Gurglegleh.

Hi, guys,

I know I've got a lot of email I should respond to, but I've been really sick for pushing a week now, and though I felt a ton better yesterday, I'm having a bad relapse now--just in time for us to fly out to Chicago, tonight. To go to a conference. Where it's snowing. In a city I want to see and have never been into, before. i.e., where I am probably going to go ahead and get sicker rather than better.

I feel crap.

I will email/catch up/all that once we're back and have settled in and all. I just can't muster enough brain power, right now.

LOVE

Solidarity!

Take a minute and read this, if you would, for the sake of unemployed and hungry writers: a good write-up about what's actually at stake for the writers in the guild strike.

What I found most shocking in this was that the number the AMPTP has been putting around (trying to make this group out to be fat-cat greedy types) about writer's average yearly income being $200,000 dollars? is figured only from whoever in the guild happened to be employed at the time, ignoring the vast majority of the writers who are most of the time NOT able to find paid work, and are barely squeaking by on what residuals they've got, but including the few outlying multi-millionaires. Imagine how different that number would look if everyone in the guild was counted for the averaging of income of guild members--that is, if there was a useful, accurate number here at all. That number would be tempered by the vast field of $0 income-at-any-given-times, and it would plummet.

This is intellectual property, people. This is about getting to see at least a little more return from their creative work, when studios and producers are exploiting them to the fullest and getting paid for what the writers have done over and over. If you wrote something, and weren't even allowed to keep a copyright, and someone else was making buckets of money off of it while you were at it, wouldn't you want to see more than a half a percent of that?

CONCERT!

We went to the Bridge School Benefit concert in Mountainview (near San Jose) with some friends, this weekend, and it was a blast.

Some notes: Neil Young (who puts the concert together every year) is probably a little crazy, so is Regina Spektor, Tegan and Sara think you shouldn't wear shorts and sandals while rocking out, My Morning Jacket were an interesting choice of last-minute replacement for Eddie Vedder and Flea, John Mayer does a great "Freefalling" cover, Tom Waits + Kronos Quartet = Big Awesome, Jerry Lee Lewis is NOT dead, and the Metallica fans present mostly seemed to have a problem with their boys going acoustic-cover-band.

I enjoyed everyone a hell of a lot, myself, and as most of them were new or nearly new to me, I've got plenty of new people to look up! It was $50 for a spot on the grass a really long way away, as the temperature dropped down into the 40's, but we got there at 5 pm and didn't leave until after midnight, and it goes to the school for disabled children and music ed and such, so I think that's well worth it. We heard 61 songs--everyone did 6 or 7 or 8 each. I took notes enough to be able to figure out what all but two songs were, afterwards, but I only knew 12 of them, to begin with. I think I officially recommend everyone I heard, though. Go to it.

Here's the playlist, as best as I could figure it (I *'d the ones I was particularly hot on, in case you're interested):

NEIL YOUNG
"Sugar Mountain"*
"Beautiful Bluebird" (as a duet with his wife, Peggy)

REGINA SPEKTOR
"That Ain't No Cover"
"On the Radio"*
"The Flowers"*
"Ghost of Corporate Future"
"One More Time With Feeling"
"Fidelity"
"Samson"*

TEGAN AND SARA
"Call it Off"
"The Con"
"Walking With a Ghost"
"Where Does the Good Go?"
"Like O, Like H"*
"Nineteen"*
"Back in Your Head"
"Living Room"*
"I've Got You"

MY MORNING JACKET
"The Way That He Sings"
"What a Wonderful Man"
"Gideon"
"Golden"*
"Bermuda Highway"*
((Can't figure out what song this was! :( Thought it had the phrase "feel so wonderful" in it, but no luck in finding it))
"Anytime"

JOHN MAYER
((Missed one due to craziness in finding bathrooms))
"Slow Dancing in a Burning Room"
"Waiting on the World to Change"*
"Gravity"
"Deeper and Deeper"((I *THINK.* This is highly questionable.))
"Free Falling" (Tom Petty cover)*

