I write so much drivel lately that I couldn't put my wishes for 2013 any better, even though Carlin's words are a few years older. Umm... apparently NOT written by George Carlin. Nice sentiment though. :)  http://web.archive.org/web/20040930232902/http://www.georgecarlin.com/home/dontblame.html

SOMETHING TO PONDER: George Carlin

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but shorter tempers, wider Freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems, more medicine, but less wellness.

We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little, drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.

We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values. We talk too much, love too seldom, and hate too often.

We've learned how to make a living, but not a life. We've added years to life not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet a new neighbor. We conquered outer space but not inner space. We've done larger things, but not better things.

We've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul. We've conquered the atom, but not our prejudice. We write more, but learn less. We plan more, but accomplish less. We've learned to rush, but not to wait. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but we communicate less and less.

These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion, big men and small character, steep profits and shallow relationships. These are the days of two incomes but more divorce, fancier houses, but broken homes. These are days of quick trips, disposable diapers, throwaway morality, one night stands, overweight bodies, and pills that do everything from cheer, to quiet, to kill. It is a time when there is much in the showroom window and nothing in the stockroom. A time when technology can bring this letter to you, and a time when you can choose either to share this insight, or to just hit delete.

Remember to spend some time with your loved ones, because they are not going to be around forever.

Remember, say a kind word to someone who looks up to you in awe, because that little person soon will grow up and leave your side.

Remember, to give a warm hug to the one next to you, because that is the only treasure you can give with your heart and it doesn't cost a cent.

Remember, to say, 'I love you' to your partner and your loved ones, but most of all mean it. A kiss and an embrace will mend hurt when it comes from deep inside of you.

Remember to hold hands and cherish the moment for someday that person will not be there again.

Give time to love, give time to speak! And give time to share the precious thoughts in your mind.

And always remember, life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by those moments that take our breath away.

George Carlin

"Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it. "

Not really sure that anyone follows this silly online journal of sorts, but it's time for a very, very, very brief update. I'm down to revisions on my chapters one, two & five! I am half way finished with chapter three, which will allow me to either write the transitional chapter regarding 19th African American literature & canonical US and British works that use similar imagery and language that will gloss through specific images in Dumas, WW Brown, Charlotte Brontë, Mary Shelley, EA Poe, Harriet Jacobs, Harriet Beecher-Stowe; or, become an introduction to the current chapter five, which deals strictly with the resurgence of African American culture and literati's fascination with the Haitian Revolution during the Harlem Renaissance. 

The season of Saturnalia is upon us. I buy a toy or toys for anonymous kiddos, however, I do not necessarily participate in many mainstream practices of the occidental celebrations of this holiday. My family and friends understand my position on the preoccupation of our capitalistic celebrations of Christmas, and I appreciate that they know I will call them, but I won't send them a card because I believe cards in general are wasteful and then become clutter to those who give a mass-produced paper object such strong sentimental import. Rather than buy people things once a year, I try to tell my friends and remaining family how much I love and appreciate them throughout the year... and I do give gifts; ie, KL gets random RUSH items whenever I come across something cool, LL get's smiley face things, Mom gets nice shoes and her car cleaned out, her shrubberies trimmed, her plants watered, a compost hole dug, her French drains cleaned out, she knows where the guns are, ha. I deal with her WWII realities of anti-waste and necessity, and also I'm her occasional strong arm-- neighborhood bully chick who first writes a passive aggressive note to neighbors who park in front of her house, and waits to see them park facing the wrong direction, then calls the cops. My sister has everything so I respect that and don't get her anything. She wouldn't like it anyway, and I so respect that because that's what I tell people all the time-- "If you really want to get me something take me shopping, or give me the freaking money, or better yet go walk dog at the humane society or take your well-behaved pet to a nursing home on a Saturday," that is spreading love and joy. Just because your mom thinks you'll look adorable in something like that pink rabbit pajamas set the poor kid gets in "A Christmas Story" doesn't mean that your dwindling space will allow for something so intensely useless... and I'm not even going to elaborate on how annoying that would be in a city like Copenhagen, where people live in even smaller spaces than the post 1980 constructed domiciles that US citizens have adapted to.

Oh boy! Rambling is so very much fun, but I am back to the glorious process of revising, revising, revising... pretty sure I'll rant some more about December issues, and then include a list of everything I want for my birthday, which should really be a national holiday... (sarcasm), and it kind of is-- at least Punxsutawney Phil & I think so.

No time left for you...

Poor blog! I have been so busy trimming my nails and typing more insistently important things and I have little time to post here, heheh. And hooommm... what have I been doing? The printout of my chapter draft has blurbs written in the margins like, "check out Imp guild Hoax,"  "add Askalon," "need lvl 23 might hilts for Anna, lvl 27 force for Pan," change Iseulte to armstech & investigation," "Stephen needs mods for Flashy," and "Transport 5 1187 571." If you understand what I'm talking about hey, I enjoy it, too!

