it's a riot of colour!

the first bedroom is green and the bathroom is some kinda darkish sea and the back room is to be dark indigo. green to sea to indigo, see, there's a method. then the master will be a sorta denim blue since that room doesn't get the light that the back bedroom does, so it can't sustain the indigo. the powder room will be a fading rose, not another blue, because i like that colour and that's my room. then out in the hall will be a sandy beach colour and the den will be plantation brown. that's the middle sort of neutral tie-together area of the house. the kitchen will be a warmish rose, not a pinkish or a purplish rose, and then into the dining room with the warmish rose above but below the chair rail wild current which is a not-too-purple dark berryish colour and on into the front room with the wild current and then the front hall back to warm sandy beach colour. won't really know till it's on the walls what it all will look like and it may not all work together but one thing's for sure, it will no longer be wallpaper. there's just so long that you can stare at those little bits of colour in the colour book before you just have to eenie-meenie pick something.

we'll get some window treatments all around and maybe get those long drapes for the den and the front room. in the bathrooms, some new towel racks and paper rollers and shower curtains and a candle and a plant to show somebody lives here.

that picture of the girls reading that's right now in the den, i'd like to put that over the piano, and i want the bowl of roses watercolour to stay in the kitchen. we will actually put framed pictures on the walls. no more thumb tacks and sticky-strips. this is not a dorm room. we are grown ups now. this is our house.

might snow tomorrow

they call it cybermonday. it's the first workday (for most office workers) after black friday and lots of folks use their work internet to go shopping. the phenomenon was noticed a few years ago, which is a duh b/c the internet hasn't been around all that long, and is attributed to internet access at most workplaces being better than at most homes. used to be that offices had the t-1 trunk lines and homes had dial-up, but more & more homes have fiber optic access which affords them internet access at speeds comparable to those formerly available only at the workplace. this equality of access should result in a lessening of the cybermonday effect, but let us not forget that folks would rather waste their employers's time by shopping when they should be working. between the shopping and the workplace parties, bout as well write off the entire month of december. bah humbug. the workplace is for working, even in december.

but the thing is, i remember setting up that waterbed right there in your room, late one winter night, while you slept down the hall in your brother's room, we set it up right there where you can still see the marks because it mashed down the carpet, and the thing is, i am not ready for you to be done with it, to be done with that room, done with this house, with us.

three teams, three coaches

mike heimerdinger, offensive coordinator for the tennessee titans, is coaching at the houston game today and will begin chemotherapy this week for a rare form of cancer that developed on his sciatic nerve a tumor which he had surgically removed last week.

robbie caldwell, head football coach for the vanderbilt commodores, resigned after coaching the team to a 2-8 record and before coaching the final game, a 34-13 loss to wake forest who broke their 9-game losing streak at commodore stadium leaving the 'dores with a 2-9 2010 season.

derek dooley, head football coach for the university of tennessee volunteers, led the team to a surprising 6-6 season after a miserable 2-6 start with only 17 seniors on the roster of which 7 are offensive players, 8 are defensive, and 2 are the punter and the placekicker.

do you believe in destiny?

on a cold thanksgiving night
in michigan
at a hospital
near the lake
58 years ago
it began.

i am about 20 miles from 65432, so i am going to try to find a chance to drive around until just the right moment so i can capture the 65432.

but probably right then a really good song will be on the radio and i'll be all LAH LAH LAH and then i'll remember OMG WHY AM I OUT HERE and i'll look and it'll be 65433. i am aggravated with myself already.

family is a funny thing. we say "i love you" to each other but would i choose to hang with these people? well considering that i generally choose to hang with no one, i'd have to say probably not, but pretending that perhaps i do hang with people, would i choose to hang with these people? it's kinda hard to be objective. i mean, they're okay, they mostly don't bother me too much, but is that simply because i've known 'em so long? if i knew anybody for my whole life, maybe they wouldn't bother me too badly, but who has that kind of time to invest in a relationship? "hey, jojo bloomingthal bugs the hell outta me, but i've only known jojo for 15 or so years, so i'll give it another 15 before i decide if i'll hang out with jojo." see? doesn't work that way. family is like, you take a bunch of oddballs and cram them in a house together and they bounce around in there with their lives all bumpity-bumping into each other in a crisscross mishmash of schedules and activities. you've got to get along well enough to work out the logistics of who's picking up milk and who's picking up jojo, but to juggle logistics you don't have to like each other, hell you don't even really have to know each other. so i can tolerate these people for a few hours and they don't really bug me too much. is that love?