TOM WAITS and the KRONOS QUARTET
"Way Down in the Hole"*
"Cold Cold Ground"
"Little Drop of Poison"*
"The Part You Throw Away"
"God's Away on Business"
"Day After Tomorrow"*
"What Keeps Mankind Alive"
"Diamond in Your Mind"

NEIL YOUNG
"The Way"
"Winterlong"
"Spirit Road"
"Oh, Lonesome Me"
"I'm the Believer"
"No Hidden Path"*

JERRY LEE LEWIS
"Roll Over, Beethoven"*
"You Win Again" (Hank Williams cover)
"Hadacol Boogie"*
"Midnight Blues"*
"Your Cheatin' Heart"
"Before the Night is Over"*
"Great Balls of Fire"*
"Whole Lotta' Shakin' Goin' On"

METALLICA
"I Just Want to Celebrate" (Rare Earth cover)
"Please Don't Judas Me" (Nazareth cover)*
"I'm Only Happy When it Rains" (Garbage cover)*
"My Brothers in Arms" (Dire Straits cover)*
"Disposable Heroes"
"All Within My Hands"
"Turn the Page" (Bob Seger cover)
"Nothing Else Matters"

Okay, I don't want to inundate you with comments, but just a couple more things:

Barring a couple of electric basses, everyone played acoustically, and almost everyone played a social commentary/anti-war kind of song, at some point. If you don't know Tom Waits' "Day After Tomorrow," you should--I cried and cried, because that's how I am at concerts. (I heard it first when Tom was on the Daily Show, but we snagged up the album soon after--it's absolutely beautiful. It would have been more beautiful if the assholes behind us would have stopped bitching about his voice, but hélas!) Metallica were very warm and generous (hometown heroes, and all), Young spent a ton of time basically jamming and obviously having a really good time. Jerry Lee-fucking-Lewis rocked really hard, and, say what you will about serious song-writing, his was the only set where people got up and danced. He was snarky, and actually got his sexy-bastard on (the lyrics of "Before the Night is Over" are awfully raunch for a 70-ish guy), and I loved it. He and Neil Young now join the Eagles, Crosby Stills and Nash, and Richie Havens as the people I'm fucking lucky to have gotten to see, because--frankly--they could stop touring any day, now.

It was just... it was wonderful. Good company, great music, good long walks between the hotel and the concert site, good food the whole weekend and drinks. If you're ever out this way, I'd definitely suggest this, there are new people every year, it's a good cause, it's a ton of music.

Dumbledore/Grindelwald = Canon.

No shit, check it out. Here's the blurb from IMDB:

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix author J.K. Rowling has shocked fans of the boy-wizard series by stating that character Albus Dumbledore as gay. The writer revealed the truth of the Hogwarts school headmaster's sexuality at New York's Carnegie Hall on Friday as part of her American book tour. When asked by an audience member if Dumbledore had found "true love," she replied, "Dumbledore is gay," adding he was in love with his rival Gellert Grindelwald, who he once beat in a battle between good and bad wizards long ago. She says, "Falling in love can blind us to an extent. (Dumbledore was) horribly, terribly let down."

For a longer story, here is the article from the Guardian. I just love her more and more all the time.

Edit: Here's another good article, from AP.

Risk factors.

I was reading a little article on judging your risk of/genetic predisposition towards breast cancer, involving how many blood relatives have had it, or have had "related" cancers, etc.

What I want to know is, can there be a genetic predisposition towards cancer? That is, not just one particular form, but towards cancer in general? And, even if not, outside of breast and ovarian cancers being related, are other forms of cancer that are related to one another? Which?