I will expand on this brief post soon, but I loved "The Avengers," but I love Whedon and I love Buffy and I love Firefly, so... I saw it three times.  I will watch it again to just to squint at it. There's something cool with the CGI that I can't yet describe... no time. Also saw "Cabin in the Woods," ha! Yes, I guess we all thought of that, especially after the "Truman Show." But what makes that film is the Buffy-esque "Initiative" element, which again, I'll have to expound later. "Dark Shadows": as one who watched the soap, it is pretty true to that kind of drama with lot of silly stuff; sure, Austin Powers meets Barnabus Collins, but it worked for me. Then again, Burton and Depp & Carter always work for me. Maybe by the time I catch the new Spidey and Batman and "Abe Lincoln Vampire Hunter," I will elaborate more on my reception & aesthetic appreciation of these films? Also I need to address a great many typos... :)

Church of Stevie

When I get mentally stagnant, all I have to do is listen to "Inner Visions" and "Songs in the Key of Life" and jump around and up and down to the music and sing the words loudly until tears roll from my eyes, and I think that must be the same kind of feeling that people have at church. I wouldn't know because church freaked me out when I was a kid--- Joycean hell sermon kind of thing.

This is such old news but if you never have, listen to these songs and ponder:
Stevie & Tupac & Coolio

They've been spending most their lives
Living in a pastime paradise
They've been spending most their lives
Living in a pastime paradise
They've been wasting most their lives
Glorifying days long gone behind
They've been wasting most their days
In remembrance of ignorance oldest praise
Tell me who of them will come to be
How many of them are you and me

Dissipation
Race relations
Consolation
Segregation
Dispensation
Isolation
Exploitation
Mutilation
Mutations
Miscreation
Confirmation... ...to the evils of the world

They've been spending most their lives
Living in a future paradise
They've been spending most their lives
Living in a future paradise
They've been looking in their minds
For the day that sorrow's gone from time
They keep telling of the day
When the Savior of love will come to stay
Tell me who of them will come to be
How many of them are you and me

Proclamation of race relations
Consolation
Integration
Verification of revelations
Acclamation
World salvation
Vibrations
Simulation
Confirmation.......to the peace of the world

They've been spending most their lives
Living in a pastime paradise
They've been spending most their lives
Living in a pastime paradise
They've been spending most their lives
Living in a future paradise
They've been spending most their lives
Living in a future paradise
We've been spending too much of our lives
Living in a pastime paradise

Let's start living our lives
Living for the future paradise
Praise to our lives
Living for the future paradise
Shame to anyones' lives
Living in a pastime paradise

21st Century pop culture chit chat

hmm... and born on Bloomsday ;)

Tupac gives posthumous live performance from beyond via hologram

OK, I'm not big into the gansta shizzle, yo, but I reared a tiny rapper and I'm familiar with the stuff. I also understand from whence the genre was born and how it evolved into a cultural art form more respected in the world we live in than Shakespeare (and that's not a bad thing)-- at least perhaps, by the younguns  I also know that Tupac and Biggie were 2 of the greatest and they both died from senseless gangsta murders. I also know, and have known for a long time, that Tupac was way too beautiful--one of the finest aesthetic representations of the male form in our world-- a warrior in the streets and in the language. This hologram freaks me out. I wonder if people will one day be paying money to see live performances via holograms-- just projections. In more than one connotation, projections & light  are everything in 21st century society & culture. Hmmm, and someone mentioned project bluebeam (?) One day I will work on these unfinished, semi-conclusions...

Isolation: a good reason people believed Howard Hughes was insane...

I've been writing about my self-imposed dissertation isolation, and as the days roll by as I sit before this keyboard and screen, I slowly began to think I was losing my mind. "I used to type better than this?"  "What's up with all the typos in my first drafts?" I type things and sometimes can't even read what I've written... why, you ask? Well, it seems that even though I try to take care of myself, this can become a hindrance. Although I haven't left the office in a couple of weeks, I keep my nails nice and sometimes paint them. I realized last night that my nails have grown too long for me to function, and it's time to cut them off. I remember seeing a film about the final days of Howard Hughes when I was a kiddo and wondering, "How does he move around like that, with those super long fingernails?" Mine aren't super long, but you can tell I haven't been playing guitar, haha!

The thing is, I used to bite & peel my fingernails, and I'll admit it here to no one that as a kid I even bit off my toenails-- I was limber, and I still am--but no, I don't bite my nails anywhere any longer. When I was a kid, my father's fingernails freaked me out. He kept them groomed and well cut, but he kept one pinkie fingernail really long. No, pops wasn't a coke-head, he used it to turn slot screws, clean out tiny grease-filled grooves on some mechanical part, and I think he picked his nose with his hanky-- yeah, a hanky-- that's what we called those cloth, environmentally-friendly bits of cloth one blows one's nose into. So the point is, I grew up my entire young female life not knowing what to do with fingernails. As we grow older, they don't seem to stop growing, do they? And toenails? In the summers when I wear sandals, I forget to look at my toes after I paint them and the next thing I know they're poking through socks or bending my toe up painfully when I suddenly decide to boot-up and take a ride on the motorcycle. My nails are frequently used accidentally as weapons of destruction on some random thing they cling to.

