Prize Winner!

Lookee! Lookee!!! This is what I won from Manuela over at The Pleasures of Homemaking! (thepleasuresofhomemaking.blogspot.net)

Of course it felt like it was taking forever for it to arrive when actually it arrived a little ahead of schedule!

And of course she wrapped it in TOILE tissue paper with a TOILE note card! Ooohhh this makes me so happy!

So far the book has given me several new things to think about. Making a mission statement or purpose of life statement is one of them. What really is my 'point' to it all? That's a good question to ask myself!

So far my 'new years resolutions' have confined themselves to the simple little thought of just trying to keep my nails painted. (guffaw!)

And then I had a conversation with a dear one about how she has moved so often that she only has in her apartment things that she TRULY LOVES.

This made me think. I have things I really really LIKE. And I have things that are useful but that I am not that wild about. And then I have duplicates of things (like more than 5 glass pie plates. But I bake a lot of pies. But I don't bake 5 at a time so....)

So I guess I will be embarking on that journey of asking the musical question....'is this STUFF essential for my joy, my well being, my ability to function seamlessly and with ease?' And of course those are all different categories, aren't they? Can they be blended into a cohesive whole?

So, thank you Manuela for drawing my name as the winner! Here we go...

Do Less and Accomplish More: Words of Wisdom and Sloth for 2011

My cousin sent me a note about summoning her inner Drill Sergeant in order to get out of bed on a cold day. It is along the lines of the thoughts I’ve been thinking about how I have to really coerce myself with brutal force to walk down some of the thorny paths I’ve had to walk down this past year.

I know I SHOULD be a better person, and I SHOULD ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’ and I ‘should’ PUSH THROUGH IT to get to what’s better on the other side…except that it’s been so long since I actually did make it through to the other side, I have no actual memory of things having gotten better from all that agony, sweat, and endeavor.


Frankly, it occurs to me that nothing changes at ALL no matter HOW hard I push myself to be better, do better, live wider, etc;. I got to pondering what the hell difference it really makes anyway? My poor inner symbiote of a soul is just a tortured entity anyway. I don’t do much to nurture it or ‘feed’ it as they say. And forcing myself to be a better person all the time doesn’t seem to make my soul any happier, either!

This is what I wrote on a little scrap of paper a couple days ago. I’ve been thinking it’s a new way to live:




Explore NOT pushing through fears. Explore how that could be okay,and not have repercussions. Explore this as an anxiety treatment.


By Jove I think I’m onto something! Because the way I’ve been living: constantly having these elevated expectations of what I should be doing with my life and yet always living in a state of failure, well, that can’t be good, right? How can that be all that healthy? We seem to think we are here to grow and change and all, and I think I did plenty of it when I was younger. But now I don’t really have the will and I don’t really have a way. I have to think about how this new way of processing could be okay for me, and that it doesn’t have to turn me into a Giant Pig Sloth who is a lazy good for nothing and a non-producer! Right? Right!

Because frankly? I’m so sick of my own inner rat race! I have no problem getting the dishes done, the work day completed, etc; It's just all those inner chores of being a better person, staying on a diet, trying to embrace some new activity, pushing myself to be more social when I’m wracked with weird social anxieties: all those kinds of things are the things that I have come to realized might not make a damn bit of difference if I do them or if I don’t. It’s practically a paradigm in my thinking! What the hell difference does it make if I never conquer my fear of trolley cars? Seriously. I feel like a failure all the time anyway, so why keep pressuring myself to conquer, conquer, conquer especially when I never really do anything about any of it?

I think it’s like I live under the mistaken belief that if I push on a bruise it will heal it faster! Right! NO!!! All it does it make it hurt more often than necessary.

I think that may be the closest I get to a New Year’s Resolution this year! Explore NOT pushing through fears! Let it be Okay to DO NOTHING and not suffer huge pangs of spiritual remorse like I’m failing at my life’s plan or something. Put that on a while and wear it around and see how it feels. Better than the hair shirt I’ve been wearing for decades, that’s what I think!

That is it for me for today! Hope you have a lazy, non-productive, and non-feeling guilty about it New Year or at the very least one in which your Inner Drill Sergeant takes a long coffee break!

And here's a sneak peek at my new slacker quilt: All paisleys and made from BIG BLOCKS! Whipped it up in no time flat and just love it!

To Pulp or Not to Pulp

This post is going to be a loose collection of random topics...odds and ends that I've had rattling around in my brain for some time.

First of all, I'm quite addicted to that new show "Hoarders". Has anyone seen it? It is just riveting to see the kind of scary crap people hoard! They fill their entire living space with garbage, rotting food, etc; Unable to let go of anything, they come up with convoluted lies and stories as reasons for keeping their stuff.