My father's sister died at 53 of pancreatic cancer. Their father died of (admittedly environmentally related) leukemia, and their mother of brain cancer. Her brother died a handful of years ago--I think that was cancer, too, but I'm not certain of it, or of which kind, if so--and their sister had tumors (non-malignant) in her breasts. So did my mother's mother. And another blood relative (either mother's father or mother's mother's father, can't remember which) died of cancer, too, on that side. Kidneys, I think, but maybe it was liver.

My father, like his sister, died when he was 53 (of everything, apparently), but sometimes, in full blown paranoid mode, I wonder if he didn't have cancer, too, and just didn't tell us. He was very proud, he didn't talk about things that were wrong. He saw plenty of doctors for all his various problems, got sicker and more beat up as time went on, and would come home sometimes with his head shaved completely bald, and have his hair grow back softer and whiter than it had been, before. Maybe he just decided to do that? And maybe it just coincidentally coincided with his follicles giving out in their melanin-producing capacity? But shaving it off would certainly cover up hair falling out from therapy, too.

But even not relying on that, there's still a pretty heavy dose coming in from his side. And that's not getting anywhere near the heart attacks and strokes, depression, alcoholism, and other potentially genetically pre-disposing trouble on either side. (In case I haven't mentioned, I'm not having children. The fact that they'd be doomed is only a small part of that, but it bears mention.)

So. What I wonder is, do all of these disparate cases of different kinds of cancer amount to a general predisposition for it? Can there be that?

Just something I think about. Y'know. Sometimes.

Boy-oh-boy.

So, hey, have you guys heard of Google Alert? If not, it's a way that you can keep track of who is writing about you/your company/whatever on the web, and what's being said. So, if you're signed up for it and someone writes an article about your company, Google Alert will send you an update, with the link and the article in it.

Can you see where this is going, yet?

If you guessed "Your work has Google Alert, of course, and found your journal!" you win the cupie doll. Now, try for two: Can you guess which of my two nearly identical journals came up on the alert? Here's a hint: one had the picture of me I used for my work's homepage and a cute little purple pig, and the other has an icon of three, clinging hockey boys labeled "Sordid Love Triangle." One is always pretty Safe For Work, and the other is, well, not.

Ah, well. The narrative imperative has to be obeyed, right? And there is a very bright side. (1) Lee gave my description of the company a ringing endorsement, and was very pleased (and thought the whole situation was really funny--I agreed, once the red face died down). (2) After going back through my last twenty entries of The Other Journal, I find there is actually no smut posted on that main page, right now. Oh, links, sure, and a little HP fangirling, but right now it's actually SFW. (3) He said he didn't go through the rest of the journal, anyway (though I have no idea about the other two people the link went to).

So, I linked this one from that one again, and cleared out links to that one from this one. So if anyone followed it over and is checking in, here, hello!

This one's really the same as the other one, only without the potential for embarrassment. And you're welcome to either, I suppose, but if you'd rather not run across smut (rare though it is), I'd recommend sticking with this one.

Lee, my birthday, NESsT, Love

For my birthday, Lee (my lovely boss) brought me back Goodies. I frequently get a little bit of swag (who knew the UBS was big on giving out mints?), but this was especially cool.

So this is actually a good opportunity to describe a little of what NESsT does.

Lee gave me a bottle of wine, in a cool woven bag, with a cool little notebook inside. The bag and notebook were made by one of the non-profit NGOs in Budapest that NESsT is working with.

This group employs the mentally challenged, letting them be productive and creative, and bring in an income, which would otherwise be a very, very remote prospect. They weave everything by hand, themselves, on small looms--tapestries, rugs, bags, scarves. They also hand-make the paper for the covers of the little notebooks, which are sewn together. The art on the covers is theirs. It's beautiful, it's colorful, it's doing a lot of good in their community.