80808

so we were driving home from the eatfest and i noticed the odometer was at 80808 and i was thinking how that was cool and especially on the day that we all ate-oh-ate-oh-ate. GET IT?? and so i was going to discretely snap a photo for ya so you could share the 80808 so i tried but the lighting was all wrong and it was a big orange blob. my old man was like, what are you trying to do? i was hesitant to tell him because he'd be all like, you're crazy, or something like that and so i was like, um... see it's 80808 and i was trying to get a picture, and darned if he didn't get his phone out and turn on the cabin light and position the camera behind the steering wheel and get this shot for me to share with you. isn't he just full of surprises.

my dreams are haunted by trains.

thomas
edward
percy
gordon
henry
salty
toad
james
lady
mighty+mac
bash+dash

time to build the track.

poopapolooza!

we are having beavis and regina for a short visit, an undertaking which requires nearly as much focus as walking a marathon. someone apparently forgot to inform the dastardly duo that this vacation is not a sanctioned poopapolooza event. for two such seemingly well-adjusted tykes, it's surprising how much time they can happlily spend lugging turds and wallowing in smoosh. mini-me was certainly never like that, not at all, ever.

regina doesn't talk much yet. what she needs to say, she says with a poop and a smile. but, beavis is a funny little man with perfect selective hearing. you can whisper "jaffa cake" in omaha and he will hear you, but you can kneel beside him and speak directly into his ear and tell him it's time to put his trains away and he will not even blink. i had to put him in time out for continuing to open the refrigerator. there are just so many times ol' harvest goldie can be opened before she's gonna have a meltdown. pluswise, how many grapes does a 2.5 yr old need? according to the load in his pullups, not quite that many. when i put him to bed, he said, "but i was wanting to spend more time with you." haha! nice try, smooth talker, but it's lights out!

lack of sleep + surplus of exercise = me tired. so, it's a good thing i've got a toddler and his baby sister coming over for the next few days because toddlers and babies are known for being restful. NAP TIME!

to assist you in procure for me an appropriate winter solticetide gift, i have compiled a list of items i NEED:

- vibram fivefingers treksport, black
- netbook case/sleeve
- horseshoe stainless 18-gauge earrings
- alkaline trio: my addiction
- taylor swift: speak now
- john grisham: the confession
- size 5 soccer ball
- soccer socks

you're welcome.

i am at the beanery and it was a bit crowded so i am at a table in the back which is in unfortunately close proximity to these ladies who are working through a personal encounter workbook and who i wonder if they really should be married since they hate their husbands that much. okay, so Underappreciated Bitter Wives are on one side and on the other is Loud Talking MomDaughterDuo. BOY THAT'S GREAT THEY HAD SHORTBREAD AT THE SWIM MEET. wtf?! oh, wait. here comes an entire weight watchers meeting. jeebs.

sorry, but i have to go look for another place to be. like, anywheres else.

and then, i had a soccer game.

what do you think about during 7 hours walking a marathon? seems that over the course of 7 hours you would think about a lot of things, a lot of different things. but the thing about walking fast is that it takes more focus than just simply walking and if you let down your focus, you'll be simply walking and that's not what you're out there for. so you spend a great deal of the time thinking about what you're doing. and when you think about what you're doing, you will naturally consider when you might be done, and following from that, you will think about what you will do when are done.

i focused on what i was doing, determined that i would do everything possible to finish in under 7 hours (6:59:20!), and that when i was done i would immediately eat something and quickly remove my shoes.

that's it. 7 hours of nothing much. except finishing a marathon! woo woo!!

monkeying around

it's that time of year again.

last year i thought i had my worst training season ever. haha! i laugh at me! ha!

i took up jogging when i started working full time, after college. all the cool kids at work would go run at their lunch break, and i wanted to be a cool kid, too. we'd run a few miles a few times a week, maybe like 20 miles a week or so.

then, elvis got this bright idea to run a marathon and he wanted me to run with him and i was like, sure whatever. turned out that i really enjoyed all the running so i stuck with it while elvis went back to being elvis. then speedy decided she wanted to run a marathon so we started running together and those miles with speedy were the best. the bestest. the very bestest.

but then i started having trouble breathing started to feel a million years old and for some reason it took the doctors for/ev/er to figure out what was wrong with me and when they finally figured it out i was way the hell outta shape but i was so glad to be running again that i ran once or twice a day and i was so happy.

