November

Seedy readings, etc.

Whole Earth Discipline
Food's Frontier
Future of Food & Seed
Navdanya

Milkweed & Willows

http://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2008/10/joy-of-milkweed-seeds.html

"If you sit at an open attic window toward the end of September, you will see many a milkweed down go sailing by on a level with you, though commonly it has lost its freight--notwithstanding that you may not know of any of these plants growing in your neighborhood.

...I notice milkweed growing in hollows in the fields, as if the seed had settled there owing to the lull of the wind in such places.

Thus, the quietest behaved carries off the prize while exposed plains and hills send forth violent winds to hale the seed to them. The calm hollow, in which no wind blows, without effort recieves and harbors it.

...When I release some seeds, the fine silky threads fly apart at once, opening with a spring--and ray their relics out into a hemispherical form, each thread freeing itself from its neighbor, and all reflecting prismatic tints.  These seeds are besides furnished with broad, thin margins or wings, which plainly keep them steady and prevent their whirling round...

...But not in this case is the return to earth fraught with danger, but toward night perchance, when the air is moist and still, it descries its promised land and settles gently down between the woods, where there is a lull of the wind, into some strange valley--it may be by some other brook like this--and its voyage is over. Yet it stoops to rise."

-Faith In A Seed (92-93)

Monet ~ Woman Sitting Under the Willows"
monetalia

"Ah willow, willow, would that I always possessed they good spirits; would that I were as tenacious of life, as withy, as quick to get over my hurts.

I do not know what they mean who call the willow the emblem of despairing love! --who tell of

             

                   'the willow worn by forlorn paramour!'

It is rather the emblem of triumphant love and sympathy with all Nature.  It may droop, it is so lithe, but it never weeps. The willow of Babylon blooms not the less hopefully here, though its other half is not in the New World at all and never has been. It droops not to commemorate David's tears, but rather to remind us how on the Euphrates once it snatched the crown from Alexander's head.

*****

Herodotus says that the Scythians divined by the help of willow rods, and where could they have found any better twigs for such a purpose? I begin to be a diviner myself at the first sight of one.

When I pass by a twig of willow, though of the slenderest kind, rising above the sedge in some dry hollow early in December, or agove the snow in midwinter, my spirits rise as if it were an oasis in the desert. The very name "sallow" (salix, from the Celtic sal, "near," and lis, "water") suggests that there is some natural sap or blood flowing there. It is a divining wand that has not failed but stands with its root in the fountain."

-Faith In A Seed (63-64)

Silly

Pumpkin Pie

I should see this on stage some time

This is like the first song I remember but they cut Sancho out...

This one has Sancho but the sound quality is kinda messed up...

This is a version sung by a 10 year old girl...1:50 - holy soprano...

More entertainment

"Community" Netflix DVD - In spite of the fact that I didn't get well over half of the action flick references, Modern Warfare was very fun to watch. The Chicken Fellas episode was also good...

Interesting media moment!

Local TV station's anchors quit...

"Michaels, 46, and Consiglio, 28, didn't tell anyone of their decision before the newscast..."

Age Discrimination On TV

Oh well, maybe Consiglio saw into the future...

Foxy Ladies

"winsome women paired with older men"

This is an odd song

to get stuck in your head on Friday night...
I'm Only Thinking Of Him
and also on Thursday night....

Sounds like the beginning of a movie...

For years, Christiane Schaefer and Wolfgang Hock would meet regularly at an Italian bistro in Berlin. He would order pizza, and she would get the penne all’arrabbiata. The two philologists—experts in ancient writings—would talk for hours about dead languages and obscure manuscripts.

It was the fall of 1998, and Schaefer was about to leave Berlin to take a job in the linguistics department at Uppsala University, north of Stockholm. Hock announced that he had a going-away present for Schaefer. She was a little surprised—a parting gift seemed an oddly personal gesture for such a reserved colleague. Still more surprising was the present itself: a large brown paper envelope marked with the words top secret and a series of strange symbols.

Schaefer opened it. Inside was a note that read, “Something for those long Swedish winter nights.” It was paper-clipped to 100 or so photocopied pages filled with a handwritten script that made no sense to her whatsoever...