Last night I watched in horror as a woman dug through a ROTTING PUMPKIN that had fallen into goo on her living room floor, desperate to keep some of the seeds because she couldn't let go,while the guy with the shovel trying to scoop up the mess was gagging and looking queasy for the camera!

I live my life as somewhat of a Reverse Hoarder! I am obsessively tidy and can't abide a cluttery mess.

Perhaps I shouldn't introduce you to my garage... but what the heck!

This is it! I got this little yellow cabinet (originally fire engine red) at a yard sale many, many years ago for 5 bucks. I have used it for everything from storing linens to dishes to bathroom items. But it seems to have found a permanent use as my Apartment Garage.

Everything that other people would put into their garage has gone into this little cabinet. Tools, paint, glue, tape, sandpaper! And it's a CLUTTERY MESS! There, I've admitted it! I've tried and tried to make it tidy, and it just won't comply. You can't neatly fold an electric drill because believe me, I've tried.

Next Random Thing:

What is up with this sudden thing in the Orange Juice world? Pulp. No Pulp. Some Pulp. Slight Pulp. Less Pulpy than Termite Dust but More Pulpy than Sodden Newspapers Left in the Rain...

All I want is a glass of semi-real Orange Juice. So my question is: to Pulp or Not to Pulp? I'm not so naive that I think just becuase it has More Pulp in it, it has been processed LESS than the stuff that is thin, watery and doesn't have so much as a molecule of orange matter in it. For all we know, the stuff with More Pulp has FAKE PULP added at the very end of the wash cycle. We don't know. We JUST DONT KNOW!!!!

I picked up this awesome fall-floral print KING size sheet at the thrift store. It had no wear on it at all and I couldn't pass it up. I think I got it for 75 cents, as they were having a 30% off sale at the Salvation Army Store. I plan on making napkins and an apron (of course!) but then I'm going to try and do some kind of skirt or tunic top out of the rest of the fabric. I just like how vintage and mid-century it looks.

Finally, I want to say that I HATE FLEA BITES. I really, really hate them! This is a picture of ONE flea bite on my ankle. It's about a week old, and as you can see, it is STILL inflamed, red and itchy. And HUGE. One single flea did this to me. It itches and itches and stings and burns and it doesn't show any signs of abating. I've used everything from Ben Gay to Camphophenique to Vaginal Itch Cream, and nothing has helped.

I even made the sign of the cross on it with my thumbnail, per my Granny Brown's instructions. But nope, this flea bite is even going to deny the supremecy of God.

I just hope I don't die from it, and not before I've learned which kind of orange juice is better.

Conspiracy Realities

That's right! It's not a conspiracy theory it's a conspiracy REALITY.

You know how I 'outed' a certain secret organization in my previous post?

Well!

The very next morning my car radio antenna was GONE! Vanished! POOF! STOLEN!!!!

I'm not kidding! It wasn't snapped off the way vandals do it, it was unscrewed from it's seating.

It's like they were sending a message: Talk about us again and you will lose more than your antenna ball...you'll lose the whole antenna!

So my lips are sealed!

Flu Break

Just a wee break for a few days until I get this 2000 pound troll off my chest and the hammers beating upon my sinuses to stop their clanging. It hurts and has a temperature!

Saving Elvis

I really hate the way Frank Sinatra sings. His music is creepy and kind of depressing. He is always hitting flat notes and off-key notes and I think he ruined every song he ever sang... ESPECIALLY the Christmas carols.

Jazzing up Silent Night and snapping your fingers with Congo drums playing in the background is just wrong. It's wrong, I tell you!

Dean Martin was ten times the singer that Sinatra was. He had more soul and nuance in his voice and even when singing like a drunk his music was melodious.

AND! I'm fairly certain he was never recorded singing off-key, unlike Frank, whom I think recorded every song and never took advantage of the 'instant do-over' option of being in a recording studio.

And then there was Elvis. I love Elvis. Especially his early music. He was dreamy and he had such a lovely voice

I was talking to a friend about Elvis and he said, "I always thought I could have helped Elvis."

I was stunned! Because I always thought I could help Elvis! It was MY idea!

I wanted to become his best friend, whisk him away to boot camp or 'Outward Bound' or just some remote cabin somewhere and dry him out. And then re-wire his mind with Wayne Dyer tapes. So that he could have stuck around much longer, and not faded. Not diminished. Someone to look up to, adore, enjoy, as he successfully navigated the shallows and shoals of this life.