but then i ran too much and i broke a bone so i had to stop running for weeks and weeks. when i finally started running again i tried to be so careful and i didn't run too much and i did some cross training and i finally built up my miles to 40 miles a week.

but then i ended up injured again and thought it was something simple like bursitis or IT band, so i added more stretching and cross training. it didn't get better so i thought i'd go to the doctor and get it sorted out more quickly than i was sorting it out on my own.

but after i saw the doctor and started PT, the pain became more persistent and more widespread. i have to wonder if the physical therapy did more harm than good which is incredibly frustrating considering the amount of time and money i spent on it.

so here it is next year and i am planning to walk 26.2, again.

i think maybe my body was too old when i started asking it to do distance running. maybe because i didn't have a base of years and years of running 40mpw, the increased mileage made all the little cracks in the armour of my health start to show. things that might never have bothered me, or at least not until i was much older, were pushed to the surface. and maybe i should have been a bit more methodical with the miles and a bit more consciencious with the diet and sleep. maybe i should have had more different shoes that i rotated. maybe i should have done more cross-training. maybe. maybe. maybe.

maybe i'm going to have to give up the distance running, maybe for a good while, maybe forever. i'll miss it because i don't feel like i'm done with it yet, but i can see it's not treating me right. i love running but it doesn't love me back.

it's time to show running i can make it on my own. when they have lifeguarding class at the rec center in february, i am signing up.

hey all you people who are coming to visit my house in the next 10 days - you should come now because we just got done cleaning it!

i thought we were going to do the normal weekly routine of wiping down the countertops with a wet warshrag, but it turned out we were planning to do a more intense session and i missed the memo. i thought about fussing & pouting & dragging my feet, and okay i DID fuss & pout & drag my feet, but not for long because i am a whimsical mood-changer. the bottom line is that we 2 put in 2 hours, which is 4 hours, and so if you cannot tell the house has been cleaned you had all better damb just say it looks great anyway. you're on notice!

cleaning the house always highlights how much junque we own, what with moving it to dust it or dusting around it or vacuuming around it or under it or beside it. the thing about junque is that my junque is my junque and your junque is just crap. this here, my mama gave me, and this here, belonged to my grams, and this here, my third grade brownie troop bestest friend in the whole world made me this lanyard at the summer camp where we learned to swim. you would have me discard these treasures? how bout let's check out that there, what your dad gave you, or that there, what belonged to your gramps, or that there, the lanyard your third grade little league coach made for you at the end of the season when you got the most hits.

what makes my stuff not crap (to me) is that it is connected to my life. what makes your stuff not crap (to you) is that it is connected to your life. and even though my life is connected to your life and your life is connected to my life, we will never be connected enough for me to think that coffee cup is really worth saving.

well, part of the day i was at the dentist.

today i worked from home and you may think this is a euphemism for "did the laundry" but i actually got a lot of work done. i like having a work from home day every once in a while. if there's something solid that i can work on, something measurable. most days, my work is more about communication, facilitating other peoples's work, but occassionally i have a concrete, discrete "project" that i can tackle and be done with it. tailor-made for working at home. something about being at the office encourages a bit of slacking in a way that being at home does not. it's ironic, i guess, that i feel more consciensious [sp?!] at home, where no one's watching. it's like, if i am at the office, that counts for some part of the effort and when i am at home i have to make up for that by putting more effort into the work. occassionally i imagine i'd like to work at home fulltime, but then i am not sure i want to keep up this level of productivity. don't want to set folks's expectations too high and box myself into the corner of fulfilling them.

what IS it WITH you PEOPLE??

so i went to the pix this morning to get my refund. you know - if you get $30 of groceries at publix, you can get 3¢/gal refund from the pix [which in case you don't know is the publix gas station]. you take your gas receipt and your grocery receipt and the clerk gives ya the 30¢ [if you have a 10gal tank like i do]. simple, right? i usually need gas on like thursday and get groceries on the weekend and then go by the pix again the next week like monday [meaning in this case wednesday] and get my refund.

so today i go in there and the clerk looks at the gas receipt and she goes, we are really not supposed to do them when they are this old.

i just looked at her.

she said, i will do this one but we aren't supposed to.

i looked at her some more.

she goes, okay so you need to come in when you get the gas and get your refund then.

so, i am like, i don't have a grocery receipt then.

then she is, well you just need to get your refund when you get your gas.

so i say, well i will just get my gas someplace else.