Therefore, I'm ritualistically removing them today so that I can type better, and perhaps pick and grin a bit on breaks, but here's my eulogy for them: Goodbye purple tips!
I-solation

Many days I still miss my longest intimate relationship...

You know how when you really like and love  someone and know them really well you come up with silly & sweet pet names for them? Sometimes I think the love of my life is a sweet, precious dog: "The Specialist," Vaillecita/o, Violetta, Love, Sweetness, Sweet Judy Blue Eyes, Sunshine, Sunshine Puppy, Puccini, "the face," the Phantom, die Hundin gern, Cutiecia, Veezer (the Weezer), Piggasus, Pigasaurus, Ms.Thang, Best Dog Ever, Vyer, Vido, Snuffleluffagus, V, the V-A-I, Bourgee, Locacita bonita, knucklehead, the Vizor, etc.  She stuck by me like Mary's Little Lamb throughout college and real world and graduate school, six boyfriends, one husband and a step-son.  Vai was a silly dog, but she was so human-like she really was a genius, very affectionate and a good groomer, although sometimes she could get a little anxious and would full on attack Akitas and Pitt Bulls and other larger dogs. She often seemed as though she was Marilyn Monroe reincarnated as a dog... the bitch was sexy, that's all there was to it. Like all dogs, she loved snow, strangers, pumpkin pie, ice cream, baby carrots, blueberries... bacon. She hated the beach, short walks, people who walked heavy, especially wearing boots, being picked up, and not getting to go.

Vai's favorite walks were up Animas Mountain, along the Animas river, La Plata Canyon and going up to campus in Durango. In Seattle, she didn't even like the mist at first and rarely would go for a walk or outside, ha, but near the end of our time there she would go on walks up and down and around the block on 75th NE where we lived, and she loved to chase the geese around Lake Washington near the Sound Garden, and she went to Jimi Hendrix's grave. In Boulder, her favorite walks were Boulder Creek, "The Loop" which is what we called the extent of our neighborhood's side streets which were all loopy because of green space to slow traffic, and of course, "The Ring of Fire," which connected the three parks in our neighborhood at the north end of town. She also loved walking to the campus there, and going to class with me. I would ask if my students had allergies to dogs and if not she would come chill out with everyone during classes, she believed humans existed for her to love. .Her best tricks were: "the paw," vying, jumping into a VW bus, psychically causing people to drop food during preparation of a meal, saying "I love you," getting noticed, and of course, faking limps at the beach and running away from the water at all time unless there were pelicans.

Vai saved me when I picked her out in March of 1992 from La Plata County Humane Society. I remember the day I picked her out and how her little brain trembled beneath her knuckle head, and her butt shook when I walked past her cage, and the little scar on her nose that looked like she had given herself from sticking her nose through the chain link fence at the humane society for far too long. The attendant saw me looking at her and told me that she was the sweetest dog, age uncertain, and that her time was up on that day--4 hours more and she'd be euthanized. When I showed an interest in her, the shelter worker offered her for below cost-- I remember thinking how can they eliminate such a pretty little dog with beautiful blue eyes; and she wasn't blind, or deaf. Then the lady said, " If you'll take her I'll give her to you for $20-- she's spayed and you'll still get a free vet visit." Of course I couldn't refuse! Because I was a college student, I had to sign a statement that I would be responsible for this dog and not just leave it in town when I graduated, which apparently happened quite often. I took that document very seriously. They put a little red rope leash on her, and she bounded with that silly gait of her's, leapt right up into the seat of my bus, and then kept trying to make me wreck the whole way home from sticking her head under my hand whenever I tried to shift-- and kept doing that beggy-paw at the sky-- then she did that moaning- growling-beggin' thing she used to do with the trembly-brain and said "Raii Roeoorrvvf Roo." When we got back to the glorious basement apartment I shared with another student, she liked it and ran inside and jumped on the back of the couch like a cat. My roommate KF and I named her--during the drive home I thought I would name her Suite Judy Blue Eyes after a Crosby Stills Nash and Young song, but then I thought that was a better nickname-- we started with Violet (for her blue eyes), then Viola from "Twelfth Night", Violetta from "La Traviata", but when we played Steve Vai's "Passion and Warfare" the dog freaked out when the lady on the CD began screaming "That sounds like noise Mr. Vai". I'd always heard that dogs respond best to a one-syllable name, and then I remembered "D'yer Maker" from Houses of the Holy, and how Robert Plant says, "Vi" at the end, and of course the punning verb "vie" went with her begging... so KF and I decided that was the name . Vai enjoyed the multiple allusions in her name as much as I did, I'm certain. (ie, A language, Vai, is spoken by approximately 105000 people in Liberia and Sierra Leone, the Vai people; also Sanskrit for wind; Yiddish for woe, etc.).