-- They Cracked This 250 Year Old Code

Eating well but not reading enough TAROT

Eating out is not a thing I get to do regularly, but now that we have a roommate with possibly the most benign youtube channel ever - please make this a good sign - I finally got to revisit an old childhood favorite. That was The Old Spaghetti Factory in Seattle, which gave you a free glass with your Italian soda and spumoni. (YUM said my 8-year-old tastebuds.) This one is in an old haunted schoolhouse. As I scrutinized the limited choices on the menu, I realized that maybe my tastes have changed, but anyway, Homer apparently ate their signature dish while composing his epics! (Noodles and Mithra cheese.) It has also come to my attention that silly internet browsing kidnaps free time I could've spent on more useful activities, like reading Tarot cards...Medeya, schmedeya...I was queried as to whether I have asked one of my parents for an opinion about some stuff in the news, and the answer is, no, I did not ask how he felt about his star classmate's media scandal because it seems not quite the thing to do right now (even though, apparently, even cooking show people can't stop talking about it.) Yesterday, I found a squash lasagna recipe on this food blog. I was like, that girl looks a lot like my activist twin friends from DC. I read it while I was also eating kale and squash...coincidence! (Spaghetti squash with pesto, in my case. Squash masquarading as pasta! I think I am into that.) Those coconut muffins are also intriguing...Then I looked at the blog author's twitter....what's that...we share the same birthday? I told the person I live with, who said to me, "Here, I want to show you something." Held out cell phone to show me a picture. "Where'd you get that?" "That's my friend with..." "You have a picture on your phone of him with someone you know? The guy who is the 'lead screamer' in Jodie Foster's Army is also in the actual military?" I really do wonder what I am supposed to do with my life. Could Tarot provide the answer? The only thing that's really clear is that sometimes, life can be pretty weird. I haven't been to NY, VA, DC and other places in a good while. I miss them. I wonder when I can go back. But I am ensconced on the West Coast. Which is fairly amusing in its own way. And a lot more tolerable now that the weather is no longer in the triple digits. I think tonight I'll drink cheap wine and watch the last two episodes of "Black Books." (Wah!) After that, there's always "Community." Other things that have come to my attention:

Ask A Mortician

This show about people who are preparing for solar storms in Arizona and have all these gas masks and stuff in their guest room (it's like they're in a freakin' military camp or something...) but also they have a pool full of fish and a garden in their backyard and eat weird seaweed sludge...auuuugh why can't I find it now?

Pumpkin Curry
RUMOR: "It's good without the cashews"

I still want to see these sometime...

Earthships

No I don't, but I'll keep my eye out!

" Remember the 1980s ad for Wrigley's Doublemint, set in a restaurant, in which Girl A, speculating about where the boys might be taking them tonight, asks Girl B whether her hair looks okay? Girl B responds that if she were Girl A she'd be less worried about her hair than her onion breath. Why didn't Girl A gently put down her fork and punch Girl B on the nose? And why was Girl B so worried about Girl A's breath, when Girl A was having the skimpiest salad, of which the onions formed part, for her main course? Was this why they were eating before they met the boys? Because Girl A and Girl B were locked in a toxic cycle of narcissistic and mutually destructive sexual competitiveness? Far from encouraging me to buy gum, it instilled in me a determination to date boys in front of whom I could eat the most lingeringly pungent foods. If he still fancied me after an onion-bhaji-scented kiss, with a trailing after-note of minty raita, I would have found my match. See also Chili & Mint, page 196."

~ The Flavor Thesaurus (99)

Taco Day

After a strange afternoon, which included a young man telling me about the "immorality" of Calista in "The Storm" and listening to Sex and Power in the Military on the car radio,  I stopped for a taco at a fast food place (99 cent special, carnitas, surprisingly good salsa) and ate it while looking out the window at sunny mountains, listening to I'll Be Around, and wondering how I ended up in this place? November is really warm and sunny here. The guy who gave the weather report on the classical music station said he was going to rush right through it because it was boring. The same temperatures are predicted for today, tomorrow, and the rest of the week. "See, it's just kind of boring," he concluded. Well, you can always celebrate because it's not too hot...

The sky of boring weather

Really need to work on that closed captioning...

Hey, random post

"'That Girl' ran from 1966 to 1971 and won numerous awards, including Golden Globe for best actress."

I never heard of this show or that actress, until about 2 minutes ago...

How thoughtful...

Tulsa weatherman provides directions to Canada

Seedy thoughts

Food Inc. and Monsanto
Cornucopia.org poster
Vandana Shiva on Good Food
Agrarian Poetry

TO READ

The Flavor Thesaurus

spicelines.com

Flags and Flowers

Laundry Day...

West Point USMA ~ Made in USA
Poe's Tavern ~ Made in Downtown LA
Bunnicula Meets Edgar Allan Crow ~ Made in El Salvador 

Evening & Morning

Yesterday evening was partly like:

Smelling burning wood (very autumnal)
Admiring the way soft electric lights illuminate buildings and sidewalks at night
Listening to Your Cloud's watery lyrics
Sort of thinking about the water cycle

And for some reason, the morning was partly like:

Black Flies remix with surfer and Lofticries and looking up pictures of flying.

http://learnmyshot.com/how-to-photograph-a-flying-cat/

Perhaps...