jeebs. this was over 30¢ so it doesn't mean that much to me and c'mon, it's got to mean even less to her. it's not her money, and it's just 30¢ and what IS the DEAL? like the pix patrol is going to come and audit her receipts? you really want to make me jump thru your hoops in this economy? you really want to treat me like a rule breaker instead of a valued customer? for petesake.

so i took out my gun & i shot her.

by which of course i mean, i emailed publix & tattled on her.

dribble it! pass it! we want a basket!

i am a fan of trying new things, so today i decided to go to the harris teeter instead of the publix. hey, i didn't say it was a big new thing, just that it was a new thing. i've been to "a" harris teeter before but never to this one. i thought this was supposed to be a fancyish type of grocery on the high end of town. turns out, not so much on either count. the high end of town is a bit down at the heels and HT is not a fancyish type of grocery. it's dimly lit with low ceilings and not particularly clean. publix is brightly lit with soaring ceilings and is sparkling clean. now, i don't think it's fair to criticize a grocery i don't frequent for being poorly organized because so much of the value of organization is simply whatever you're used to, but having said that, i wonder about the value of putting peanut butter and jelly on a small shelf behind the special seasonal items. seems an odd choice, to me.

so i went to the deli and asked for "black forest smoked turkey" and i pointed to it. the deli lady picked up the wrong thing and she was fixing to slice it and i asked, pointing again, "is that the one here, that's on sale?" she said, "you want the one that's on sale?" no, lady, i'm just taking roll. YES I WANT THE ONE THAT I ASKED FOR. sheesh. so i go, "yes." and she goes, "black forest smoked turkey?" and i go, "yes." (again) and she picked up something i couldn't see and sliced it and piled it into a bag and handed it to me. i perused the selection and it was either completely rancid turkey, or it was ham. great fancy cold cuts! can she not get this right?! i by this time completely out of patience up and also feeling a bit lost in the strange foreign grocery whilst simultaneously fielding a phoned-in venting from mini-me who is having stress and all, and so i am thinking i need to just simply put down the ham and leave the harris teeter.



but, ham's not the sort of thing you can tuck in there beside the boxed cereals. i mean, i wanted to return it, not start a pandemic of rotted-meat-borne disease. so i went to the service desk and briefly explained what happened and was fixing to walk away but the manager lady was like waitwait, and she got the deli manager who immediately asked for the opportunity to make it right pleaseplease. so i was like FINE OKAY and she went get the pound of turkey and i went to get the grapes, bananas, bread, and milk.

i thought it might be fun to sort of shop around and see what they had to offer. perhaps some gourmet goodies? quite the disappointment. they had more junque on display than at the dollar general. stuffed animals. christmas wrap. plastic dishes. sparkly spiral notebooks. a big box of closeout pre-rented DVDs from the defunct hollywood video. egad.



all this surrounded by your basic regular normal oatmeal and pork chops, plastered every few feet with annoying "2 FOR 2.99 WITH YOUR VIC CARD" malarky signs. publix doesn't have a discount card, therefore they don't have those signs. it's the sort of thing you become immune to, i suppose, but good grief, they are incessant. so you either tune them out or are completely torn apart with annoyance. now, that's some good marketing!

took my meager selections to the check out where i had to sign up for the VIC card because by golly i was NOT gonna miss out on THOSE savings. by the time my items were totalled and then VIC'd and then the manager removed the turkey cost from the ticket despite my telling her that i had not paid for the ham, after all that the total was just over $13 which is a small price to pay for adventure.

but then, it was a small adventure.

books 2010

currently:
flyte
[angie sage]

complete:
magyk
[angie sage]
in the woods
[tana french]
here if you need me
[kate braestrup]
spider bones
[kathy reichs]
the coffee trader
[david liss]
a spot of bother
[mark haddon]
the dead fathers club
[matt haig]
harry potter & the deathly hallows
[jk rowling]
harry potter & the half blood prince
[jk rowling]
harry potter & the order of the phoenix
[jk rowling]
the ravenmaster's secret
[elvira woodruff]
harry potter & the goblet of fire
[jk rowling]
harry potter & the prisoner of azkaban
[jk rowling]
harry potter & the chamber of secrets
[jk rowling]
harry potter & the sorcerer's stone
[jk rowling]
the local news
[miriam gershow]
the magicians
[lev grossman]
benjamin pratt & the keepers of the school: we the children
[andrew clements]
water for elephants
[sara gruen]
the last child
[john hart]
the youngest templar: the keeper of the grail
[michael p. spradlin]
the last song
[nicholas sparks]
the magykal papers
[angie sage]
the memory of running
[ron mclarty]

yes, i like to mix applesauce into my cottage cheese. what? well now... why is what i am eating any of your concern, eh?