Now, NESsT comes in this way: NESsT does a lot of fundraising, then, rather than just dispersing funds out for one-time gifts, the money goes into infrastructure for these community groups. NESsT does what is basically business training for these groups (business professionals donate time to help in this), and gives the groups technical assistance to keep up and running, and helps them find venues for the products they're making. NESsT helps them with the marketing, and in learning how to do all those sorts of things on their own. And when it's all together, these non-profit non-government community groups have solid infrastructure and a steady source of income that they can use to employ locals and give back to their communities in whatever way their communities need. They get to be self-sufficient (NESsT stands for Non-Profit Enterprise and Self-Sustainability Team). And all that without having to compromise themselves in whatever way private corporations or donors would require before giving them any funding, and without having the unsteadiness of highly variable incomes, or anything else most small charities have to suffer through.

It is really, intensely cool. NESsT takes (in my opinion) the best stuff from the business world and the best stuff from the philanthropy world, and helps people make really wonderful things happen.

It's the panacea, for me, too. I'm not doing much that's big or grand, I'm not working full-time or doing heavy lifting and fund-raising or donating or marketing, but I help with every little thing to keep NESsT running smoothly that I can. I'm putting numbers in spreadsheets and keeping track of business cards and doing research and mailing letters and loading software, but it means that I'm helping (if in just a remote, small little way) to keep small communities in South America and Eastern Europe from starving.

Isn't that amazing?

Maybe I'm PMSing, but I'm about to cry.

I LOVE my job.


P.S. In case you were wondering: the wine is Joe Blow Red.

Help!

Hey, folks, I've got a link for you to follow.

Contact Governor Schwarzenegger.

I know most of you aren't residents, but As Goes California, So Goes the Nation, right?

...Please?

See, if you go to that link, and click "Have a comment," put in your name and email, and scroll down the "choose your subject" menu to "Gender-neutral marriage/AB 00043" it'll take you right to a handy page where you can send our gov an email. If on that page you click "Pro," and leave him a nice little note asking him to sign--not veto--our run for redefining marriage without gender pronouns (i.e. legalizing same-sex marriage), it would be a very awesome thing of you.

The text of the bill can be found here, and it's very, very good. It makes the argument well.

Please. As wonderful human beings, would you do this?

LOVE!


P.S. I would consider it a wonderful birthday present, if you did.

Jury Duty? Really?

I have to start checking to see if I have to go in for jury duty. I'm scheduled to be on call this coming week.

I don't want to do it.

Now, it's not that I begrudge a civic duty. If they wanted me to, I'd direct traffic or file papers or do something like that. And it's only partly that my partner's Ex-Wife works at the courthouse. But, I mean, really. . . you want me to help decide someone's fate? I don't want to. I'd gladly sit in the court all day for a week, it's just the responsibility of it that I don't want.

Part of it is that I couldn't, in good conscience, recommend that anyone be sentenced to waste in our prison system, whether or not they're guilty of whatever crime, so I'm not going to be able to take the weigh-only-the-facts oath. I am, in fact, a budding prison abolitionist.

Do you think that if I tell them that they'll let me go? Will I have a chance to tell them that?

I'm hoping they'll just dismiss me without cause. I'm 24*, I'm very visibly a total hippie, I've got a nice fat summa cum laude degree, and I'm a secretary for a Fucking Non-Profit™. I'm signed up for newsletters from Unmarried.org, the Human Rights Campaign, the Organic Consumers Association, the Arbor Day Foundation, and the National Home Gardening Club. I've gone to protests, signed petitions, and go to union meetings for fun. This afternoon it's going to be writing-my-state-representatives-time, to try to encourage them in this whole moratorium-on-the-death-sentence thing.

One side or the other is going to consider me a liability, you know?

Here's hoping.

LOVE

EDIT: Called in, and I am off the hook! But you all knew that.


*In five days. Happy birthday to me. . .

False October

We had an Autumn day, yesterday.