People should read this after the election...
America You Sexy Bitch trailer

~~~~
???
CA's GMO Labeling Proposition
Farmers Clash on Prop 37
Food Movement Rising
Delusions of Danger
Food Companies Spend $ To Defeat...

~~~~~

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2012/11/01/the_simpsons_attacks_romney_with_mr_burns_and_seamus_the_dog_video.html

Interessante livro de mapas...

Maphead

Challenging British Isles accents in film

More Recently: Four Lions    More Like Back In High School: The Commitments

Today's fascinating food

Spaghetti Squash

medeeya

Not Medea...although, after the Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys painting, Christine & Medea in Epistre Othea came to mind...Musica de danca ~ I have discovered that What New York Used To Be is in the iTunes library. Wasn't terribly excited about "Your Body" (except that it has a good beat for practicing steps) but, what's this, apparently it's kind of sinister when you see the video? Hey, whatever works. Beginners can have fun...it's not like when I took that pottery class... Zero Ghost Tolerance ... Ghost Scene... There may be a way to find the funny clip of eyebrow wriggling in Romantic Expressionism...I give up! Up next: cut up a gazillion vegetables and listen to Anastasis. Random: "The director recommends that, when the film is shown, a toaster oven containing several heads of garlic be turned on in the rear of the theater, unbeknownst to the audience, with the intended result that approximately halfway through the showing the entire theater will be filled with the smell of garlic." ~ Garlic Is As Good As Ten Mothers

Seasonal

Pumpkin tea and tropical xylitol gum. The combination is like a weird sugarfree dessert.

Pomegranate and rather crispy brussel sprouts. Does this excite us?



Out-of-season

This is not the season for it, but for some reason I've been thinking about this cool custom I learned about earlier this year. Maybe the reason I was thinking about the cascarones is because of a weird dream I had. There's been some issues with acquiring a new roommate and the empty room takes it's financial toll...well, in the dream, the empty room was not an issue, and I was talking to b.f. about being excited that a baby was coming (not referring to a baby I was having or anything) and then it was like, oh gosh...taking care of a baby is a lot of work....this is possibly because a cousin of his going to have a baby soon. I saw him at Easter. The cousin was saying that he and his girlfriend went to the N.G./AFP Halloween show last year because she's a big fan...he wants to write about music...I got a picture of him getting an egg cracked over his head...they are both about 19 or 20 or so...I didn't think of it before, but it kind of makes you wonder, where do some of those Easter traditions came from?

Acorn

clover

leaf and seed

wood

Halloween dress

poetry

Nevermore

I went by this scarecrow contest last weekend and thought "Nevermore...could that be a reference to...?" 

As if the universe wanted to deliver some kind of spooky answer, a girl with a soccer shirt that said "Palmer" on the back floated by at that exact moment...Just kidding, she walked the ground like a mortal being. Should have snapped a picture of that as well...

Crow White

Nevermore

Fall Fun

To be or not to be...

Special Olympian Writes Powerful Letter to A...
preferably not like her

Playing With Pumpkins
more like the pigs

V asks P

V: So how does this strike you?
     Dear penis-centric society, why don't you go fellate yourself...
P: I don't think that would go over too well.
V: Really? How come?
P: Because it's impossible.
V: Are you sure?
P: Yes. There has already been a movie made about this topic. It's called Clerks.

A lot of people are tired I think

“I’m tired of Linda McMahon telling us she’s pro-choice and then tell us that she’ll vote against every pro-choice measure which will come before the Senate,” Murphy said. “You’re not just pro-choice because you use the word.”

-- Democrats stresss women's health

oh, life's medical ironies

A: I looked at your twitter feed and noticed that place I was thinking about calling for an appointment this morning had to get evacuated for a bomb threat

B: good thing you didn't go there

Cute & happy

Puppies kept lost boy warm

I want the world to stop

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_and_Sebastian_(Japanese_TV_series)