have you heard the song "fly like a g6"? if not, just google it and take a listen. it's a sweet little piece of candy techno-pop music that hit 100 on the billboard chart earlier this year. yes, it references drinking and drugs and partying, but that's pretty much all that pop music is about these days. the g6 reference is a reference to the gulfstream 650, which is the fastest civilian jet at .925 mach 1, which is 704mph. apparently it could go mach 1 if not for the "problematic sonic boom" (cnn). i have no idea what is problematic about the sonic boom. probably environmentally unfriendly. please enlighten me.

have you seen the show "the whole truth"? if not, you might have missed your chance. it's a quality show about a DA played by maura tierney and a defense attorney played by rob morrow. as the plot unfolds, both sides are given equal time so that at the end of each episode, when both parties are in the courtroom, the viewer is still forming an opinion about the guilt or innocence of the accused. ABC has shown like 6 episodes and apparently has cancelled the show which totally sucks because they didn't give it any time at all to find an audience. networks are way too quick to cancel shows these days. i didn't realize until i googled her that maura tierney is 45 years old, and she looks stupendous. i hope i look that good when i am 45.

have you ever watched randy moss play football? well, i am about to do that right now. i am not a randy moss fan. he is lazy and only tries to make plays when he wants to and doesn't block well. however. i am a jeff fisher fan, and jeff's very big on ol' randy right now, so i am officially giving randy a chance. all week they've been touting his skills, his experience, his talent, his ability to pick up the offense in a hurry and contribute right away. maimi kicked off and marc mariani fielded it in the end zone for a touchback. on the first series of the game, kerry collins threw an incomplete pass to nate washington, then chris johnson ran for no gain, then kerry collins had to use a time out, then kerry threw a short pass to bo scaife and bo fumbled reaching for the first down, then fisher challenged that bo was down and didn't fumble, lost the challenge and therefore lost a timeout. two timouts gone in the first series. miami took over after the fumble, ran one good play, then their qb chad pennington (marshall alum) went out with an injury, then they had to take a timeout, then they had a couple good plays and ended up scoring a TD. maimi kicked off and mariani fielded it in the end zone again for another touchback. pass to moss, interference call moves the ball about 40 yards, unsuccessful run by johnson, successful pass to ahmad hall, great run by johnson for a TD. all tied up halfway through the first half and so far moss has contributed by getting an interference call, by distracting the defense so hall could get open for a pass, and by the simple fact that having him on the field opens things up for johnson. i know you want me to continue the play by play, but you can't always get what you want.

if it's sunny, clear, and 72º but it's too windy to comfortably sit outside and blog, is it still a "pretty day"?

you'd be hard pressed to bring up a topic on which i don't have an opinion. this is less about my being well-informed than about my being opinionated. at work my department is merging with another department, and by merging i mean one person is coming from the other department. in my opinion, this is not a problem. in the other person's opinion it is a problem. this other person has already informed our now mutual boss how things will be and what she will & will not put up with from little ol' me. the crux is that my job boils down to telling other people what to do and when to do it, and other people tend not to like that. go figure.

what folks conventiently and continually overlook is that i am not just making stuff up for them to do. i am not having them pick up my dry cleaning or put that wasabi stuff on dried peas for me. my job is to hold others accountable to a schedule they previously agreed to. the way that folks react to reminders of previous commitments that are not materializing is contextual.

it's like, if you say you will meet me at the coffee store at 0800, and 0800 comes & goes, and i ring you up and remind you that you previously committed to 0800 which has come & gone, how would you react? perhaps you'd be all "sorry sorry forgot the time!!" but perhaps you'd be all, "the baby's forcibly pooing something that loosely resembles wasabi peas so you can take your 0800 coffee date and shove it!!" or perhaps you'd be all, "i texted you at 0755 and informed you of the Curling Iron Incident which resulted in a delay which resulted in my rescheduling our appt for 0815. please consult your texts for this update."

some reasons for being late are outside our control and some lateness is caused by our neglect. some is caused by circumstances unfolding in a particular way and as we see these circumstances unfolding, we have the opportunity to inform others who will be affected by our lateness. when we reactively explain our lateness, or proactively provide an impending lateness update, to friends - we call that common courtesy. when we are asked to provide the same sort of info to our coworkers, we call that micromanaging and we rail against being held accountable and we proclaim our busyness and our multiple pressure-laden priorities.

