Hang up the #*%%#@ phone and drive! (PG language alert)

I should put this all in caps, because I really, really want to shout this at drivers:

Put away your fripping cell phone, the nail polish (yes, I did see a girl painting her nails while driving 65 down I-35 one morning), the make-up, the Big Mac, the GODDAMNED LAPTOP FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!, the sales figures, the CIGARETTES (why are you smoking in the car anyway??)...and DRIVE!!! Some of you even need to shut the fuck up and not talk to passengers while you're attempting to drive....hell, you shouldn't even have passengers.

95% of you can't drive worth a shit anyway and you're going to distract yourselves even more by talking on the phone (and no, you can't talk on the phone and not be distracted), paint your nails, put mascara on (??!?!?!?!), eat a taco and drink a soda, text, jack-off, or prep for your morning staff meeting while you're driving? Really.

It appears...

...I'm five days behind on my schedule. Well, hey, you got two posts one day!

If I had a regular reader base...oh, heck, a reader base at all...I'd be more fussed about it, but as it is the one whole person who reads my site understands. *evil grin*

I have a whole raft of things going on. I made a couple of dos-à-dos  journals out of a box that canning rings and lids came in. They're small, but came out quite nice. Even my 15 YO son thought they were cool. Going to do a very small video on them, just to kind of get started on the video blogging. Now I'm making a smash journal for him to take with him to New Orleans; he's spending the summer there with my brother. I have to make sure it's not in the least girly, or he won' t use it. There are a kabillion and one video tutorials and flips and flops of art journals, smash journals, "junque" journals, junky journals, journal journals, and-how-to-desecrate-a-book journals, ruin Moleskine journals (and create very nice art journals from them, too)....you name it journals out there on Youtube, but you know...what we need is just one more lady sharing her art, right?

On the "desecrate a book" thing: at one point in time the idea of "altered books" was just....blasphemy to me. But to be realistic, there are crap-ton of old, falling apart books that will either end up in the landfill or --if someone is doing the right thing-- in the recycle, so why the heck not make something nifty out of them? There are all kinds of artists making sculptures out of old books, but this guy really blows me away. I'd go insane trying to do all that. Particularly, I think old, out of date textbooks are a prime candidate for upcycling into art.

One of the projects I want to do is creating a memory journal out of a really, really old book I had as a little girl (©1950!).  In fact, there are several I'd like to do that with. This particular one was a favorite of mine, about an old guy who has a clock shop. Anyway, none of the original pages would be taken out or destroyed. I'll vid it when I do it.

Took the dogs to the pet clinic today. Turns out they only do vaccines at 1:20 PM...so I had to haul them back home, and then I left the old man at home and just got Abby taken care of. Tested for heartworms (negative, woot!!), annual boosters, they micro-chipped her for free (it'll cost $18 to register the chip), claws clipped, a tube of Advantage for each dog and HW preventative for Abby all for $87.50. Not too shabby. Serg is is 13, so they might not even give him shots. I will have him tested for HW. He might need sedating for the claws, though, since they're so long and it would HURT. So...might not do that either.

Abby was a scaredy-cat, but behaved very well. She's a very sweet dog, but just not used to other humans. So...after a few days, I'm going to start walking her again and taking her to dog parks and stuff; she really needs to get out and be social.

Meanwhile...I discovered bugs in my ceiling. The good news is that I don't think they are termites. The bad news is, they're probably ants. Bleah.

 

A Little Piece of Austin Has Died

If you're not from Austin, I can understand not having heard of Leslie. If you are from Austin--or at least lived here for the last 10 years or so--you've been under a rock if you don't know who Leslie Cochran was. Was. He died this morning at 1 AM. He was just a year older than I.

Leslie was one of the weirder things about a city that prides itself on being weird (much less so than 29 years ago when I moved here).

To read about Leslie (you can Google him...there's lots out there, so I won't be redundant here), one gets the notion that he was mentally ill...crazy...his cheese slipped off his cracker...but I don't know. To look into his eyes...