As is the case with everyone's beloved dog, she was the ULTIMATE dog-- so unique and sweet, feisty and adventurous. She was more well-traveled than most humans she knew, and everywhere she went people always stopped and asked what kind of dog she was, noting her striking ice blue eyes: Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming, Idaho, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas; she even went to National Parks, like below at Bryce Canyon NP, (and Goblin Valley State Park, Capital Reef NP, Zion NP, Rocky Mountain NP, Mesa Verde NP, Canyonlands NP, Yellowstone NP, Glacier NP, Hot Springs NP, not to mention every state beach between Florence, OR and Walla Walla, WA) but was very bummed about the leash. Vai loved riding on the fold up couch in the back of the campmobile. In Silverton, a jeep tour driver from Louisiana was impressed by her and said she was a Louisiana Leopard Catahoula," trained at one time to hunt cougars in the swamps. Jeez! Although this would explain her propensity for attacking dogs that were obviously tougher than her, she wasn't. Once at a Circle K in Dolores, Colorado, a man having coffee saw her sitting in the bus and was just certain she was a puppy from his recently passed dog (a catahoula). He even had what he believed were her puppy pictures in his car glove-box, which we looked at but couldn't really tell. But he was positive... "there was only one my Sadie had with blue eyes and all that white."

Many of my friends in college would come to my house to see Vai, and if they were going for a hike up Animas (my basement cave was essentially in the base of the mountain), they would stop in & ask to take her along. She loved Bobby, Alex, Pat & Turtle. People sometimes were afraid of her-- thinking she was a pit bull! But a breeder of huskies told me she looked like a beagle/husky mix, common in Alaska; however, everyone had an opinion. She liked to herd, but also to pull and drag. She always took the perimeter of a region before walking straight through. She also received labels of Healer, Aussie, Terrier, etc., from various admirers. Wow! Neither Vai, nor I knew what she really was. Just for fun, we often told inquirers that she was a special breed: The American Dog. (I call myself a Euromutt.)

It pains me to hear about people that don't treat their dogs with humanity. Maybe I'm a nut-job but I sacrificed a lot to keep Vai in my life when many times as a starving college student and graduate student and employed person, I felt like she deserved a better home-- someone who could afford her annual exams and dental cleanings. I felt that attached to this beast. I wanted her to have a better life. But every time I almost gave her up I would decide she would rather be with me and I would rather have her too. In Durango, Portland, Seattle and Boulder, it was impossible to find affordable housing that was decent and clean and functional if you had a dog--no talk of deposits just NO DOGS. So I lived in cheap basement apartments with oddly contrived plumbing, no closets, and lots of spiders the whole time I was single, but Vai had her walks and her couch and her expensive, hippie sled-dog food, which was all I could get her to eat at the time. Although I will say that we finally found a place to rent in Seattle because of her. I had called on a place that had been empty for quite a while and the woman said no dogs, I asked if they would consider meeting my dog? She said no. About two hours later she called me back and said my husband and I have been talking and we have dogs and we will meet your dog. Vai was so sweet and cute and good for them they let us have the house, and even repaired the fence for her.

I have many more stories, especially travel adventures about my special buddy, I'll probably tell more some day... but I've teared up just now thinking about our bond.

Vai was on chemo meds when she passed away from bladder cancer (and possibly skin cancer that spread to her blood, etc.; Vai had endured quite a few surgeries having many cancerous legions repeatedly removed from her nose and belly before we realized it was also internal) that spread to her brain on November 14, 2005. Although her age, was uncertain when she joined my life, she was my primary and steadfast companion for 14 years. Even when she was sick, enduring her final days and had to be carried down the stairs in our house, she wanted to take long slow walk, 4 + times per day! Some jerk in the neighborhood verbally accosted me once when I was out with her telling me I was a freak about my dog, I shouldn't walk her so much, but I loved time with Vai. I miss her often... I have her photo on the wall above my computer... Best Dog Ever.

OK, so she never had to do this, but she would have: SUPER DOG!

"Everything is ceremony in the wild garden of childhood." Pablo Neruda

When I was a kid, I grew up in a nice suburb in between Dallas/Fort Worth. The house was huge by what some standards are today. The kitchen was one of those annoyingly skinny ones with a built-in mod "bar" for casual seating. We frequently ate dinner there. My most traumatic childhood memories are at the dinner table, well, that and when I'd get caught playing in the street. I was a finicky eater, and my father was the guy who wanted me to eat everything on my plate. I was predisposed to some kind of conflict occurring whenever we sat around the bar to eat. I'll never know if it was on purpose, but my dad used to stare into space, his cold, icy-blue eyes always seemed to be watching not me, not mom, not brother or sister, but my plate. I didn't get it at the time, but I guess because I was ten and twelve years younger than his other children, and because I inherited a smattering of his impatience, I can see how going through the fun of kids being picky eaters could get old. It's too bad that's a kind of fond memory of him now.