but turn it around and think about how we react to lateness. with friends, we are forgive lateness - sometimes again and again. we laugh about how some people are always late. we tell joe the game starts at 7:30 even though it starts at 8:00 because we know that's the only way to get him there on time. haha, funny late joe. now, at work, funny late joe is a real pain in the arse, but instead of setting him up to fail and then vilifying him, let's just tell joe his part of the project is due at 7:30 when it's really due at 8:00. scheduling should be fluid, proactive, flexible, tailored. the alternative is to do joe's job for him, and goodness knows, we are all too busy for that.

babushka song

inside that doll
is another doll
is another doll
is another doll
inside that doll
is another doll
that is what she said

inside that nest
is a baby bird
a baby bird
a baby bird
inside that nest
is a baby bird
that is what she said

inside that lake
is an old catfish
an old catfish
an old catfish
inside that lake
is an old catfish
that is what she said

inside that car
is a family
a family
a family
inside that car
is a family
that is what she said

inside that head
is a wee small brain
a wee small brain
a wee small brain
inside that head
is a wee small brain
that is what she said

(now you -- you make one up!)

11/11 = ace day!

i thought that was pretty funny because that's the name of those peas, but turns out the peas's name is spelled differently.

---

look at my wack cookies. no icing! those elves are slipping in the quality control department.

---

wow! save 99¢! HAHAHA!!
okay, it was hilarious. maybe you had to be there.

---

this is a unicorn that i drew while i was sitting in a meeting.

---

i got a hole in my sock and you can see my gold toenail and you know i am the true nemesis of james bond. gold toenail.... i'm the one, the one with the midas touch, a spider's touch. such a cold toenail... beckons you, to enter my web of sin, but don't go in. gold toenail....

---

in conclusion, 1234, 62826, 63536, 64946, 65056 with a bonus 43734.

if it weren't for her widemouth talk, i would like sugarland, but as it is, no. the answer is just no.

i read a story today about this abandoned subway station on the end of the east side line under nyc - the city hall station. it's perfectly preserved, yet abandoned. something about a dangerous gap between the platform and the tracks caused when the subway went to the center-opening doors. anyway for some reason it reminded me of this office building where me & the crown prince used to go play. it was when we were living with gramma-bec those couple of years. we were all crammed into that wee tiny house and me & the CP would escape on our bicycles to this office building down the road. the place was built with all outdoor entrances so that there was this network of platforms and stairs and skywalks. we'd go down there on the weekends when the building and car park were unoccupied, and we'd play some sort of cops & robbers game around the stairs and skywalks. i remember going down there all the time, so you know we probably went once or i dreamed the whole thing. but having the run of that place was exceptional, even if it was a dream.

i miss playing cops & robbers. there are some things that adults just aren't allowed to do, and running around an office building pretending to shoot each other is one of those things. unless, you know, you have a paintball gun in your hand. adults are encouraged to be childLIKE but not childISH. look at the world with wonderment, be curious, be open and loving. but don't hop around the grocery store with your heels together pretending to be a mermaid. there's a scene in the movie big where tom hanks reaches out and strokes some lady's fur coat in the elevator. the juxtaposition inherent in hank's overgrown-child character casts a spotlight on the irony that a child can do that sort of thing, but an adult cannot.

be childLIKE but don't cross the line, don't be childISH.

it's knowing with anything approaching certainty where that line is... yeah, that's my trouble.

titulous generica

speedy replacement plan update: i have found someone who will put up with me as a running buddy and who doesn't want to run too far or too fast. the only problem with her is that she is not speedy, but that's not her fault. there is only one speedy, after all. (sigh....)

one of my myriad pet peeves is when people apologize for their blogs being lame because firstly, blogs are lame by definition so saying your blog is lame is just saying your blog is a blog. either you're such a pompass ass you believe everyone will be slavering over your every word or else you're just blathering into the ether, but either way, the premise is lame. if you really have something real to really say, you would write an online column and get some advertisers to pay for space on the sides and make you some money. secondly, if i have come to your blog to read it, and you say your blog is lame, then by extension you are calling me lame for being there and reading it, which i certainly do not appreciate. in conclusion, i have hit a bit of a lame patch here in bareyellaland. i mean, that poem the other day, in case you didn't see it just scroll down there a bit, now that was a bit of unlame, but c'mon... yesterday's post was completely lame and how much lamer do you get than here, today, examining the lameness of yesterday's post. this is the sort of time when some people would take a break from posting, but i am a brave soldier and i will power through the lameosity. stick with me. it will get better. hell, it really can't get any worse, can it?

p.s. hey, i just read over a few days's postings and looks like it's just yesterday and of course today that are lame. my ass is restored to its natural pomposity!

it's monday night - time for headlines!

conan o'brien new solves 7-word wheel of fortune puzzle with only one letter clue.

dakota fanning rescued on uruguay beach.

dallas cowboys fire coach robert downey jr.

prince, paris, and blanket tapped to voice mr peanut.

the most lucrative degree is named riskiest place for ID theft.

flying brake pad injures two in nursing.

lycopene, found in tomatoes, can help create a mini big bang using the large hadron collider.