(c) Austin American-Statesmen 2000

...those aren't the eyes of a crazy man.  Somehow, I think Leslie had the best laugh of all. He lived out those wacky fantasies we all shove into some dusty shoe box at the back of our closet (not that I really want to walk about in a thong and not much else) while enjoying the reactions and adoration of the "freaked out normals." He made enough to live on and did what he wanted to do, when and how it suited him. Society, of course, will label someone like Leslie as mentally ill, or at best nonconformist, simply because he didn't fit the simple, round, 9-to-5 hole.

It's not a life for everyone. And, of course, we need doctors, lawyers, beauticians, mechanics, musicians, and politicians...okay, so we don't really need politicians, but you get my drift. The world works the way it does because everyone fills a niche. Leslie filled a niche, too. He provided entertainment, a topic of conversation, a distraction, a reminder to not take life so bloody seriously all the time. The thing that made Leslie weird was not his supposed insanity, but his chosen avocation. Just another wacked-out homeless dude is not that weird, to tell you the truth; every city has a gazillion of them. As the article points out, Leslie did not have to be homeless, and often wasn't. He could have held down a regular job, too, I'm guessing.  If choices make us who we are (Professor Dumbledore said so), then so do our lack of choices. So much of my life has taken place on auto-pilot, doing whatever the path of least resistance led me to rather than where my heart would have rather been.

So...stuck in a dead-end job, doing crap you'd rather not...or being free to wear a thong in public and run for mayor in silver fuck-me shoes...when you're a guy...and yet still getting by. Makes me wonder who was the more successful....

Farewell Leslie, fair winds and following seas.

I'm not dead...really

I had told myself I wasn't going to be one of those web/blog people who started a site and then just disappeared off the face of the earth. Well, I suppose that's true, because here I am, but it's been three months.  Several times I said, "I need to go make a post, but I just don't feel like it." and blew it off.  I'm paying for this g-damned site, g-damn it!

Part of keeping a website/blog is to chronicle the things that happen (especially in my case, since my memory resembles nothing so much as a screen door...with holes in it...) and it would have been nice if I'd been on top of things...oh, well.

In today's news, it's cold. Friggin' cold.  I know those of you up in Yankeeland don't think 23 with a wind chill of 10 is all that cold, but in Central Texas...for the record...that's cold.  And it's icy. But it's business as usual (BAU). Bleah.  My van stopped blowing warm air halfway into work...I'm hoping it's just a confused thermostat...we'll see this evening.

My dryer has been eating clothes for some time now. The drum is loose and things catch in the space between the drum and the housing. Minor damage being rusty marks, major damage being holes in things, like a starving moth got hold of them.  And now the washer has decided to stop running. It cycles, water runs and drains, but the drum doesn't turn. The dishwasher conked out a year ago. So..I'm wondering who'll extend credit to a credit weenie like me.  Farg.

The road to hell...and all that jazz

I can't figure out if I've really been that busy or if I have a mental block against posting...or if there's just so many ideas running around in my ADHD-addled brain that I can't figure out what I want to post on.  If I posted on every little idea that staggers along, there'd be a kabillion and one little, disjointed posts. I have a notebook with me, but usually when I'm thinking about such things, I can't write...you know, potty breaks, on the bus, etc. (I can't read, write, crochet, or use the computer in a moving vehicle or I get seasick).

Recently I've had posts in mind about obesity, politics, religion...huh...what else is new...but also my house, products, decorating, sewing, etc, etc. *sighs*  I guess if I can't actually DO those things, I can waste time writing about them eh?

In tech news, Microsoft has done some king of weird merge with Instant Messenger (IM) and all your social media. The result...crap. I use my Hotmail account for two things (well, three, if you count IM): Facebook and for those things online where you don't want to put your REAL email account. I don't want it, or FB connecting to everything else I have. It's not that I have anything to hide, per se, but there are elements of my life I'd just really not like terribly public, you know? FB is my public face. I have friends who are co-workers, students in our department, relatives, friends who are not necessarily in my "inner circle," as it were, and I'd rather the two worlds not collide. although a couple of my close family read this site, I'd really like to keep the rest of the fambly blissfully ignorant of it. R says-re work and the 'net--to get ready for the "cloud." WTF-ever the "cloud" is. I neither want nor need my life clouded, thank you very much. There is a sufficient number of people, were they to stumble across this site and read it, who could quite handily figure out who I am. That's fine, I have no problem with that, but I don't want to advertise.