There's something I'd like to point out, about the Summer we've been having here in lovely, moderate, seasonless California. Namely, the Central Valley thereof. Namely, Turlock. That is this: Turock has had 25 days at or above 100˚F (the usual was 10-14 days of 100˚F+, until Madness set in). There was one week, late June, where the temperature was in the low nineties, but since May, that's it. It's been upper nineties and above. We have broken 4 records, this summer, and that's only the ones I'm sure of and checked, not the ones I suspected. We've had half the normal amount of rainfall, and only a quarter of the regular snowpack. So we're also headed for a drought, to complement all of our wildfires.

And the wildfires bring us here, to Autumn.

After a week and a half of no day where it was under 78˚ by midnight, or after 10 am, and where the high temperatures ranged from 101-106, it has all of a sudden not broken 90 for two days. Yesterday morning it was fucking cold, for August.

The sun was bright, the sky was hazy, it was 62˚F, the sky was hazy and the air was crisp. And smoky.

Because the valley is On Fire.

But at least I could pretend it was because it really was Autumn, and people were building fires in their fireplaces, and the joys of October were just around the corner. It was a very good day, apart from the ash in the lungs.

Wedded bliss! And accosting the flower arrangments.

This was supposed to be the summer for weddings, but everything exploded. One wedding was postponed 'til I'm not sure when, and the site for the other is on fire, so it got moved.

I went to the latter one this evening. It was absolutely beautiful--Liz and Doug, may all the best come to you!

I danced with anyone who stayed in the same place long enough, including two disabled children, my man, the bride, and biology students. I also got completely drunk on wine and champagne and the absence of water.

...Well, not completely. I'm typing, aren't I? (I just got home, you know.)

However, on the way home, I ate half of the rose I pilfered from the arrangements.

...So I'm probably fairly drunk.

That is all.



P.S. This was apparently my fiftieth post for this blog. Such an honor.

I'm having a very odd moment:

I've just done four hours, unbroken, of fairly mind-melty work (researching contact info and sending out 8 million personalized emails), and I haven't really come down from it. That makes 10 hours, this week, which is more than usual, for me. I feel pretty productive; it's one of the big items checked off my list, and it helps with the guilt that's come of slacking off while Lee is on vacation.

It is also my very good friend Michelle's birthday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!), which is a joyous occasion.

And in something like 3 or 4 hours, my Raechel and her beau will be here, in my house, which is equally joyous. I haven't seen her in months, and I miss her. I've gotten the place cleaned up and settled with appropriate sleeping places for guests, towels, etc, found suitable food, all of that.

I've been reading and writing a lot. I've been making goodies for a bridal shower gift for yet another loved friend. It's 103˚F outside, but it's nice in here, the cat is quietly curled up next to me, Chris is playing guitar upstairs. I'm hungry, but things are otherwise nice, and they're calm, and I'm in one of those states where my mind won't settle down to match, but rather is humming white noise at me and I can't actually think about anything or focus on anything or reflect or enjoy or anything.

My father has been dead ten years to the day. Ten years and about thirteen hours.

I feel odd.

So, Day Two.

As some of you may know, I am home alone this weekend, because Chris is at a conference-thing in Reno. Well, Thursday morning to Saturday night, not exactly the weekend. But this means that I am moping about without my Love. I should be potting plants and getting air and sunshine, but I'm potting around online, instead.

This also means:
(a) I cannot get to the Midnight Ball at Borders (oh, you know I would have been there).
(b) Consequently, I have to wait to get my HP 7.0 until Saturday morning when I can catch the bus or bike over there, meaning like 20 more hours of waiting.
(c) Furthermore, I'm going to have to read like hell to finish it before Chris gets home, because I'm not going to be able to put it down and I'm not going to want to put him down when I haven't seen him in three days, and this presents a conflict.
(d) I'm finally, finally reading a little Online Fiction again (if you know what I mean, wink wink, nudge nudge)
(e) I've watched more bad TV in a night than I usually do in a month.
(f) I'm not behaving like a rational human being in general. Forgetting to eat/sleep/wash/etc, keeping odd hours, and so on.
(g) And last but certainly not least, it means that (in the immortal words of M.C.A.), it's time to get nice. In my time-honored tradition of dealing relatively unhappily, unintelligently, and harmlessly with our brief separations, I am hoping to be utterly potted within the next few hours.