for younger self

younger self needed to read this!
going to bars vs. staying at home and reading
 "book conservator asked..."
tumblr of book conservator
~~~~~
also...itemized lists that can make one laugh...

Healthcare on Facebook

Kendall

posted October 28, 2010 at 5:55 am

This is coming from a doctor whose employer probably charges $10.00 for a tylenol? perhaps this doctor is a bit detached from the real world, and should practice in a society cosmetic office, considering the level of empathy he has for his patients. Notice he did not mention a thing about donating any of his $150,000.00 annual paycheck(average) to nutrition education in poorer areas, he just whined about it. What an ass.
gold teefs in the ghetto-40.00
small jankitty tatoo in the getto- 25.00 x 7
urban fashions at crappy retailer- 40.00
cell phone-150.00
dope ass jordans at crappy retailer-90.00
altogether less than this doctor makes in two days as an er physician….that’s whats wrong with health care
if they weren’t in it for the money, doctors who actually cared about patients would be practicing medicine.

Aw

The grandmother effect
in whales

It's life in a body

ailments can be challenging
sometimes it's time to kick it with S. Halpern
health is wealth...
hopefully, the people elected to office will have some empathy for women's health issues...

Nat'l Library of Medicine

Capriciousness

"Sail" fan video by Nanalew

"A Conversation With My 12 Year Old Self" by weepingprophet

musique - 80s,90s, 21st century

80s
Sowing The Seeds
90s
Battleflag
2000s
Young Folks

Books dipped into yesterday evening

Random Family - the characters are definitely interesting
The Emperor's Children - the characters are disappointingly boring

Random Family got some good reviews. So did The Emperor's Children, but I just cannot get into the latter. I have been known to savor some "boring" ("Jamesian") books, but it is not the one for me right now.
Maybe some other time.

It's not too early to plan for Thanksgiving...

With a handy copy of Modern French Culinary Art. 

Page 435 is not some kind of dessert in a puff pastry.

It is Vol-Au-Vent of Fillets of Sole.

~~~~

Is page 623 a model of a hot air balloon that has crash landed atop a tray of pink cold cuts? 

Not quite. It is Ham glazed with Aspic. 

Aspic, aspic, aspic, where have you been all my life?











Most interesting in the last 15 minutes

Mysterious elk shaped lines! In Russia

"Women don't take forever to pee. It's other chicks who make us wait. We have absolutely no idea what we're doing in there, and we look at one another in the bathroom line like, What the hell? Then, to keep ourselves occupied, we play with one another's boobs." -- Faith Salie in Esquire

Random memory: Being 10 or 12 years old on an airplane and feeling really, really tempted to ask the male flight attendant for a copy of Esquire.

Cute song & video in park

Stories...

Forest family

Father & daughter

Growing up

Hug a tree?

"Send out Roots, Enter the Heartwood, Branches Reach for Heaven, Stand in the Stream and Sway in the Wind"

https://reikienergyhealer.wordpress.com/2011/10/27/chi-kung-and-the-healthy-tree-hugger/

"Based on my continuing luck with the moles, earthworms, and cabbage worms, I decided I would contact the Deva of the Japanese Beetle. Much to my astonishment, I touched into an energy that I can only describe as that of a battered child. It was an energy of defeat, of being beaten into submission. Yet it still had mixed in with it anger and a strong desire to fight for its life.

I was told by the deva that what I was experiencing was not devic but from the conciousness of the Japanese beetle itself. I needed this experience in order to understand what our relationship with the beetle had already done to it....

I then addressed the issue of the corn. Still hoping to salvage some of it, I decided I would try to raise the vibration of the individual stalks--perhaps the ears would fill out in spite of the Japanese beetle. I spent three days putting my hands on each stalk and LOVING it. At the end of three days, nature had had enough of this nonsense and I was told to leave the corn patch and not return 'until further notified.'

Devas and nature spirits do not respond to what they call 'gooey, sentimental love.' Their love is a love of action and purpose, and it is that kind of active love they desire from us. (Once while giving a workshop, I was asked to accompany several of the leaders of this particular community to a bush. It was a rather large bush, and it didn't take a horticulturalist to see that it was dying. It seems they had recently transplanted the bush, and, as part of their transplanting process, several members in the community would form a circle around it each evening, join hands and send the bush love...LOVE. The bush had the nerve to die on them anyway. I was asked what they should do. I walked up to the bush, looked at the soil around it, checked the leaves, then turned around and said, 'Try watering it.' That's love in action. Not to be confused with loveless action. Love in action is appropriate action done in a caring spirit.)"