I hate marathons. I hate the Sacramento Marathon because they block off all the streets and I can't GO HOME. It took me 45 minutes to go 10 blocks today. Why can't those marathon people run around a TRACK somewhere? Why can't they run around the block on the sidewalk and not cross any streets at all and not tie up traffic? Why do they have to be pampered and petted and spoiled? All traffic stops for them, and WHY? Sure, it's always for a good cause, and I support their causes, but how did RUNNING ever come to be associated with charity?

Why not a sit-athon? People could sit inside the Arco Arena for hours and hours and let the rest of us GO HOME.

Around here, it's a marathon about once a week. They just had a marathon on Thanksgiving. And today is another one. I just want to cross the street! There is nobody coming! Just let me pop across the street so I can GO HOME.

The cops are like Nazi Pro-Marathon supporters, too. Every single block has a cop pulled across the intersection with his lights flashing. And, they've taped off all the alleys, those bastards!

I got out of my car in the freezing cold and begged a copper to let me cross when nobody was coming.

"No, Ma'am" he said. "But in 30 minutes this street will be cleared because they will all be past this checkpoint and then you can go. So you can just sit there and wait."

So I did. And this was when I really, really, really wished someone had saved Elvis. So he could have made more records. Maybe a Christmas album every year, the way we all hope Josh Groban will do!

And that way I would not be stuck in traffic, year after year, waiting for the marathon to end, and forced to listen to...you guessed it...FRANK SINATRA on the radio.

A Drive-by Gifting

So here I am blithely typing away and playing on my computer at 5 in the morning when I happened to notice that my computer said it was 5 am but my clock on the wall said 6 am. Uh-Oh! Daylight Losing Time Again!

And then I panicked! When had this happened? It's November 2nd! Doesn't the time change back in the middle of October somewhere around Columbus Day? Oh NO! Que'lle Horror ! What if I've been running an hour ahead of myself for nearly 2 weeks now and nobody told me? After all, it's not like any of my ladies know what time it is! Heck, they don't even know what YEAR it is!!!!

Thankfully, a quick research on the net informed me that the time change was late this year and indeed, it just happened in the wee hours of this morning. Whew!

I went to visit my ppp yesterday (prisoner pen pal) before he get transferred down to Timbuktu. The California Dept. of Corrections likes to spend a lot of time and money moving guys around from place to place for no reason whatsoever, and it was my friend's time to get shipped out. Because this was a window visit, I didn't want to get any food from the vending machines because that would just be cruel. So I had to sit there smelling popcorn and microwave pizza's and all that other fun stuff and I was just starving! So on the way home I stopped at Trader Joe's and took full advantage of the gift card I got for my birthday. (Thanks, Q's!)

Of course I didn't get any actual FOOD, you know, because I was HUNGRY. Instead, I got crackers and pub cheese and a big container of coconut almond patties.

Trader Joe's was having an anniversary and there were all you could eat hot dogs and ice cream and lemonade, so I didn't really need to buy meal-food, now did I?

Where was I going with this? Oh, yeah. When I got home, I had two main tasks to accomplish while stuffing my face with pub cheese and crackers and chocolate coconut almond patties:

I had to change to a seasonal purse. That's right, ladies, you know of whence I speak.

It was raining yesterday and my open-face avocado purse was getting soaked inside and out, so it was time for the black zippered one I use for winters. Which is smaller. Than my fall purse. Which means dumping the entire contents out onto the ottoman and rifling through it and trying to pare down what is not essential. Like, do I really need 3 lipsticks AND a chap stick AND some Carmex for my lips?

And that was when I discovered...I don't really need to carry around feminine protection anymore. And I'm not talking about MACE, either. Wow! Talk about an end of an era! I've been carrying around pads or tampons for 40 years of my life now. It is, indeed, the reason that I and every other female in Christendom start carrying a purse to begin with. I don't know whether to feel overjoyed or just naked.

It did not, however, seem to decrease the weight or the bulk of what was stuffed into the winter purse.

The NEXT thing on my list was to tackle the television cable cord disarray. For a long time now I have decided that the TV had to come out of it's cabinet and be placed on TOP of the cabinet. For one thing so that I could actually watch it from somewhere other than right in front of it, and because my reason for having it inside a cabinet originally was because I like my living room to be about guests and gatherings and not necessarily dominated by the Alter of Television Worship. But since the computer is now the Alter of Dominant Attention in my home, it seemed silly to make the TV be so sequestered and hidden away.

And besides, I really needed that armoire for my quilts. So here it is:

It's okay. I'd much rather have a formal living room and a TV room but I don't mind having the TV be out in plain sight. Although...I have to say it has been about 20 years since I've had a television just HANG OUT in a room with me!