Now, before I check out to hide from potential unintentional spoilers online, some brief announcements:

- Food is good for you.
- Mint, in baking, can hide a variety of sins.
- My laptop's hinges are about to break. I can FEEL IT. So stay tuned for the exciting conclusion of "My Six-Year Old Overused Laptop."
- My Chris gets killed off in the last HP book.
- During his trip, however, he has not yet shot a man, just to watch him die. (Corollary: When he hears that lonesome whistle, he does not hang his head and cry.)
- One of the main offices of the group I work for is in Santiago, Chile--and I am reading a story by someone in Santiago Chile. Coincidence??!?! (Experts agree: yes.)
- I am currently, inexplicably wishing I had non-metallic, very saturated, bubble-gum pink nailpolish. Experts are baffled.

And this just in: the bed's too big without you.

And they're still picking up the bodies.

I have officially completed my first pay period, for work. And you know what that means: I'm about to become a taxpayer.

It's very exciting.

I am wearing guitar-pick earrings.

Hi, folks, just a brief update. Mostly because I haven't given y'all any update.

So: I am alive and well and flourishing!

Work is fantastic. I made it through my first full week, and got two months worth of finances in order and sent off in just a few days. Chris and I have been writing music like mad, and it's good. The cat is eating again, finally, and taking antibiotics at a lower rate (and still doing okay--knock on wood). I am off antibiotics again (I was on them again), and this time, the root canal* seems to actually have stopped the problem. My tomatoes and basil are finally booming, and we've gotten an FT of both. This is because it has been hot. In fact, it has been fucking hot (104˚F, today, for instance--40˚C), but we were able to borrow a lot of movies from the library to keep us busy, keep us inside in the cool, and sate my newfound Peter O'Toole obsession. We've seen, very recently: Lawrence of Arabia, The Great Escape, Lion in Winter, Some Like it Hot, Bright Young Things, How to Steal a Million, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Sweet Charity, Annie Hall, 1408, and Wilde, as well as re-watched Blood and Donuts, Peter's Friends, and a fair bit of Eddie Izzard standup, recorded Lord Jim and a lot more Eddie Izzard standup to watch soon, and still have Triplets of Belleville, Time Bandits and Awakenings awaiting. We read Orlando, and are working through How I Became a Nun (and I am reading Mansfield Park and Guards! Guards!). We had a cheesey indoor 4th of July feast, today, and tomorrow is our THREE YEAR anniversary of moving in together (the really important one, we feel). We've had lots of good sex and good food, which I seem to be digesting,** and I have been happily and thoroughly exploring the Cocktail book my mother gave me (along with the 501-Must-See-Movies book, which has been aiding in other pursuits mentioned above). We're*** getting Petr Sykora, and getting to keep Christensen and Whitney, though we wanted Hannan, as well. I feel like I'm actually getting better at playing the piano, again, on account of having the freedom to actually sit down and play one. T-minus-9 days to Order of the Phoenix, and T-minus-17 days to Deathly Hollows.

I think that is probably enough to digest all at once. I love and miss you all, and I will sit down and catch up on all of your journals soon. Very soon. I hope. I am, unusually, currently more available by email than by journal-commenting, so try it out if you wanna'. I'll try not to be too much of a flake. I hope you are all WELL.

LOVE.


*This is the third root canal. My teeth were the Communism-Domino-Theory in action, but they've now been cut the fuck off at the pass. No more horrendous aaaooowh in the teeth, TYVM.
**Not always the case. If it's a digestive fluke with an acronym, I've probably got it.
***This contraction stands for "The Penguins, of whom we are fans, are"

Joy-bombs come in 3's!