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conan o'brien debuts new show tonight.

woman solves 7-word wheel of fortune puzzle with only one letter clue.

dakota fanning named homecoming queen.

baby dolphin rescued on uruguay beach.

dallas cowboys fire coach wade phillips.

robert downey jr tapped to voice mr peanut.

the most lucrative degree is nursing.

flying brake pad injures two in texas speedway skyboxes.

colleges and universities named riskiest place for ID theft.

prince, paris, and blanket share memories of dad michael with oprah.

lycopene, found in tomatoes, can help prevent sun damage.

scientists create a mini big bang using the large hadron collider.

text your donation -- it's quick, easy, and most of all, you don't have to get your hands dirty.

it started with a box at the front of the store, a hand-lettered sign requesting "food for the needy". the idea was to purchase a few extra items and drop them in the box on the way out. then there were lists, "buy these items, leave them in the box at the front" partially to remind folks to participate and partially because there were things getting in the box that shouldn't be there. i mean, everyone loves a loaf of bread, but the food bank doesn't need a squashed moldy bag of crumbs. so the grocery staff took to packing brown bags, writing on each bag what it contained - canned ham, dried beans, peanut butter - and writing a price on each bag, stacking the bags beside the checkout for folks to purchase a bag that was then placed in the "food for the needy" box. many more people remembered to help out and there was a much lower risk of ending up with unusable food.

yesterday while shopping i saw a new display loaded up with decorated reusable bags with "food to share" printed on each bag, all stacked neatly in a cardboard shelf. there's a poster at the top of the display showing three levels - "gold" is comprised of a canned ham, couple cans of beans, some rice; "silver" is peanut butter, jelly, tuna, crackers; "bronze" is vienna sausages, canned fruit. the idea is that you take a piece of paper to the cashier and tell them which you want ot purchase - a gold, silver, or bronze level package - and you get a free reusable grocery bag. simple. nothing to think about except which level. the grocery benefits from the inventory control because they don't tie up a bunch of items in the "food for the needy" box, and it stops that idiotic needy-box pilfering and vandalism of the unattended box. at the end of the campaign, the grocery orders the exact amount needed to fulfill what the customers purchased to be donated, and delivers it directly to the food bank, neatly packaged instead of randomly swimming in box.

i wanted to be generous, but chose silver because i like peanut butter better than canned ham and i bet a lot of hungry kids like it better, too. yeah, hungry kids. that's who is at the end of this streamlined, sterilized process - hungry kids. they've made it so easy for us to be our brother's keeper, separated us so far from each other, is it any wonder we don't know who our brothers are?

now you see it now you dont

although it looks like it now i did not take the day off yesterday i wrote something but decided to remove it so if you saw it well good on ya and if not well you didnt really miss much which is of course the entire reason i took it down that is because it wasnt much now i realize that a lot of these posts could fall into the not too much category but the one from yesterday could well be misconstrued also and until i can think of a better way of writing it and by better i mean more clear then i am not going to put it up here which sounds like a good plan and all that but its really self censorship which i dont like to do because i dont want to be in the position of second guessing my posts or i would probably have like only three posts in the whole blog but the possible misconstruing i mentioned is key here for it wasnt something that would be misconstrued about me but rather about someone else and on the one hand nobody knows who i am and on the other hand of course everyone does because its not that difficult to figure out so i said something yesterday which was supposed to be a jokey diss on me but the way it came out was as if it were a factual statement about someone else in a way that really wasnt fair since it is not a fact about that person whom i of course did not name and probably no one would have ever gotten from it what i inadvertantly put into it so of course i am being ridiculous but that is how i roll.

i am now officially a bengals fan.