The entire neighborhood was wooded-- almost every yard had an old stand of trees in front and back.  Our house, built in 1967, was a two-story, four bedroom, two bath, living room, dining room, two-car garage, and it sat on an acre lot, originally about three acres, and there was a tiny creek running through the middle of the property, and many trees, huge, ancient oaks, cedars, elms. The three two-story houses in a row, almost exactly the same with some differences in the stair wells, each had large property dimensions. When I was really small, my sister had a horse named Bandy, all I really remember is he fit in our yard, was white and he would try to eat my hair.

Between my father, when he was around doing cool things, and my wonderful surrogate family next door, those few acres were a paradise . As kids ranging in age of about 6 years, all of our first names begin with "K," and one of the boys was born 16 days before me-- our moms were pregnant neighbors together-- we all went to the same school our whole lives, living next door... and, most of the neighborhood kids hung out with us, and they played while they were still innocent.

In my backyard there was a swing-set with two swings, a big slide and a monkey bar, like parallel bars in gymnastics, and a tiny slide. Over by a huge elm tree there was another set of monkey-bars my dad scored from some park that was being demolished. It was like a huge space-ship and a labyrinth and a dungeon and a jail for all of our imaginary role-playing games. My father built  a wooden airplane swing for me that hung from a high branch in a very very old and large oak tree. It had pulleys on each wing and one at the tail, a bicycle seat, a control stick and a propeller that really turned 'round when you got going fast on it. To the best of my dad's abilities it looked like a British fighter plane, a "Hurricane" I believe, like the one above.

My dad raced cars, loved old motorcycles and was a mechanic, although he was employed as a cash register technician, and our house also had the treasure trove of fun tools, BMW motorcycles, helmets for playing racers, Star Wars, martians, not to forget the old BMW Isetta that dad had bought and it sat for a while in the garage. A little pod-shaped thing, shaped much like today's Smart car, had entry in the front, a big hinged angled door like an industrial freezer--the steering column was hinged and pulled out when you opened the door-- one bench seat, a snap-on vinyl sun-roof. This car was the perfect space ship & time travel device and I remember one rainy day we hung Xmas lights in the darkness of the closed garage and argued over who would be captain, etc. But my surrogate father next door was an engineer, and since he had so many kids I guess, aside from just being a really loving, cool guy, he built a basketball court, where we also held performances of summer plays; a play-house with cherries painted on its lovely pop-out windows, especially good for pioneers at war-- the "pioneers" would be attacked from above with huge black PVC bazookas by the "Indians" who had a stealth position in the tree-house/fort up in a cedar tree to the south of the playhouse along the what by this time had become a large city ditch, former creek. He also built a bridge to get us all across the ditch to where we had a nicely foot-worn baseball diamond, and north of there was a magical,glorious thicket.

When I was a kid I liked the word "thicket" because I'd read it in Bambi, and this was the first "real" thicket I had discovered when I started riding my bike through the trails back there. Of course everyone in the neighborhood likely knew it was there. For me it was otherworldly and perfect; it seemed precisely round and the 15' or higher trees had all bent over the circle and were bound downward creating an enveloping darkness amongst the limbs of the trees, the overgrown shrubs and especially vines.  In the spring and summer, everything from poison ivy to mustang grapes were entangled within the dense brambles; and the flowers, whose names  I learned as primroses, Texas wine-cups, bluebonnets, Indian paintbrushes, Indian blankets, dandelions and buttercups blossomed below the outside rim of trees. In almost the precise center of the thicket was a jagged, worn and shorn stump that still clung to life with fresh green sprouting branches that seemed strategically placed beneath the tiny skylight above. I would carry a lunch there sometimes by myself and imagine that before I arrived there were fairies and elves dancing and frolicking around the spot of sunlight and the green stump. I would feel a surge of energy walking into the circle, and day dream and eat my peanut butter and jelly or plain American processed pasteurized cheese product sandwiches on white Mrs. Baird's bread. I would often look from my brother's upstairs window toward the thicket in the darkness to see if I could see the fairies glowing.

The ditch wasn't so bad either. You could collect rocks and fossils, most frequently the same old fossils but you were still a paleontologist, which was another game we played, along with wildlife biology-- collecting horned toads, and toads and bullfrogs, gathering strands of eggs laid in the still somewhat natural flow of creek water into mason jars and waiting for them to hatch into tadpoles and then grow legs--catching as many fireflies as you could and putting them in a mason jar and staring at the glow all night before you fell asleep. I should feel guilty for all of the slugs we killed with salt just because it was so "neat" to watch. But perhaps we made up for it with the many times we tried to rear a baby bird that had fallen from its nest, or by the fact that our parents actually let us run in the mosquito fogger-truck emanations.

To be continued...maybe... if I have food-deprivation insomnia and am not writing more important stuff. :)

The whole twitter thing...

So I should make it clear that although yes, I have  twitter account, and yes sometimes I post dumb things for no reason, you're really not missing anything if you don't follow me. :)

3 April 2012 Update:  I have to say though there are some gems on twitter, like this great image I stumbled across today of Barbara Stanwyck and Clark Gable shooting the bird on the set of "To Please a Lady"

The New Order... haha Friday comic relief.