1. The concerts were fabulous. Chris came on Saturday night, and Saturday night went even better than Friday night. There was plenty of teasing by the lovely choir director, and the choir director's lovely partner, Lee (MORE ON LEE IN A MOMENT), who were in the wings next to me (I was on an end), which loosened the mood a lot. I was beaming like a friggin' cartoon, after I hit (excuse me, nailed) those B's, and I had an absolute blast. We were really good. :)

2. We're inheriting a piano from our friend, Val, who won't have room for it after she moves. We get it just for the cost of having it moved, and we actually managed to work out a way to fit it into our living room (which is shocking on its own). It looks like it's not going to be too bad to move it, even, considering it's an upright, there are only a couple of entry steps involved, and it's only going about 15 miles. I'M GOING TO HAVE A REAL PIANO AGAIN! EEEE!

3. This is where Lee comes in: I HAVE A JOB.

ME. Ms. Won't-Work-for-Wages, unpaid, home-making hippie goddess.

And do you know why I have a job? Because Lee, who trusts my qualities as a fun human being to work with and a fast learner enough to make up for my inexperience, said he needed someone to help organize his life, input numbers, file, run errands, make copies, etc., for his fucking non-profit, developing-community-infrastructure-in-impoverished-areas, supporting-the-earth-friendly, supporting the human-rights-respecting, liberating-smaller-non-profit-NGO's-from-the-clutches-of-corporate-donation-begging NGO. At 8-10 flexible hours a week. For $10 an hour.

In short, the only thing I'd be willing to do, aside from sell flowers or groom dogs. (Trust me, it's a seriously privileged position.)

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEIHAVEAJOBIHAVEAJOB!!!!!!!!!!!!

I go in this afternoon to hang out and get a feel for what the gal I'm replacing is doing, see what's on the table, get some training, and then (once he's back in town after mega traveling binge), I'll start properly on June 19th.

I am so. . . . so. .. . You have no idea. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIEEEEEEEEEEE!!

::collapse::

LOVE

The concerts are over.

Washing my face, just now?

A spiritual experience.


All the make-up (I do not wear make-up, any other day of the year) smeared on to make my general features visible from the audience, despite blinding white lights and a black house.. . all the sweat and all the tired and all the bobby pins and big, goofy, I-really-hit-those-B-flats-hard grins, the a-a-a-a-aaaaaaaa-men!s. . . gone with the cold cream.

I'm almost clean.



...I can't even quite remember what my face looks like. But I know I had a good time, and I know I did well, and I know I had a good time, afterwards. And the Moose-damned concerts are over.

I don't really know what to do with that, or what to say. Except that I'm clean, and the concerts are over, and people paid up to $50 to see us, and they gave us wine and cheese and strawberries with cream, after, and I'm tired, and there's still the smear of eyeliner (or else I'm even more beat than I thought), and there's a little Monty Python waiting for me downstairs, with my beau and maybe some more sweets. And sleep. And I think I like those people. And. . . and I'm really tired. And it was good.

Goodnight, my loves. I'll see you another day. LOVE

Well, that was fun, wasn't it?

Let it hereby be known that I am a hypochondriac. Or, at least, I'm paranoid, and prone to flights of fancy concerning some root cause of whatever is going on. And I'm easily psychocomatically influenced.

Basically, a hypochondriac.

But putting me on a drug that makes being out in the sun for a while a serious potential danger, which requires avoiding calcium (and several other ubiquitous minerals) in the eight hours surrounding taking the drug, and which Nearly Killed my Aunt (owing to an allergy to it), doesn't help. It represents easy danger. It is especially tantalizing to my worrying when possible side effects and signs to look out for include the plus-ubiquitous-que-calcium nausea, dizziness, drowsiness, joint pain, and irregular heartbeat.

And when potential (rare) side effects include seizures, destroyed intestines, and occasional thoughts of suicide, to name only a few, since those make it a really attractive treatment to worry about.