And now my quilts have a home and look happy and tidy at last.

I really, really need a new TV. I don't mean just for cosmetic purposes, either. Mine has gotten these weird orange and green spots on the screen. So that when you are watching programs, people's faces will turn up orange or green. It's very distracting. I think this means the TV tube is ready to blow? I would love one of those flat-panel screens. Just a small one, you know, not some huge football stadium sized thing. Maybe for my NEXT birthday.

Speaking of birthdays, I was talking to another one of my ppp's (Matthew 25:36) who has the annoying habit of being a Jehovah's Witless. His birthday is coming up and of course he blew off acknowledging MY birthday. Which isn't fair, is it? Because even though I don't observe that quirk of not believing in birthday presents or Christmas presents, I have to SUFFER for it because of someone else's beliefs. To me, this means that I don't have to ignore HIS birthday because it is not my belief to ignore birthdays. But of course he finds THAT offensive. It's like double jeopardy.

I finally told him that I would still be getting him a birthday present but I wouldn't be calling it that. I'd just be saying it was 'an anonymous unspecified gift attempt'. Ha-ha! Like a drive-by Gifting!

(ps: I did not type this as one, run-on paragraph. Blogger has decided that breaks or paragraph spacing isn't necessary, I guess. It won't let me fix it no matter what I try)

Sometimes a Great Notion

In my mind it looked so good! A carved rubber stamp of a butternut squash, with the word squash stamped next to it. Simple. Rustic. Really store-bought looking! Alas, it didn't work quite that way. The cards just look too plain and I had to scrap them. Maybe I can reuse the squashed parts some place else down the line. I loved the carving of the squash itself, though! That turned out cute.

I said before I love all things Autumn and I really love Halloween. I know, I know, not a CHRISTIAN holiday, but do all our holidays have to be Christ-centric? Why can't we dress up like scary things (costumes of Dubya Bush, for instance) and go out in the night and beg candy from total strangers? I love it! What a concept!

I reject the entire idea that Halloween is satanic. Frankly, it has more to do with dead people than the devil. Being Dead is not satanic! It's "All Hallow's Eve," the night that all the dead people get to have a little break from the grave to get up and stretch their limbs a bit.

Back in the day, people thought that the dead just hung out in their graves, presumably knitting cobwebs into sweaters and mittens, until the final Judgement Day when the Bugle sounds. They saw nothing wrong with letting dead folks get up one night a year and roam around moaning and wailing.

Lets remember that our beloved Christmas Tree has some pretty murky roots! It's a pagan symbol whose original 'burning human sacrifice' origins have long ago morphed into a lovely symbol of life and light on Christmas Day; a place for us to gather and sing carols, unwrap presents and sip hot toddies and eggnog.

So I say humbug to those who shun Halloween and act like their little snooty noses will fall off if asked to put out a bowl of candy or carve a pumpkin. Halloween has morphed as well! It's about decorating, playing dress ups and eating.

Which are the themes of my life, after all.

Stranger Than Fiction

I was out and about, driving along listening to the radio and doing the bobblehead dance. As I was sitting at a stop sign I noticed this blind man resting on his front steps. He had his white and red cane leaning on his leg right next to him. I saw that he had been raking leaves and the rake was leaning up against the porch right beside him.

And then I saw that the rake was also white and red, just like the cane. Obviously, a rake for the blind.

And then with my mathematical mind and powers of deduction and logical reasoning, I thought to myself, "Oh! I bet his family painted that rake white and red for him so he could easily see which one was his in the pile of rakes."

Becoming Agitated: A Movie Review

As an early birthday present, I was given a membership to Netflix! I was so delirious I instantly watched one of the free online movies because I intend to take FULL advantage of all the free movies even if watching them online means they are herky-jerky and the sound gets funky.

What do I care? It's not like I watch Action Flicks!

And my first movie was Becoming Jane starring Anne Hathaway. Now, I happen to like her. She's clean and wholesome and has lovely eyes and lips and a very clear complexion. I could imagine her playing the role of the young Jane Austen with dignity and style. And she did, for the most part. But....and this is a BIG BUTT...

For the entire movie she seemed to be the only person dressed in Napoleonic 1810 period clothing. Everyone else was dressed in clothing from the late 1700's. And believe me, those 10-20 years makes a HUGE difference, just as it does today. Picture yourself walking down the street in full 1980's regalia and you will see instantly what I mean. Because in the 80's I wore purple tuxedo jackets with the sleeves shoved up to my elbows, black stretch-pants tights and high-collar silk shirts with giant brooches.