I have an LJ account and I've not posted out there in ages. Every once in a blue moon, I go out and catch up on everyone's posts (I have about 6 or 7 friends there), but haven't felt compelled to post. I've even been half-tempted to delete my FB account recently, after a mutual FB/LJ friend (and a very close personal friend) posted that some of her FB friends should "shut [our] cakeholes" in response to a comment on FB, and a vicious attack by a guy I went to HS with. (Did you know, all you liberals, that we're un-American, stupid, ignorant, uneducated morons? Makes me wonder how the hell I graduated from one of the top universities in this country in a fairly difficult degree, with a high GPA and how I got the job I have, with the military, no less...dang...I'm such an un-American moron. Ppfftt)

The cakehole thing is a perfect example of the anonymity of the internet. While this friend might have gotten testy with me in person for saying something (and trust me, it really wasn't that bad), she never would have gone off on anyone the way she did on the 'net. (To put my feelings in perspective, she said several people had made comments, but as far as I could see, I was the only one.) Perhaps I'm overreacting; it has been known to happen and I will admit the post was not directed at me personally, but I still was hurt.

(For the record, I find the terms "piehole" and "cakehole" to be extremely rude and offensive, so perhaps that added to the overall feeling of hurtness. Dunno. They're just words I never use, kind of like "scumbag," or "douchebag."  Just.plain.rude.)

I find, in general, that we say things--well type them--behind the shield of the 'net that we would never, ever in a million years say person to person. Makes me wonder if WWIII will be caused by two or three heads of state going at each other via e-mail some day.

Yawn....

I've been very much neglecting my website. I suppose other "bloggers" have this problem. Do you ever have one of those periods where there's a lot going on, but either you don't really feel like putting it all into words and/or you feel if you did, it would just seem, I don't know...kind of meh...? I suppose that's a form of writer's block, eh?

There's also this: I just don't seem to get anywhere. One of my friends just cooks along on her projects, and I go to blogs where people are doing cool things and their houses look so awesome...and mine is still craptastic. I have no time, no energy, and no money. I walk into a room, filled with ideas and take one look at the clutter and the dust and say fuck it and walk out to go read or play on the computer.  I just don't know where to start. My place has become like one of those little puzzles you had as a kid--usually numbers, but sometimes a US flag or other picture--where you had to move all the little tiles to make the picture. You'd get one part of it done and realize you had to back-track and move all those pieces aside just to get the corner in. That's my house. I look at one project and realize the huge number of things that have to be done before I can even start. Fooey.

Anyway, that's not the big news this week. Everything's kind of been put on back burners. More on that later...just wanted to let my adoring fans (all two of them, both related to me no doubt) that I hadn't fallen off the edge of the world. (That got me to thinking if the tea baggers and the flat earthers and the birthers all got together...oh, wait, they're all pretty much one and the same, aren't they? Never mind....)

'Til tomorrow, little buckaroos.

On again, off again..

I was doing quite well last week, with the blogging. And then it all went pear-shaped, as they say.

I did actually make some progress with "things" over the weekend, but you know...two steps forward, 19 back...and here I am again. Still with mounds of clean clothes to be folded and put away; I'd done all the dishes and spiffed up the counters, and there it is all to do again. Damned dishes...what is it with having to be washed every day?  I mean, really?  And then I tried to do myself in this morning.

I go now?

This cat, Valentino, who is very prone to urinary issues, has decided that even the soft wheat cat litter is not to his liking, so he's been peeing on the garage floor next to the box, instead of in the box. *headdesk*  So, this morning, he'd done it again, so I grabbed what I thought was the hydrogen-peroxide kitty destinkum gallon jug. The stuff foamed up like it was supposed to and it usually has an odor, so I wasn't too horribly concerned over the odd smell and the burning, tingling eye-thing.