Credit for this goes to Bruce Perdew, and I came across it through a friend on Facebook. I think it is from Kentucky... Attorneys can have a sense of humor and be really 80s hip too!

Lygeia escapes the tomb!

Although I usually don't have much fun going out with my married or divorced with kiddos friends--I love them & they're fun, but they usually make me feel subconsciously guilty for not having their issues, responsibilities, kids, stretchmarks, etc.-- and this time I was the bottle brunette out with 2 bottle blondes! LOL. I had a good time. I must say life is as good being chestnut as it is being blonde, (dark colors sure do fade faster) and no one tells me I look like Tara Reid, which hello, for the record, I do NOT, and it was starting to drive me as wacky as when I was younger and people constantly thought I was Jodie Foster. I've been having so much fun coloring my hair & playing with clip-on bangs, etc. I guess 40 can be the new 20 as I certainly feel like a punk kid! My friend B snapped this as we were leaving my office... my sanctum...

If you haven't read it, "Lygeia" is one of my all-time fave Poe stories. I recommend it, and it is a fairly brief read.

Now that I'm not whining about my life in the nunnery...

Certain things trigger a variety of  pop-culturally driven cryptic comments that I blurt out on occasion. It isn't that I want to be cryptic; rather, it's that I assume most people who know me know what I know. Well, K, you're so very wrong, presumptuous, naive and oblivious. Anyway, these are my fave examples of little pop-culture moments that little incidents in my day caused me to think about, ponder briefly and/or laugh aloud. 

Dinner "Better Off Dead"

Tenacious D is touring this summer!
4 April 2012 Update: This is a tangential rant with lots of Freudian stuff you could dig out of it. For the record... hell yeah, I'll pay anything to be that close to Taylor Hawkins again, probably the only blonde guy since Robin Zander to rock my silly-little-girl-inside-heart... but what are the odds that such a fine dental example of a Fighter of Foo (not that Grohl's chompers aren't pretty nice but...) would tour with the D these days... there are many awesome studio musicians out there. I mean think about the amazing band that Dweezil Zappa (yes, OK, he's super cute too) has amassed to revive his father's music live. In this video, the singer is Napoleon Murphy Brock who actually played & recorded often with Mr. Frank. The bass player is a good guy who went to college with my former bro-in-law, and the saxophonist is remarkable--beyond words--they're phenomenal:
Zappa Plays Zappa Live "Inca Roads"
Oh mighty yes that is a painful segue, but here's part II

My favorite Metal Goddess- Robot in Lang's "Metropolis"

When Barnabus Arrives...

"You fill me with inertia" Drimblewedge & the Vegetations from "Bedazzled" (1967)
4 April 2012 Update: If you like stuffy high brow Oxford educated humor, lol (most of the Pythons went to Cambridge I think, except Graham who I believe was an MD from Oxford, but I love them as well) Derek & Clive, Peter Cook & Dudley Moore, "Beyond the Fringe," "Not Only... But Also," their live and sketch comedy 'programmes,' & "Bedazzled" and "The Wrong Box" are films you should examine. If my tired brain's memory functions serve me correctly, there's even an appearance by the Goon Spike Milligan in the latter. "Love them Goon Shows" to quote John Lennon.

Yes Virginia, Oftentimes Women Think Too Much...Even Lady Jedi.

I'm not allowing my thoughts to become a great whirlygig. I've been copping out; haven't been true to myself. I need to stop thinking, period, and just keep writing. I don't need to think to write it. I need to think to revise the drafts when they are accepted.

After a nice chat discussion with an unknown gamer, ha, and reading over my blog entries thus afar, I am not focusing on the big picture. I am learning from the poor experiences I have had; just because I hate my "diss" topic doesn't mean it "sucks,"  and just because I only tend to feel a need to become social when I need to be doing other things alone--an introvert who becomes an extrovert when she isn't getting to do what she WANTS when she's alone. Man, what a selfish flake! I pity my soul in it's next incarnation if I have children. They will hate that person for not growing up... and my whole life people have been telling me I'm an old soul-- the irony. But then again, maybe that's the old soul's lesson-- don't grow up?

I've once again thought myself  'round to the conclusion that women over-think more commonly than men. If you've read my blog entries, did you notice? I'm not whining about saving the whales I'm essentially complaining; that can't be good. Somewhere down there I said I wasn't one to complain, but you know, maybe it is just the isolation. At least I'm writing instead of talking to myself, or am I? heheheheh. Add a touch of OCD and situational anxiety (even kind of existentially speaking in regard to the Situationists) into the mix and you've got one heaving, quivering, dysfunctional mass of pointless and narcissistic subjectivity. I'm going to end this thought there... leave it... embrace it...