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i have subscribed to arcamax's free "spanish word of the day presented by onlingo" service and i am proud to say i am learning spanish at the incredibly painstaking rate of one word at a time. it will probably take many years, but it's way cheaper than <snark> rosetta stone version four totale </snark> npr's always going on about. you know, for a station that doesn't run commercials, npr runs a lot of commercials. anyways, this is not <snark> rosetta stone version four totale </snark>, this is onlingo which i think falls somewheres between ondasher and oncomet, but i could be wrong there.

i am going to share with you two of my recent spanish lessons. hay, your welcomed!

¿cuál? - which?
¿cuál es la capital de guatemala?
what is the capital of guatemala?

okay, firstly "¿" and "?" are patently punctuation, not letters, and i know that spanish is different than english in many ways, but no, their words do not have punctuation built in, so how the hoopdeehoo am i supposed to learn my WORD of the day if onlingo is going to merrily throw down punctuation and pretend it's part of the word. c'mon! also, it would be a really big help if they would decide on the definition before the lesson. which? what? ¿cuál one is it?

zapatos, los - shoes
en muchas casas japoneses, hay que quitarse los zapatos.
in many japanese homes, you have to take off your shoes.

that one is pretty straightforward but maybe not too easy to remember, so i'll give you this tip i created. okay, it goes like this, think of a japanese house and then remember: in japan, even frank zappa toes show. okay, i hear what you are saying. you are saying "shouldn't that be frank zappa'S toes?" and i am here to tell you, no because we are not talking about frank zappa's own specific toes. haha! don't be silly. we are talking about toes that are like those of frank zappa, so that if you have these type of toes and you are in japan with your shoes off, someone would say to you, "wow, you have some frank zappa toes there, buddy!" and you would be all, "hey now...." because everyone knows ol' frank got da monkey toe.

this concludes today's spanish lesson.

autumn

evening
soft and grey around the edges
misty air
some trees
bright yellow
bright orange
bright red
others bare
i took a jog
i went right past your house
you're not there
how many ways to say i'm sorry
how many times to apologize
how many payments to be made
before this debt is settled in your eyes
evening
soft and grey around the edges
misty air
some trees
bright yellow
bright orange
bright red
others bare
i took a jog
i went right past your house
you're not there

future perfect continuous

today someone used the phrase "interstitial freedom" and it reminded me of this.

digital clocks have forever ruined our sense of time by making it too specific. what ever happened to half past and quarter til? you certainly can't see half past on a digital display. most of the time i prefer analog. i like to know where i am in relation to the greater spacetimecontinuum. i don't want to know it's 17:34:44 on 2 nov 2010. i want to know it's half past 5 today. i want to know it's dusk and it's autumn. i want to look at my watch and see if there is enough space between the hands for me to have a snack before i go vote. with analog, time has a mass, a volume, a geography that it doesn't have in digital. time isn't a flat line. all minutes are not created equal. each minute is a little container, a tupperware waiting to preserve a wee bit of life. some minutes are completely filled to the brim with hope or anxiety or building up or tearing down or crying or hitting or hugging or laughing and some minutes are half filled and some are not much filled and some are bout near to empty but there's no such thing as an empty minute even if you're dirt because stuff always happens and keeps happening and has been happening and will have been happening and happened, had happened, and will have had happened -- even in the dirt.

news of the day

i don't know if you heard the news today (oh, boy) but a volcano exploded in indonesia and a giant sink hole appeared in germany. in other words -- a volcano sucked up part of germany and spit it out all over indonesia! c'mon you know they are connected. this sort of thing is happening ALL THE TIME but we don't even know it because 75% of the earth's surface is covered with water and it's all happening down in the deep.

in other news, the vikings have cut loose randy moss and i am telling you right now if the titans sign him, i will have to cheer for elvis's hapless bengals. kenny britt came up lame yesterday on the first play - a long pass from vince young. kenny pulled a hammy which sounds like to me he didn't warm up really well, so he should have axt me before he went tearing off down the field like that. the titans's game plan yesterday involved throwing it long or alternately, giving it to chris johnson and letting him try to run thru a brick wall for a short gain. what turned out to the be last play of the day, they sort of tried to combine both by throwing it short to a WIDE OPEN chris johnson who decided to just sort of flail his arms at the ball until it caromed off his body and onto the ground. it was a last ditch effort - they'd really been playing catch up all day what with britt hurt and then vince coming up lame, too, later in the game, and of course the fact that they could not stop the chargers's passing game which as a west coast team is pretty much their entire game (did you even WATCH any film?!). it was down to collins, cook, washington, scaife, and johnson to make something happen and apparently they were not up to the task.

in other news, my weather app & i have differing opinions on "severe weather". no, this is not photoshopped (other than to remove the city name).