So instead of looking like THIS:

She looked like This:

Even though the costumer got it right for everyone else, they just HAD to make poor Jane stick out like a sore thumb. I guess they wanted her to look like Keira Knightley in Pride and Prejudice who seemed to spend the entire movie stomping around in an old bathrobe and a gauze stick-dress with no chemise:

What is UP with that???

At the ball Jane looked like THIS: Notice how in the background the other guests are dressed in the same era clothing which is obviously NOT the era Jane is dressed from!

And sitting on the Front Porch we have THIS:

There's Jane, schlumped in the background with hideous posture and no corset. She should be looking like THIS on an outing such as a family picnic or to watch the fellas play cricket:

But instead, she seems to be wearing the 1795 version of the string bikini:

Spaghetti Straps and a white cotton undershirt???

Don't even get me started on the hair.

Jane Austen was born in 1775 and died at 47 years of age in 1817. She would have been wearing her hair like this, for the most part, as well as dressed like this: But instead, at the end of the movie, they had Anne Hathaway's Jane wearing THIS EXACT HAIRDO:

So I hated the movie.

One of Life's Little Mysteries

I've been fiddling around with a place called http://www.scrapblog.com/ for all morning and could get nowhere with it. I want to be able to do creative headers and change my background once in a while but I can't get blogger to let me pick my OWN background. I wanted to use things like THIS:

And THIS:

Or THIS:
And later on, after my birthday hoopla, ones like THIS:
And THIS:
But I give up. I can't get it to work so my blog background will have to stay white for the time being.

Speaking of WHITES...here is a mystery.

I wash my clothes every Wednesday because that is the only day I have both the time and access to the washer without someone else hoarding it first.

If you can do math, which I can't, you can pretty much figure that in seven days there will be seven white washcloths and 7 pairs of white undies to be washed and dried. Along with a couple pairs of colored undies for evening dinner party undergarments.

But today as I was folding my clothes, I counted 18 pairs of white undies and 4 pairs of colored undies in the pile. But just 7 washcloths.

That's like 2.8 pairs of undies per day. Since there is no such thing as an eighth of a pair of undies (see previous post) at least not WEARABLY so, I can round up to 3 pairs of undies a day or down to 2 pairs of undies a day.

But I have NO MEMORY of changing my panties twice or thrice a day for the last 7 days. Am I running home at noon and donning a fresh pair? Did I go on one long bender of a panty-changing spree but was so drunk on cotton fibers that I had a black-out afterwards so I forgot?

I really have no idea. You can leave suggestions in the comments section if you can figure it out for me.

The Other Cat's Grass...

Mackie wants out and Spawn wants in. They can sit like this for hours, never making eye contact or acknowledging the other one's existence. Mackie will not go out as long as Spawn is on the stoop and Spawn will not leave for hours and hours; not until he's good and ready and ready to give up on the possibility of getting a treat from me.

I think there is a rap song like that:

I want what you've got
You want what I've got...

Anyway, I had a friend once who seemed to have it made. Her husband made oodles of money; she didn't have to do anything but work 2 hours a week at the local rubber stamp store so she could get their discounts;, she got to spend whatever she wanted on her Hall teapot collection and on slight acquaintance she seemed to have it all. I could have been envious but I just wasn't. And it was a good thing, too, because on further acquaintance I discovered she had a hoarding disease, and that paranoia thing where you never let anyone into your home or invite friends over, as well as a host of ailments and oddities that brought her 'lucky life' down in my opinion to a mere trickle.

Nope, I had already realized long before that, that I don't want to trade lives with anyone. Not for an instant. No matter how weird or hard or strange my life can be, I don't want the other man's grass! My problems are FAMILIAR to me. I don't want to adopt another life because of the problems that come with it. Foreign ones.

Anyway, I am pretty sure that Mackie knows his grass is the greenest, as well!

Gravitate to the Beer and Soothe your Shrapnel

I had to run to the Dollar Tree this morning and squander my money on cheap plastic items that only cost .9 cents to manufacture and disintegrate upon contact once you get them home. When I was paying for my purchases (a powder compact for my purse which I just discovered will not stay shut because the clasp is missing; a round styling brush that I just discovered tears my hair out by the roots because the little prongs are jagged and probably dipped in poison; one of those puffy fluffy powder brushes that I just discovered feels like dragging straw across my face and is so uneven that it smears the powder in little clumps; a small sized mixing bowl so I can whisk my eggs in the morning that I just discovered once I removed the store label and saw what was underneath, has enough lead in it to kill entire colonies of marmots living on the edges of the old Killhope Lead Mines in North England and thus renders it useless for beating eggs) I was struck with one of those killer, jabbing, sudden frontal lobe headaches.