--Behaving As If The God In All Life Mattered, pages 147-149

Possible Books "To-Do" List

This one certainly piqued my interest this morning: My Abandonment - P. Rock

Other intriguing-sounding books (some are in this list):
Stoner?
Beautiful Ruins?
A Fortunate Age?
Random Family?
The Emperor's Children?
Big Machine?
~~~~~~
Beautiful Ruins images...

Cats & Art

Famous Paintings Improved by Cats

random merriment

I have no idea why, but for some reason this was very amusing to me:
Here you go Johnlockers
I e-mailed it to a friend of mine who watches Sherlock Holmes.
Should I start watching it too? Perhaps I need to incorporate more cinnamon into my diet? What does it mean...

Feliz cumpleaños con retraso

To celebrate health
A post-birthday birthday song
Ana Tijoux - 1977

Mil Novecientos Setenta y Siete

because because because again

Okay, I knew there was some reason why Tideland reminded me of this Strange Little Girl video?
I didn't even order that movie.
Stranglers -- Strangle Strange Little Girl
~~~~~
This song/video seems pretty cool: Safe and Sound. That's both cool and pretty, like other parts of the country and world are right now. Tomorrow is supposed to be in the triple digits. Perhaps I will pretend to be a strawberry, or some kind of heat-sucking plant that loves such weather...
~~~~~
Also read:
Lack of Affordable Healthcare...
because because because (while I was sick)
Gypsy Thoughts
&
A Telling Place

Kore

A Kore poem

Another Kore poem

Kore sculpture

http://shapelywomen.blogspot.com/2009/05/peplos-kore-acropolis-athens-c.html#!/2009/05/peplos-kore-acropolis-athens-c.html

http://hecatedemetersdatter.blogspot.com/2011/03/one-of-morning-prayers-that-i-say-is.html

Yesterday...

Story: The Only Foaming Is At Her Mouth

This very strange film:

Tideland

Some of it was quite grotesque. But very interesting, the parts with the dolls' heads...

That "deer in headlights" feeling

How you might feel when you drive after convalescing for about a week...

In the car: KSPC

Lofticries

Interesting but disturbing video

Lungs

Hmmm, the Search For Delicious is also a book I owned...

heartily heart...

SOUP

MISO soup, with
rice
spinach
teeny bit of garlic and soy sauce

this don't look half bad!

deep dish chocolate chip cookie for one
nice pictures

things to love...

1) half a can of chicken soup
2) chopped garlic
3) half of a lemon to squeeze into the soup
4) having the appetite to actually eat it

Patterns of speech

Apparently, Americans sound more like British people everyday...

Nature Dream

A dream from a while back: while traveling through very deep woods in the autumn, a man invited me to see his friend's house, which was partly built into the ground (like a "sod house"). I was really interested in seeing this place.

To my surprise, it wasn't just a house. It was partially a house, but it also had extended areas including some kind of store or winery looking area, and it was connected to a whole town that consisted of sod houses. Well, the businesses were all partially built into the earth. You didn't necessary notice that when you went by them. But because I went through this woman's house, I noticed them. 

I was looking at nature-y things online and when I looked at this: Terra Pulchra, I thought, some of it kind of reminds me of Halloween...and then I thought, actually, some of the pictures remind me of that dream...

more of this today

S. Halpern ~ Chakra Suite
S. Halpern ~ Crystal Bowl Healing
Doesn't hurt; more like helps!!!!!

hopefully...

hopefully things will change and not be like earlier today
earlier today was dealing with many yucky symptoms and then getting to the low income clinic (couldn't drive myself) before 11 and it was already
FULL FOR THE DAY
now, that really sucked
and two parents outside with a little girl crying, waiting to be seen...
yeah okay so maybe tomorrow will include the regular (expensive) clinic, credit card again...
i talked to someone on the phone who thinks "soon it will be that way for everybody" because doctors will retire if healthcare changes...
that would not be good
what i would HOPE would happen would be the opposite...
what i would HOPE is that things will really improve
and i think they can.

b-e h-e-a-l-t-h-y

it's amazing how when it comes down to it, life is about you and your body...

So wow

Being sick is a real wow moment sometimes. I think I need a doctor. I think I need love. I think I need money. I think I need to read my angels book again. Lord, help me...I am a needy person sometimes. Health is wealth! I hope to be wealthy soon....I think I am on the right path anyways.

OK

http://dailyrenegade.tumblr.com/post/817252691/this-is-a-wow-shot-mt-shasta-and-lavender-fields

This looks almost ridiculously healthy

http://blog.superhealthykids.com/2011/09/flower-tray-crudit/

It feels like the Pumped Up Kicks song needs to be playing.

on breathing and irritability

There was some chattiness in the pharmacy line as I waited to pay for a product that would hopefully help me breathe better. Namely, older guy chattiness with cashier about old people vs. young people. I didn't pay much attention because I was just hoping they'd hurry up. Possibly this was on my face. "Gee, maybe I said that too loud," said older guy to cashier. "Everyone agrees with you!" said cashier to older guy. "They agree on this side..." older guy said, "but not on that side!" and then he actually pointed in my direction. "Ha ha!" said cashier. Seriously? I would just like to purchase this product to help me breathe...finally they left. Cashier rang me up. I made an effort to look as sweet as possible. "Do you have I.D.? You need to be eighteen now to buy some of this stuff." I had I.D..."Thank you" equally (?) sweet smiles were exchanged. The medicine tripped the alarm as I walked out, but they could have easily chased me to my car and caught me taking my medicine surrounded by wads of tissues everywhere if they really wanted to. I thought, isn't it funny how amusing snarky older men are in books (like Herbert Rowbarge), yet how annoying they can be in real life? I came home and devoured a rice cake and two cloves of raw chopped garlic with honey. Now I would like to go back there and breathe on the guy! Just kidding.

this is THE thing to read sometimes...

"Healing in the future will be based on light, vibration, color, and sound. It will correct the originating cause of a disease rather than just erasing its symptoms...The 21st century will bring precise scientific ways to use color and sound...Gradually, healing with light, color, and sound frequencies will become widely available."
xxii, Intro, HYWL

Aw...

Poor kid...
Newborn Loses Faith...
He needs to hang on a little longer and visit their awesome public library and movie section...

Amusing things going on in other parts of the world today

Being sick sucks, but watching funny things is the way to get through it...

She's kind of a riot...now, if I had stayed at that community college and applied to work in the English Department...how amusing that might have been...

People campaigning for office who make you feel more crappy when you are sick: NO

People campaigning for office who make you feel better even though you're sick: YES!

Hmmm, better than expected...

"Its national book week: Grab the closest book to you, turn to page 52, post the 5th sentence..."
~~~~~
"I immediately jumped out onto the path to see whether it was the one that my heart was intent on."

