieting is a bitch. Even Jesus needs something to do with his hands if he's not eating!

The Return Of The "Sheep On The Milk Carton"

2006-07-21T15:08:00.000-07:00

Davina~ I found her!
(Well, I never said this site was going to be 'animal-free')

The Trans-Species Power Of A Child's Toy

2006-07-21T14:14:00.000-07:00

Who knew the traditional jack-in-the-box held such magical powers? Click the link to see an owl turn into a pussycat!

While We're On The Subject......

2006-07-20T22:22:00.000-07:00

There's been way too much bad stuff to think about lately, so here's a picture of a bunny. Awwww. Reminder to B: Just say "No Way" to cassoulet!

And If You're Considering Ordering Carrots When Dining Out

2006-07-20T22:10:00.000-07:00

Your waitperson can always suggest argument-free alternatives!

Newsflash! Carrots Not Good For Eyesight, After All

2006-07-20T21:29:00.000-07:00

Man accused of blinding wife with carrot tossed in anger

MONROE, Conn. - A 46-year-old man is accused of assaulting his wife with a carrot, causing her to lose sight in one eye. Roderick Vecsey is charged with second-degree assault and disorderly conduct.

Pamela Vecsey, 46, underwent six hours of surgery after being hit in the left eye with the vegetable Saturday night, but doctors were not able to restore her vision, prosecutor Stephanie Damiani said.

The couple was arguing when Roderick Vecsey tossed the carrot, Damiani said. Roderick Vecsey told Judge Patrick Carroll that it was a terrible accident and was advised to remain silent. The judge set a hearing for Thursday. Vecsey is currently free after posting $500 bond.

Fun (non-dangerous) Facts About Carrots:

The carrot originated 3,000 years ago in Middle Asia in the area of Afghanistan.
The first carrots were white, purple and yellow.
Orange carrots were developed in the 1600's by the Dutch.
Baby carrots were first introduced in 1989.
Carrots are a good source of Vitamin A, fiber, potassium and Vitamin C.
Carrots are great for snacking.

Please people, use carrots responsibly. Remember, friends don't let friends.....oh, whatever. If you feel compelled to "toss" a carrot, why not just throw it in a salad?

US Gov't To Stranded Citizens; "Show Me The Money!"

2006-07-18T23:51:00.000-07:00

Tens Of Thousands Of Americans Stranded In Lebanon...US Govt. Making Citizens Pay For Evacuations...

Before being evacuated on U.S.-chartered ships, Americans are being asked to sign promissory notes to repay the U.S. government for the journey.

World Goes To Hell - Meanwhile, At Mount St. Helens....

2006-07-18T23:28:00.000-07:00

Magnitude 3.6 earthquake shakes Mount St. Helens

MOUNT ST. HELENS, Wash. -- A magnitude 3.6 earthquake shook Mount St. Helens Tuesday morning, one of the largest earthquakes recorded during the ongoing eruption, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The 9:56 a.m. quake triggered significant rock falls from the lava dome and crater walls that sent plumes of dust to the rim. Lava has continued to push into the crater - most recently forming a sheer rock fin - since the 8,364-foot mountain reawakened with a drumfire of low-level seismic activity in September 2004. The crater was formed by the volcano's deadly May 18, 1980, eruption that killed 57 people and blasted about 1,300 feet off the then-9,677-foot peak.

Where's Ken Today?

2006-07-16T22:31:00.000-07:00

Ken Lay takes his place alongside Elvis Presley in the pantheon of people whose deaths have not been fully believed.

Americans for Equal Justice is pleased to bring you this informative website devoted to tracking the movements of the "late" Kenneth L. Lay, convicted felon and former CEO of Enron Corporation.

Hezbollah-palooza

2006-07-16T00:11:00.000-07:00

There, I said it. I passed through Beirut in the 70's. Not too many years later, I understood I'd never be able to go back. Ever. And now..........

Summer Reading

2006-07-14T13:33:00.000-07:00

As a former bookseller, I can unfortunately attest to the veracity of this request. Now, let's hit the beach!

The Best Greeting Card Ever - Really!

2006-07-14T12:01:00.000-07:00

I've had this card on my fridge for three years. My friend Kristian gave it to me when I got a promotion at work that meant we would no longer be working together.
It's from MikWright. It still makes me laugh every time I pick it up.

The 'Well-Rested' Effects Have Diminished Significantly

2006-07-13T21:15:00.000-07:00

See what I mean, Peri? It's like I never had a single day off......

My Cool View

2006-07-09T23:27:00.000-07:00

The sunset was pretty spectacular this evening. Thought you might like to see it for yourself.

I'm Like, Totally Surprised

2006-07-09T20:06:00.000-07:00

1300 hits on this site. Thanks for tuning in.