I said OUCH and the check-out clerk said in sympathy, "Oh, is it one of those sinus headaches?"

Without thinking I responded, "Shrapnel. From 'Nam. Pressing on my brain tumor."

She fell out laughing and said I made her day and that those shrapnel wounds were just fine except for the side effects and we both went on with our day in better moods than before.

People all around me are starting to be as funny as I am. It's a real joy!

On Sunday there was a gentleman walking down the alley on his way to the church next door as I was getting into my car. We exchanged the usual friendly greetings about what a nice day it was since the air was blowing that awful toxic smoke away from all the wildfires at last. I said, "It's so nice to have a little oxygen in the air again!" and he replied "Yes, and we don't have to chew it!"

Then Miss Biddy got her vocabulary a little jumbled while we were having tea and a chat, saying, "My brother is so nice he never lacked in girlfriends. He's just so friendly that is why everyone gyrates to him."

I've gyrated to a man or two in my life so I knew just what she meant!

And then the ever-scrambled Miss Kitty told me this long, meandering pointless story all about Pearl and Earl, a mother and son who go up to the Spill-Booze Lounge every single day.

"Earl lives with Pearl because she is old and needs the help plus he doesn't have a job anyway. Pearl has a beard. Nobody says anything. Everyday they go up to the Spill-Booze and she sits there with her beard. Nobody bothers her or says anything. They leave her alone with her beard."

I was appalled! "Oh, NO Miss Kitty! She shouldn't have a beard! Her son needs to look into having that taken care of! They have hormones now and all kinds of epilation options. Just typical of a man not to take care of something like that which can be so easily fixed!"

Miss Kitty said, "Well, it's okay! Her son doesn't care! It's just one beard! Nobody says anything to her about it!"

And then of course, the old shrapnel must have shifted and comprehension dawned:

"Miss Kitty, do you mean she has a BEER?"

And that about sums up my week in humor!

More things I am loving right now.

Expires 10/2056

Almost everyone I know or hope to know or used to know or will never know here in California has a tattoo.

A friend of mine has the pink cancer ribbon tattooed on her chest where her breasts used to be.

Another pal has her new boyfriends name twining around her ankle, in a rolling viney sort of pattern so that if it doesn't work out between them she can just add more vines and obliterate him in the process.

It seems once you get a tattoo, the barriers are down and the next thing that happens is you can't wait for the next one. And the one after that...and so on, until you totally run out of body space and start shopping around for some to rent.

I see it in our future: People with Other People attached to them by rope or chain or staples whose sole purpose in life is to display Permanent Body Art.

Soon, Ralph Lauren and The Gap and Nike and all the Other Hot Brands will be forgoing labeling their clothing and will go straight to body tattooing as a means of dispensing their advertising across the globe.

Remember when Volkswagen did that? You could get a 7-UP commercial painted on your car, drive it around for a year and then they'd pay to have it repainted the color of your choice.

If you got THE GAP tattooed across your chest it would certainly get a lot of people looking at your cleavage.

I suppose the Grand Canyon would be vying for space on the asses of the obese.

And in later years, there will no doubt be a real fad for digging up dead bodies and making collectibles out of the skin art...there may even be a market for being a tattoo donor by then.

But I am adamant that I will not be getting any tattoos. I know they are hugely ingrained in our culture now and for most of the population are considered totally the Norm. But I can't help but hearken back to my childhood when the only people with tattoos were old sailors who smoked Camels and had black, bleary, bleeded-out tattoos on their hairy and wrinkled arms and torsos.

Tattoos were for Truckers and I never can escape that imagery. The tattoo is forever, but the skin it's imprinted on? Gets Old. Gets Wrinkled. Gets Saggy. Gets Liver Spots.

But then, because I never can stand to be left out of a trend, and because I figure when I'm 72 it's really not going to matter if I get a tattoo because there will be no one of my acquaintance left alive to harass me about it, and because I dearly love a good joke, I have decided to get a Tattoo on my Posterior when I'm Old that says...:

BEST IF USED BY:

So Far? No Different from Happy Old Year

It's a New Year and I suppose I'm required to make some kind of statement of purpose.

Like, I intend to loose the same 18 pounds I've lost every other year of my life.

Or that I intend to exercise every day until the Second week of January by which time I'll have forgotten all about it.

Or that I have every desire to quit cursing, dammit.

Or that I wish to really apply myself to taking better care of my heart, soul, mind and body except for the part where I fall in love with vastly inappropriate males, completely ignore going to church, read crap novels, do NOT study improving literature or the Newspaper and binge eat every chance I get.