Do you know what the major ingredient in urine is?  That's right, Baby Bop, it's ammonia!

Do you know what was in the white gallon jug?  That's RIGHT, chlorine bleach!

Now...who knows what happens when you mix chlorine and ammonia?

Are we going to read the label first from now on?  You betcha, Red Rider!

I'm about to state the obvious, so please don't choke on the olive in your martini when you snort at me. There are a kabillion, bazillion, and 93 bloggers out there. The intarwebs is full of the varmints. Some are good, some are precious, some funny, some oh.my.god.I.really.don't.give.a.flying.foo.what.your.son.had.for.breakfast.woman (especially if it's the same damned thing he's had every day for a week).  People who merely recount their boring lives (raises hand) are really just journaling online. Like me, I doubt they really expect much of a following.

I could certainly put my blog out there more; give it excerpts for people to google, paste it in comment forms more, add ads to it. But I really don't want to. I've given the URL to a select few and if I get a few readers, cool. I really do doubt I'll have more than a few friends and family reading. And that's fine.

Part of it is that my blog is not really a blog...it's more of a virtual tour of my disjointed mind. A lot of blogs have a theme, or a specific subject. There are totally insane people out there who have a design blog, a gardening blog, a wine blog, a dating blog, AND a personal one.... And they're all perfect, and the author is gorgeous and went to some blue chip school and has perfect kids--or perfect animals and has decided not to spawn.  They decorate with a lot of white and use words like smoky texture to describe wine...and/or cheese. Just how does one evaluate smoky texture? Do you smell it with your fingers? Or  rub your nose on it?  Dunno about you, but that confuses me.

Know what also confuses me? How some people have time to read 90 blogs in a day. Good googly moogly, folks...do you ever do anything? Two of my best friends blog fairly regularly (thank goddess it's not everyday!) and I barely have time to keep up with them. (And I have to admit, I have not followed all of Sylvan's  recent posts on 30 books in 30 days..., sorry sweetie). I check FB every couple of days and Live Journal almost every day, but some bloggers have a list as long as my arm of pages they're following. Do they actually read all those? Or did they read a post or two and decide to put them in their blogroll just in case they were stuck up a tree one day and had nothing to do (and happened to have an iPhone or netbook with them)?

Here's an example. This lady is gorgeous and has bought and renovated a dozen houses...and she's only 30. Talk about making an old lady feel like a loser!  But you know...by some standards I might not be all that successful, but then I think what I do. I help shape tomorrow's leaders...officers who will be making big decisions one day. I have colonels taking my advice (and even a general or two over the years!). My pay sucks pond water, but what I do is important, and people respect me. I had my time of being a gorgeous 30-something, and while I wish to hell I hadn't let my body go, I'm still a beautiful person. Even when I'm chewing you out.  And? I know the difference between a smell/taste and a touch sensation. Really, I do.

The Daily Bull 8/15/10

Was supposed to Had told bossman I would go in and finish the library this weekend. Just don't have the energy, thank you very much. My house, never in the best shape to begin with, has REALLY been suffering from my lack of energy and being in such pain when I get home (damned move). Now that things are settling down a bit a work, I might be able to muster up enough steam to get my kitchen back in order. It's amazing how quickly R & W can mess it up.  You know...if they paid for that talent...

In other news, R has been commenting a lot on some website about smart phones or something. First he won a mouse, then a keyboard, then a $100 GC from Amazon, then another one... Then this past week, they emailed him and invited him to take part in some conference or other in Bellvue, WA. All expense-paid weekend AND he comes home with a prototype Win 7 phone. How fleeping cool is that? Finally, his writing starts to pay off! *gigglesnort* ETA: and then he won another $100 GC after all that!

Figured out how much money I had left. If I don't pay one bill (a certain credit card that's now really past due) I can get us by with cheap bread, bologna, beans, tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches...with the odd potato something thrown in. Going in to start a pot of beans in a minute and will make some kind of bread to supplement.