--The Selected Writings of Christine de Pizan

this was the song of the scratchy throat

From Tibet's Garden - Klänge vom Himalaya...
Specifically, the 2nd to last song:
"Sonnenuntergang am Himilaya  - Himalayan Sunset"
If you listen to it in bed when you are sick with a scratchy throat, and it's hot, but you have an icy water bottle to cool you off...it's kind of an experience.

quite interesting, from a while back...

What Happened To Bobby Dunbar?

I dream of Throat Coat...

Being sick sucks for multiple reasons. Like, you were going to go to work. But you couldn't muster the energy to do all that trekking around outside in the heat. And then, of course, you don't get paid. And hopefully, this ailment will go away soon and won't require a trip to the doctor for the healthinsuranceless. But the internet is great and The Daily Show - Sept 19 was quite amusing...followed by Colbert Sept 17 ...who needs to watch these things in order? I am also dreaming of the temperature dropping below 90 any day now...but in the meantime, I'll continue to sleep with my frozen water bottles...

A way to look at carpet

"The choice was between a roll with different kinds of pipes printed on it and 'Dad' repeated over and over in brown and tan, and this one, the one they settled on, with puppies; a friendlier paper somehow, the puppies all roly-poly, tangled up in the words 'Happy Birthday' spelled out in curling green ribbon. There is real green ribbon made to match, and it was this added feature that tipped the balance. But now--'Oh, dear,' she says aloud, and wishes Babe were there. When she and Babe are together, everything seems easy, everything makes sense. Alone, she is sure of nothing. The planet may slide at any moment from its orbit, the sun lurch sidewise, the carpeting break free from its moorings with a whump and roll itself thickly up to smother her.

 

She spreads out a length of paper from its cardboard tube, and while she reaches for the scissors, it curls back up again slyly. She thinks of the carpeting--waiting, she knows, to do the same--and gives it a suspicious glance, but it keeps all innocent and blue to the floor, muffling its intent."

--Thursday, May 22, 1952, Herbert Rowbarge

monstermarketplace.com

psychology of humankind

Read Female Soldier Ambushed By Baby, and all I can think of to say is...however you feel about your body, it's usually not a good idea to totally ignore it...Sometimes I get in the mood to look at things like this...Off to make a honey / cayenne pepper / garlic / soy sauce / apple cider vinegar / hot water concoction for this wicked cold / flu...
~~~~~~
Oh...it seemed like the Different Drum song wanted me to play it again. ;-)

Ar

Friend told me about this:

Talk Like A Pirate Day

I might get an early start, 'cause I caught a cold.

this has maps about food

maps...food...other stuff...

the art of the simple wish

to wish to be better at all the things you wish to be better at

Sunday night musica

Listened to, noted, and then posted Monday...

I Should Watch TV (D. Byrne & St. Vincent)

Before that (whilst grocery shopping):

A Little Respect (Erasure)

After that:

Narrow Way (B. Dylan)

this is an odd place

So, I am always in a local town for various reasons (it's on my way to work / has the best 99 cent store / $2 adult lap swim at community pool until Sept. 30! / might be a place to get a more affordable apartment / there's a better selection of materials to order at their library, etc.) and then I read Letter from A Scared Actress and realized that it's also the location where "Desert Warrior" was filmed?
That is so bizarre.

Pens Like Unicorns

"I'm giving it two stars because even though they got me grounded, the pens still write really nice and bring out my eyes."
--"Rachel," Amazon reviewer of BIC For Her 

wah

technological issues interfered with stuff that needed to get done.
cheer self up...listen to Apron Strings!!!!!
~~~~
coincidentally, if I lived with my mother, I could see that guy on his "unchained" tour on my birthday this year. Hah.