In the meantime, while I'm still hashing out potential self-promises of disaster, here is what I did yesterday.

I took this old decrepit tray

And gave it a Shiny New Coat of Paint.

And that's the kind of 'Newness' I can enjoy!

Attention Void Syndrome

Patience Onslow suddenly forgot where she was or what she was holding.

Luckily, the children where there to point the way.

*******

I'm here to talk about AVS. Attention Void Syndrome. Different in scope and depth from ADD--Attenion Deficit Disorder--which affects mostly children on a sugar high who've never had any discipline whatsoever and whose brains have been wired to ultra-speed processing by video games and Intendos and X-boxes and stuff, AVS affects women of a certain age whose bodies are busy elsewhere rebuilding the system, leaving the brain in the precarious position of simply shutting down or short-circuiting.

It is important for women with AVS to have an awareness of 'mindfullness' so that mishaps, mistakes and driving fatalities do not occur.

I'd like to use two examples from my own life which occurred only yesterday.

As I was heating some wonderful Tuscany Tomato with Basil soup, I was also preparing a glass of ice so that I could have some chilly ice water to drink. This may have been my first mistake: multi-tasking is a road paved to hell and everybody knows it but are too prideful to admit it.

Suddenly, the AVS set in and all awareness fell into the void. I had filled the water glass full of hot steaming soup before I realized that something was amiss! I had to make the split-second choice of rinsing the ice to salvage it or just saying "To Heck with it!" and dumping the whole mess into the sink and starting over.

This time I was careful to make the ice water and take it Far, Far, far, far faaarrrrr away from the soup.

The second Dreadful Occurance of AVS came about when I realized that Jeff had called me while I was in the powder room and left a message for me to call him back. Since I was just about to reheat my cup of tea in the microwave, I thought I should get that started before calling him.

And do you know what I did? In a fit of complete and utter AVS, I dialed Jeff's phone number onto the keypad of my microwave!

Fortunately I came back to full consciousness before I hit the 'Start' button, otherwise I would have boiled my tea for 555, 4755 minutes.

Memory Malfunction! Must Recharge!

I was comparing memory loss stories with my friend who just had breast cancer. She said that chemo brain is just as bad as fibro fog, and I believe her! Chemo would tend to kill off those vital little critters called brain cells.

She said that the worst is when you are supposed to remember something in a pinch but your brain just won't cough it up.

"That's when I implement my most vital survival skill, " she said. "It's called Guess and Go!"

Fabricating Imaginary Infrastructure

There I was at the grocery store, just chatting away and all excited about getting what I need for Turkey Day. "Do we want to do the homemade cranberry sauce or the canned stuff" "Do you like marshmallows on your sweet yams?" "Yes, I love that! So let's get some marshmallows." I was having a high old time when I suddenly became aware that this entire dialogue was actually a monologue. I was talking to myself. And ANSWERING.

I've been doing it for years and years. It's my dirty little secret and a habit I'm afraid I may not be able to break. I will be an old biddy in a poorhouse yapping away all day long and they will think I am totally demented. What they will fail to realize is that I was that way all along.

If I'd had a family and children and a rewarding career, maybe I would not have had to develop such a companionable inner life. But I never had that so what I have instead is a Jolly Time all by Myself.

It's just so embarrassing when I get caught! Like I really like to TALK in the shower. Sure, ORDINARY people just sing in there, but I have entire murder mysteries. I speak in foreign accents, too. "Thatsa Right, Guiseppe, I buried-a the body in-a da Olive Grove!" British Poufs and Aussie Croc-Wranglers chat back and forth about silly and inconsequential things. Jimmy the sniveling lickspittle likes to chime in with this bizarre statement, "Oh, NO! Not the BIG LOG, Eddie!"

Once I was in the shower and I caught myself saying, "Blood and Gore! I'll rip him from limb to limb and kick his dead body all the way to the ocean! AND I'll come to his funeral in a RED DRESS!"

It was then that I realized the neighbors can hear every word through the hollow echoing tile walls and floor. It even dawned on me that although I make fun of Invisible Guy and Obsessive Compulsive Girl and Night Terror Guy, they may just be saying the same things about me..."There goes Imaginary Friend Girl!"

What the Hell Time Is It, Anyway?

Okay. So last night before going to bed I set my little bedside clock ahead one hour. Because it's Fall Forward, right? Who falls backwards? You fall forward if you fall down the stairs. But if you need to spring out of someones way, you Spring Backwards, don't you?