It's just so bloody hot out. The A/C struggles to keep up and if you go outside, your core heats up and it takes forever to cool off. I hate the heat; why am I in Texas? Why?

Half an hour..then I can go turn on the sprinkler in my front yard.

Classic scene this AM...letting Abby out...she dashes in her run, bounding six feet in the air, chasing the birds out of her territory. LMAO. They love the seeds in the overgrown wild sunflower jungle out there. I cut one down...with a tree saw! it was easily ten feet or more (I couldn't tell because it had fallen over) and the stalk was almost as big around as my chubby wrist. I think I will pull them up next year and plant more sedate hybrids in a controlled area. Geesh.

Grand Fubar

A friend of mine posted on Live Journal the other day about some huge conflagration of heavenly bodies in some astrological hooha known as the Grand Cross. Planets are at right angles, stars and constellations are trined and plaited and goddess only knows what up there to cause some sort of weirdness with the Universe.  You know, if you go in for all that.

Makes me wonder, though. Another friend of mine has been having a rash of klutziness...breaking things, cutting herself, putting things on wrong, etc. and today I'm about to go postal on the next poor slob who asks me anything.

Part of it is the move. I've just HAD it...up to here *indicates a foot over head*. Everyone seems to think I'm this grand, walking font of knowledge and that I can solve all sorts of problems and have limitless strength and patience, and worse, that I give a flying foo about those problems in the first place.

None of that is true. Yes, I know some things, yes, I put up with a HELLUVA lot before I break, but it's not limitless. I spent 15 minutes in the loo crying, throwing things, and talking to myself like Gollum this afternoon...I'm hoping once the push to get everything put away, organized, and neatened, and the beginning of the semester will ameliorate some of my hypersensitivity to bullshit. Probably not. Maybe the Grand Fubar will shift enough and I'll start spouting poetry and painting things pink.

Aaahhh...better I should go postal on your ass.

Are we there yet?

Theoretically, we're all moved in at work. My area is one of the last to be organized. Of course....hey, it's me!  We have way less room than before, but it's very nice and way beats the tiny hole in the wall I had in the English department years ago. You'd never have believed I had the financial desk; you'd have thought I was a third-rate office assistant or something. (I still relish the story the person who came two after me told, when she told the chair how much that desk actually handled and if she were going to take it over how many assistants she needed...and how wide-eyed the chair got when he said, Really?!?! Wow, I never knew...  Never did get an apology from him, but at least I got the satisfaction of knowing someone had set him straight on it.)

At any rate, these offices used to belong to women's athletics, now they're all ensconced in the fancy-schmancy new north end of DKR-Memorial Stadium, called the N-Zone. *rolls eyes* Over the years, the office areas of Bellmont have become rabbit's warrens of added walls, etc. We ended up taking several walls out to make the suites more functional.  I don't have my camera here today, but I'll try to get pics up sometime.

Obama is on campus today, so the boss is there and I'm taking my lunch at my desk to write....I left Saraswati (that's my tiny Dell Inspiron) at home, or I'd be writing on it.

The boychile had first day of band camp today. Haven't texted him yet to find out how it was...but he's not texting me saying it was hell, either, so I'm assuming it was okay. We had to drop him off early so we could get to work. There was another boy there and they were all ready to wait, but the band director stuck his nose out the door and had them come in.  W had let his hair grow pretty long and I'd already pretty much convinced him to get it cut, but after he went and ran around with his friends last week, shooting Airsoft rifles, we picked him up and he begged to get his hair cut...August in Texas, ya gotta love it. Personally, I could care less how long he grows it, but since he's starting off at a new middle school and repeating the 7th grade, I really don't want him labeled one of "those" kids, and you know they will.

Well, I'm off to the loo (I think that's what that song is really about, skip, skip...skip to my loo, skip to my loo, my darling--yep rapid bathroom trip, for sure), and then working on the supply room that holds about a third of what my old one did. Creative organization (and a large recycling bin)!