SWTOR

So today I goofed off and played a little SWTOR. I've played video games as long as time... if time began with "Pong" & Atari. I worked at a video arcade for three years out of high school. I played all the systems when I was younger, but never could get the nervous system/ response down with the newer PS games. I always envied my friends that were good at it, but truth is I probably never had the time to play.
I don't have time now, bu the MMORPG games, once you do it enough are really not so difficult to control if you can use a computer. So, I was exposed to SWTOR: Star Wars the Old Republic when it came out in late December and the nerd in me revived. I have a few characters and play on a PVE server as well as the PVPRPG. I finally got my first character sorted out and she's almost really bad ass, LOL. Today I reached level 41. I kind of wish I could just talk about my own life and accomplishments in terms leveling... sounds more intellectual, ha, or I guess, more rational in some way. Chronological, linear time isn't as fun... back to the grind stone for a few hours.

"Maybe tomorrow... maybe someday"

Well my sleep deprived state and finally honestly speaking with another human being, my friend from college now a therapist, culminated in a rather long-winded meltdown about the rest of my life. I came to the conclusion that I hate my dissertation. I thought I could do it. I couldn't find a committee to mentor me with my original topic after the professor who backed me the most took a position at another university. I'm interested in my topic, but after all the life under the bridge I'm pretty tired of it. I fantasize about writing my original dissertation topic instead-- I even write a bit of it thinking maybe I'll publish it? Maybe Griel Marcus would like it? HA!

Aside from that, and the real crux of the biscuit is that I'm not happy being unfinished girl/woman. I am afraid of what comes next. I don't feel like I fit into the academia mode very well and although I loved teaching, the career is pretty unwieldy for someone like me. I think I'd really prefer to leave work at work... but enough.

"Life... is a wake, livit or krikit, and on the bunk of our breadwinning lies the cropse of our seedfather" (Joyce FW 55.05).

"I want to go ahead of Father Time with a scythe of my own." H. G. Wells

So I've been writing now for over 24 hours with no sleep. I'm going to have to take a nap. But first I thought it would be kind of fun to share some of the images of available guys between the ages (supposedly) of 35 to 45 from a free online dating site that I came across when people watching there. What I like about these particular photos is not only the men themselves, but the heinous and peculiar amount of clutter in the background of their images. Do people really not notice that? (Because I received a comment via email regarding the psychological issues behind hoarding, I thought I should clarify-- everyone has at least a junk drawer, I'm not dissing these guys for their clutter but more so for the fact that they didn't find a better less clutter filled location for their photo-taking. Sure, at least the aren't bathroom portraits... um. Um... and because it's Flash Gordon with six-pack abs drawn on with a Sharpie, and the other guy looks way older than 45... um and I think that's a semi-automatic weapon in the corner... um...).

Sometimes, sure, I fantasize that I'll come across some non-hypercritical/hypocritical, attractive, intelligent, fit man within ten years of my age (I'm in my early 40s going on 22 and easily look at least 10 years younger. By the way, that's great and all, I'm proud of it and lucky for my genetics, but since I turned 26 I've looked pretty much exactly the same--being told you look like a kid for 20 years, having to remind your doctor how old you are, etc.) that will think I'm sweet and funny and smart and want to spend time with me,and I am looking around with that intent. But in my defense, not that there's anything wrong with online dating, I've hidden my profile. People can't seem to communicate via language and writing any more. I've met guys I had a lot in common with but they rubbed me the wrong way with their personality issues and/or baggage. Out of about 25 dates during the 3+ years that I've been single again, I've only met one man  that I was really intrigued by and  thought that I felt a bond with, aside from music, games, & movies, he even liked the Dick Van Dyke show. Ha, and the endearing things for me were that he never ate meat off of bones, was very neat and organized and anal and minimalistic, a nasty teeth phobic, a loner, he knew my favorite Merrie Melodies cartoon, was interested in the occult, an anglophile, we had same favorite movie, and he seemed to have a sense of inquiry-- and lots of other goofy, fun things that I'd never met anyone with the same quirks as mine-- and seemed like he really liked me too and like we were slowly getting to know each other. But he didn't recognize our similarities in the same way I did-- just wasn't into me. So, coincidence and synchronicity are not always factual. Perception is different for everyone; that's the acceptable part when you like someone. The bummer things in those situations, which never happened to me, until now, is when someone is your friend and you really like them, but you date them then they may never be your friend. The losses of friendships are the greatest losses.

Sans the unsoul-mate: [aw, had a pretty funny rant going here and lost it, maybe another time.] The heavily tattooed, hard-body narcissist guy after that proposed to me on the first date after we met. The next guy seemed really cool but forgot to take his ring off. The next guy couldn't leave me alone long enough to, well, to just NOT piss me off-- called me all the time and txtd, and I kept telling him I had no time for a relationship and to lay off a bit screamed, "F**K YOU. YOU WASTE OF TIME!" IN a public place no less. Nice. I'm feeling all about dating, heheh. The latest and LAST in my senior-adolescent dating attempts. had emailed me when my hair was natural, blonde. I've since dyed it blackish and he just ranted at me about how wrong it is for me to express myself, LOL, until I walked out of the coffee shop. I'm broken, too, but I still believe love is just as much friendship, work and effort as it is chemically motivated and sparkly. Sad thing I guess is when it sparkles for you but not the other person in an endless chain of events that may leave people alone. Oftentimes I think I'd rather be alone than be with a guy like Flash or Jolly Roger. Sometimes I think that I would rather not be alone. All that glitters is not gold.