That's the way my mind works and I can never rearrange it any other way.

So I am very glad that my computer knows more than I do, and set it's own clock to the proper daylight savings time change. When I awoke I was two hours away from reality.

Plus, I had to run around and try to get all my clocks changed within the same minute so they would be synchronized. Otherwise I keep racing to the computer to double check to see if it's still the same minute. I don't want a house full of clocks that are minutes apart from each other. It's no wonder I gave up wearing watches. The strain of setting the time on all of those would surely cause a rift in the time-warp continuum. Yanking time around like that could cause the earth to suddenly stop on it's axis and head back the way it came. I'm just warning you, is all. Is all.

I don't know what idiot invented this whole clock-adjustment thing twice a year but here it is only 5 in the morning and my internal body clock thinks it's six. For at least the first week after changing the clocks I have to think, "Now, what time is it REALLY?" so that I can adjust to sleeping and eating. My body will want to eat dinner at 3 in the afternoon and I will want to go to bed at 7 o'clock at night.

It's like a torture device to keep the masses opiated. This is probably when "Great" Leaders plan Wars, or when the Illuminati seize another 3rd world country to exploit it for commodities. Everyone is too busy trying to figure out what the darn time is, and they can't pay attention to the World at Large.

Okay, now. After this rant, it's time for tea.

I think?

Ritual Beheading

This morning as I was blithely slicing away at my legs, I noticed that I still had the plastic guard over the razor blade. This led me to ponder the whole process of haircuts and shaving.

There is real scientific fact behind the belief that the phases of the moon effect our world. Like the tides, for instance. And how people go lunatic on the Full Moon. So I never had a problem with my Great Granny's rule that you never cut your hair when the moon was waning. It would stunt the growth of the hair. You had to cut your hair when it was waxing so that you could have longer, more luxurious hair.

I don't know why I would want to get my hair cut during a time guaranteed to make it grow faster, since it grows like a weed anyway and haircuts that are too frequent are anathema to me.

I consider a haircut to be a ritual beheading. Good for the soul, very cleansing, a great way to make a statement about change and purpose in your life, but if you aren't careful you end up with nothing but a stump for a neck and no longer able to navigate through life using your brain and your eyes.

Yesterday I got one of those VERY bad haircuts. It's a fact of life, practically a scientific fact, that whatever instructions you give the hairdresser, they do the opposite.

I only have two rules: Don't give me a dyke haircut, and don't give me an old lady haircut. I'm heavy, my bone structure got lost years ago as it sunk deeper and deeper into the fleshy, fatty bog that is my face, and I just want to have trendy hair to make up for my biological, genetic and willpower failures.

I went into one of those 12 dollar places--impulsive, I know, but when the urge for a haircut is upon me it's like itchy hives until I can get one--and I was immediately happy with the decor. It had antiques and real art on the walls. That's an amazing bonus as far as I can tell: It just means a guarantee of a great haircut, right? Someone with decorating taste would be up on all the best, new trends in hair fashion, correct?

Sure, if the place had been decorated like Ikea. But these were antiques. And the staff was Vietnamese. Don't make me go on. You can see where this is going. All I wanted was some of the bulk cut out of the back and sides so I would stop looking like Bubble-Hair Barbie. I didn't want anything off the length and I didn't want my bangs shorter and I would like some more chunky layers using the texturizing scissors.

What I got instead was a poufy, super-short, non-layered, short bangs style upon which texturizing scissors never came into play.

And the girl told me, "You look really stylish from the back." I'll be sure to walk backwards, now, until the next waxing moon phase.

Then! The 12 dollar haircut morphed into a 20 dollar haircut. Why didn't I see this coming? Somebody has to pay for all those antiques and art, after all. I was told that the 12 dollars was actually for MEN, but women have to pay 15. Then, I was told that there would be a 2 dollar surcharge for using my debit card for any amount under 20 dollars. Then the girl said, "So, that's 17 dollars and what do you want to leave for my tip?"

She actually DEMANDED a tip from me! And I caved in! Standing there with my short, shaggy hair that only looks good from the back, I actually gave that woman a 3 dollar tip.

Which brought my total up to 20 bucks which means that she didn't have to charge the surcharge after all and probably just gave herself a 5 dollar tip on the sly.

Let me pull out of that math slump now and go on to say that it has just dawned on me that if the waxing/waning moon thing works for the hair on my head, why wouldn't it work for the hair on my legs? I could save a lot of money on disposable razors and blunt far less of those plastic safety covers while trying to wear away the hair like erosion on sandstone. And the money I would save could be horded up and spent on a really GOOD haircut. Someday. When the moon is waxing.