An hour before I took the thing, reading the warning sheets, I was drowsy as sin. And getting refluxy, because I'd misread the warnings to say I couldn't have antacids until 6 hours after taking the damn pill (it's only two--you just can't have taken one 6 hours before). But I've been getting a lot of sun, and not enough water; I haven't gotten enough sleep; I'm experiencing a certain amount of iron loss, and just gave a pint of blood a few days ago. I have every reason to be a little drowsy, and to get a little light-headed when standing suddenly and all that.

But you know I'm setting myself up for a week of this.

The cause of all this charming anticipation and excitement is the biological-warfare-level antibiotic, Ciproflaxocin, which my dentist prescribed (in his infinite wisdom), since we're trying to avoid me needing another root canal. I'm also stocked up on anti-inflammatories, to try to join with the antibiotic to knock the little bastard tooth out in a more peaceful way than drilling its inner and outer tissues away, leaving, literally, a mere shell of its former self. And nothing else has worked, to date. And I'm getting sick of the throbbing on contact with floss. So, here's hoping, hey?

And I had the first dose about 45 minutes ago, and seem to be fine. I could be drowsy, but it's hard to say. Anyway, I'm not going to push it with any heavy lifting, but I'm betting all's going to be well.



Unrelatedly, I resent blogger's forcing me to switch to its new template. What since I can't use it, with my ISP. Or with most ISPs I can get my OS to play with. Not even long enough to switch to New Blogger--that's how bad its failure to work is.

I guess I'm switching to Firefox, after all. Goddamn Blogger/Safari-1.0 feuding.

Hear the glorious tones of the air filter. . .

We're back from Arizona!

We first got to see Chris's sister, Pam, and her mate Chris (yes, it is) as well as their gaseous guinea pig Howard and their tortoises Tommy and Oreo, in Tempe. Then, we stayed with the lovely Rae- "It's in my eye!" -chel and her cat, Monstrosity (given name: Zitarra, common name: Cat), and temporary beta fish, Mo, in Chandler. We had a fabulous time everywhere, went to the Tempe Arts Festival, had a movie day, played more hands of the card game Phase 10 than your mother (unless your mother played a lot of Phase 10), got a nice visit from Raechel's brother and his wife, and had a go at a couple of great restaurants (the Middle-Eastern Haji Baba's and the Thai Thai Rama).

As usual (apparently), I got sick. My love drove 11 hours there and 10 hours (good time, btw) back, and you can imagine what that much car travel is good for. We had far more restaurant food than to which we are accustomed. I was around a furrier, darker cat than usual (I begin to suspect allergies). I spent more time in close contact with a furry cat than usual (that cat wrestles/kills). I breathed plenty of that fabulous Pheonix air, which has been known to give Californians respiratory failure on contact (useful information!).

So I've brought back what I can only imagine is a dandy sinus/respiratory infection (useful for choir practice tonight). But we also brought back wonderful illegal grapefruits from Pam's tree, a table and bowl that she made (because she's amazing), a few cool ceramic pieces from the Arts Festival, goopy glops of Raechel's love, a great and abiding love for her cat, and my new need to read Pride and Prejudice and Cyranno de Bergerac.

All that love and fun was well worth the little troubles of it. It was a fantastic trip. If you're reading this, my various Arizona loves, THANK YOU.


P.S. And Raechel: I've just realized, it's in my lungs. Sticking up the tubes. I thought it was pollution and dander and death, but no: it is Your Love. <3

P.P.S. For those of you who are not familiar with me and Rae's relationship, don't worry about the P.S. This is common.

For my love, this morning, while he's away.

You in Bloom

I build my day on your kiss
my hope scaffolding up from your arms like little vines
building up and on, stretching--
up into blossoms, consuming--
mighty with bliss in the sunlight!

And if I could stand minute on your shoulder, hiding in your hair
(warm in your shirt collar)
to whisper my love and your worth to unbelieving you,
I would. All the day,
I would.

And the world would wonder at
the blooming of you,
in the fat blue morning glories of my love.