"International Bulletproof Talent:" Blossoming Angst

I'm kind of glad no one reads my blog thus far. There's so much I'd vent about aside from this BS if I felt truly anonymous... guess I could change my blog title.

Spring has sprung. Aside from talking and reading aloud to myself and leaving a couple of voice mails, I haven't spoken to anyone--who else is this lucky? I mean I haven't heard another human voice in 144 hours and counting. I'm used to it and it happens a lot, but coinciding with my silence is a tremendous resurgence of my adolescent angst. I suppose the state of the world today contributes to my angst; that, and my endless days staring at the words trying to come out of my fingers on to the page. More importantly, I've been plaguing my already tainted and dismal thoughts with a wonderful new Spotify playlist with all my favorite darkish stuff: Bauhouse, the Cure, Depeche Mode, New Order, Marilyn Manson, NIN, Siouxsie & the Banshees, Sisters of Mercy, Muse, Joy Division, etc. The one song that won't leave my head, well the Bauhaus in general (and so typical of that band, really), is the title listed in this post title: "International Bulletproof Talent." I keep listening to it, over and over. I suppose I'm trying to encourage myself that I'm bullet proof, although I'm still feeling a little shot down. But this is one of those songs that could maybe... maybe... have any words for lyrics, but there's something really intriguing about them, haha.

21st century boy
No fall out boy
No hallucination
Generation

Just International Bulletproof Talent

Groove riders
Join the underground
Groove riders
With the underground

Just International Bulletproof Talent

Free the bass man
With industrial strength twelve thumpers
The culture of prolific head
Communication with spirit man
Communication with the spirit man

Just International Bulletproof Talent

Age of Ignorance

In 1961, Richard Hofstadter published Anti-Intellectualism in American Life.

I think that the US as a society has dwindled into this little bubble of anti-knowledge haters, to put it in urban dictionary terms. This recent societal editorial below is a nice read.

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2012/mar/20/age-of-ignorance/

First blog, eh? Hoommmmmm...

So today I'm trying hard to stay motivated. I'm not one to really complain, but I am hating the chapter I'm working on so very much. I think the biggest difficulty is trying to make all of the completely random and tangential previously existing criticism on these first obscure works, which I have to consult and mention, that is making it so tough. I can't get the argument to flow.

When I signed up for this blog it was 2009. I wrote nothing... later, I was newly divorced and my life was in a bit of a random and unexpected turmoil; hence why I'm a Vampire/Peter Pan-woman working on her Ph.D. dissertation. I gave up my condo in Colorado to travel back and forth between from Fort Worth, where my mother lives, and Colorado with much frequency. In fact lately, I only get out on road trips. My brother died in 2006 and he always looked after her. I kind of felt like I needed some looking after myself so I decided to save my savings and focus on writing. I do pick up the random odd job now and then and sometimes it makes me think I'd rather be one of the mindless followers-- have a job that is a job. Leave it when I walk out the door and take off my uniform. Although while teaching at a major university I felt like I could do that a bit-- one is still always grading and always required to respond to students via email-- I thought it would benefit me to have a retreat from the responsibility of having one dedicated living space for storage and a computer-- I can't say that it has.

At an age when I thought I would still be secure in my relationship, on some occasions, I find myself biologically encouraged to venture into the dating world. The only thing I haven't tried is speed dating. I am in my early forties. I may not be the biggest most beautiful prize to single men everywhere, but can someone my age be honest and find someone who isn't revoltingly haggard for their age? I mean I believe I AM THE BEST PRIZE, I just want  my prize, too. I've been asked out on dates by men in grocery stores, bars, at street lights, etc. When I go out, I am frequently approached by twenty-somethings that think I'm 30 (and although that's very flattering and exciting and all, and maybe I just haven't met the right "cub" *leacherous hehheh* I can't get passed the fact I could have given birth to them. NOTE TO SELF this may be a good blog topic one day-- the double standard and biological fact that most women feel weirder about a parental age gap between lovers than men do. The majority of men seem to be fine with hitting anything that's legal, and they're biologically wired that way, no?), married men and sugar daddies (jokes are on them, they always think I'm younger than they are, but usually I'm older than they are.) I met one well-preserved 49 year-old man, successful and very attractive. But no one I meet or date wants to take the time to get to know ME. I've been discarded and proposed to before that really happens, and I'm thinking a relationship is not in my future... ever.

One problem is that I'm really shy. I also have some anxiety issues. Until I've known someone for about 3 months I can't be who I am. But you know, the biggest thing is I am not who I am. I am stuck in this time crunch of dissertation hell and I won't be who I am until I'm finished.

Another thing that distracts me from writing is when I think about what I'd rather do than teach after I've completed these last two hoops in the dissertation process. But I'm going to try and use this blog to rant at and write through the things that bother me. If you read, feel free to share you own!