Siyahamba...

Siyahamb' ekukhanyen' kwenkhos'

Cheesy or not, I've sung this little song to myself in recent times while having to run around outside on hot, sweltering days not feeling very well...Okay, but why did Tecate have to run an ad before that lovely song, which features a woman who cries and cries after asking her husband/boyfriend/whatever if she looks fat in this dress and he says "no" the second time, and the announcer says "here's to those who prefer peace over truth" and hello, she is not fat !!!!!!!!???????

Lord.

bedtime reading

An article that references Dr. Strangelove.

"To me, military service represented the perfect combination of public service, honor, heroism, glory, promotion, meaning, and coolness. As a child, I couldn’t get enough of the military: toys and models, movies and cartoons, fat books with technical pictures of manly fighter planes and ships and submarines. We went to air shows whenever we could, and with the advent of cable, I begged my parents to sign up so that the Discovery Channel could bring those shows right into our den."

*

" I was only in Iraq for three and a half weeks, and never close to actual combat; and yet the experience gave me many of the symptoms of PTSD. It turns out that it doesn’t take much."

*

"I had assumed that bootstrapping required about as much as it took to get yourself promoted from junior varsity to varsity. It turns out that it’s more like pulling yourself up from tee-ball to the World Series.  Sure, some people do it, but they’re the exceptions, the outliers, the Olympians.
The enormity of the advantages I had always enjoyed started to truly sink in. Everyone begins life thinking that his or her normal is the normal. For the first time, I found myself paying attention to broken eggs rather than making omelets. Up until then, I hadn’t really seen most Americans as living, breathing, thinking, feeling, hoping, loving, dreaming, hurting people. My values shifted -- from an individualistic celebration of success (that involved dividing the world into the morally deserving and the undeserving) to an interest in people as people."

*

"Like so many Republicans, I had assumed that society’s “losers” had somehow earned their desserts. As I came to recognize that poverty is not earned or chosen or deserved, and that our use of force is far less precise than I had believed, I realized with a shock that I had effectively viewed whole swaths of the country and the world as second-class people."

--J. Goulka

Tattoos

Although I do not wish to permanently tattoo myself, I can admire them on others....

Librarian Tattoos

A (very nice) place



So-oooooo....

Wow, today was hot.

This makes me hope somebody doesn't become president:
Embassy Row

On the issue of repetitive music that sticks in your head...I do believe I'd rather get some of that music from the modern dance class I took several years ago stuck in my head (instead of this song...ack!) but, I can't remember any of it!

If only there was a pill that would make a person better at memorizing grammar rules...

kitty kitty kitty kitty kitty....

This guy talking to his cat....
Rufus Tower

low country

eastern birds and such

sandpiper




heron? bittern?





golfball-riddled marsh

Kind of like love...

not being in pain can be an extremely wonderful thing.

Yesterday I woke up after some bizarre dreams at 3 a.m-ish. There was a horribly intense band of pain around my lower back/abdomen. If someone had conked me over the head with a frying pan to make me lose conciousness, that would have been nice. As it was, no one did that. But at least there was somebody to go to the kitchen to fetch a piece of bread (so I could put something in my stomach before taking ibuprofen, although it was tough to chew/swallow one bite), and also, to drag over certain items which would have been within easy reach in a normally functioning state.

As I shivered (though it was not cold) and found myself babbling about angels and heaven, I wondered if two wimpy little Advil really stand up to this pain monster. Maybe I would need to call an ambulance to administer morphine. Do they even do that? And how expensive would that be? But the angels were kind. A few minutes after I applied what is known as a "castor oil" pack (actually, I just poured a bunch of castor oil on myself and then covered up with bits of cut up flannel cloths and a heating pad on the highest setting...how wonderfully old-wives-tales remedyish it all seems...) the pain started to decrease. Hallelujah! It became more manageable. Eventually, it even went away.

"How long was that...like 5 minutes?" (It felt like it had gone on for about 1/2 hour, but I was trying to underestimate.)
"Longer than that."
"Ten?"
"Maybe about 15 minutes."

Extremely grateful to be feeling somewhat normal again, I ate the rest of the piece of bread, which I had clenched and mashed up into a round ball of dough. Is there magic with castor oil? I wondered, thinking that I will have to slather myself with it regularly from now on...I had visions of saving the world with castor oil packs...For some reason I thought about the character of a sick woman who took morphine in To Kill A Mockingbird....Also, when I googled "yoga retreats for nuns," this is what came up.

This is quite strange

A music video with some dance elements
Phedre - Aphrodite
And...mah jong(?)

repeat

sometimes you hit "repeat" to play a song over and over
today it was "una notte a napoli" from "hang on little tomato"
while driving on not too crowded freeways
observing the topography and flora of this region

It just didn't get old.
What is it about this clip?

data entry :-P

tedious stuff
made easier
by radio
Don't Understand
or
Don't Understand not the remix
and
Dum Maro Dum
and other stuff

~~~~~

today i saw the yard of...
THE SODFATHER

Solar Storms

"the next one's due in 2012"
Secrets of the Sun
why doesn't blogger like the youtube embed code

Black Books!

Just began watching this show.

Many Netflix episodes to come...

Have to order a book for school. Sadly, could not find it in several local bookstores. Also considering ordering Music from the Venetian Ospedali.

This other version of Sicut Erat seems to be the best I've found on youtube so far...

music night, crazy day

Attended a show at El Rey because bf won tickets. Funny clothing thing...he was wearing an old gray t-shirt, and some guy in the crowd points at him and says, "JFA!" Then a girl in a floral cocktail dress walked by and murmured, "Jodi Foster's Army." So because of "that old t-shirt,"  I found out that he knows the singer of a local band and they worked together, and he helped him copy-edit an album. I am intrigued by the stories list on their site and will have to read them later.

The opening act was a band with two female lead singers. They seemed pretty good. I didn't exactly recognize them, but then I heard some lyrics (I just wanna, I just wanna, be your brother...) that I remembered hearing on the radio:

Be Your Bro

(I kind of was thinking about the time I gave a kid a bloody nose on a playground when I was like eight because he tried to kiss me...shameful, shameful memory...sort of.)

Then the lead act came on.


I didn't know much about them. But they sang lots of songs about Texas teardrops and stuff, which seemed appropriate. Their music kind of made me want to "go West..."

(Or East, actually. To a tourist ghost town.)

Today was a crazy day. My sister and her husband are going to be separating, maybe temporarily (or maybe not), so this Texas rescue operation is going on again. (It's happened before, but under different circumstances.) This time, just my dad was going down. My sister went to meet him at the airport and got in a car wreck, but she was okay. Her little dachsund, who was in the car with her,was in the back seat before the wreck and at her feet afterwards. But he seemed okay and ate a hamburger, so hopefully he just crawled up there under the seat or something and nothing bad happened to him. However, the car was totalled. My father had to rent a car at the airport, find the place where the car had been towed, get all the stuff out of the car, and then start driving (hours later) with her in order to make it to the hotel where he'd made arrangements to stay for the night. They'll continue to drive across the country and then he'll fly back to the midwest so he can start teaching after Labor Day. She'll be on the East Coast (sans car, apparently) living at my mom's place. For the moment, it's good that everyone seems to be okay... La vida es misteriosa.

hmmm, kinda fun

A video with some of the Hollywood/pop culture references that are in "Pencil Thin Mustache."

OmyDEARgod

IMO, not for the faint of heart...
First, this comment: 
Oh..My..GOD. I'm not but 17 years old and i haven't had a baby, and i'm not pregnant but omfg this makes me even more scared to get pregnant... Lol i had no idea of all the things i had NO idea about, in my school they don't talk to us about pregnancy. They talk to us about STD's and what our own body parts do. And they throw in a month or two about drugs and alcohol. But... the pregnancy part is completely 100% skipped, can you believe that?
Posted by: Haley | June 16, 2010 at 02:16 AM

Posted under this article. (Found here.)

more random reading in the library...

To the left, Daredevils of Sassoun. Armenian folktales? Beautiful women and heroes bartering for them. A father granting the hero permission to give two kisses to his daughter. A woman slapping a man for kissing her between her breasts. A guy breaking his wife's rib for her insubordination. An illegitimate son defeating his father in combat and then they wind up being friends.

Okay, enough of that one....

To the right, The Adrian Mole Diaries:

"Thursday March 11-- Pandora and Pandora's mother have joined my mother's woman's group. No men or boys are allowed in our front room. My father had to be in charge of the creche in our diningroom.

Rick Lemon's baby daughter Herod was crawling under the table shouting: 'Tit! Tit!' My father kept telling Herod to shut up until I explained that Tit was Herod's mother's name. Herod is a very radical baby who never eats sweets and stays up until 2 a.m.

My father says that women ought to be home cooking. He said it in a whisper so that he wouldn't be karate-chopped to death."