I can say I hope it’s worth what I give up...

I can say I hope it’s worth what I give up...
You don't know me/I am an introvert and extricator...

I'm sitting here, in my house, feeling mildly intoxicated for many reasons. I've had half a Pacifico with dinner, my real estate ventures are looking better, I had a seriously cute waiter and he smiled at me a whole, whole lot...

A doctor promised me free eyeglasses if I can seal the real estate deal, generally, I'm feeling rather fetching and quite sexy.

I got to see my local crush, which is always amusing and a terribly conflicting experience. Does anyone else have a crush, someone they dig - at least on the surface - someone who you know nothing will ever happen, but just the sight of them is edifying in some wonderful, terrible way that is impossible to explain?

And, as usual, I was attracted and repelled simultaneously. Stupid crush! Wait, did I tell you guys about the performance I saw the other night, the dude who sang Purple Rain and had every girl in the place screaming like two-bit hoes set on fire?
"You make me so confused/the beautiful ones you always seem to lose"

It's all good. I think my buzz is passing. Oh well, back to catching up on my paperwork.

Proud Mary Keeps on Rollin

Proud Mary Keeps on Rollin
Hey Ya'll!!!

I just got back from Apache Cafe where all manner of Atlanta artists gathered to pay tribute and fundraise for Franklin-the-bassist who died in a motorcycle accident Monday on 285.

The highlights of the night are as follows:

Li'l G & his freaknassty guitar - started his set with a roaring, ripping, beautiful rendition of Purple Rain. Segued into Chili Peppers and finished up with Shout by Tears for Fears (yes, really, he did and sang each and every song at full throttle while literally coaxing tears and fire out of the guitar). Every girl in the place was screaming and rending her clothes and/or hair. the most beautifullest thing in the world...

Phillippia - Hometown favorite and man...when that woman opens her mouth and starts letting the beast out...sheeeiiiitttttt! I heart Phillippia. She sang her own compositions.

Erica Smith - I am a total convert. She sang Proud Mary, but did is slow and hard, her voice is a huskier Tina Turner. She murdered proud Mary. I mean, she laid it to rest, then resurrected it. I actually felt the sadness of Franklin's passing with her. She channelled all that anguish and hurt into the lyrics. It was amazing and a brilliant arrangement.

All in all, tonight was sublime. I'm so glad I decided to go out and expose myself to the local music scene. It was worth every single minute.

Hug your loved ones, ya'll, you never know when...

Fun with Intestines and warm water

Fun with Intestines and warm water
heh heh heh.

Sooooo...anyone else have a bit of intestine just kinda hanging outside their body? Well, i do and there is always something amusing to be found in this experience. Lately I've been working on "training" my intestine. Yup, simple tricks, sit, sit pretty, roll over, heel, you know, nothing too complicated. Well, my intestine is one smart loop of - uhhh (what is intestine? I mean, is it muscle...yeah, it's muscle - muscle. It's doing all the tricks all by itself at the appointed hour. Shocks the shit out of me cause you know I get bored easily and after 3 days of training I planned to take today off.

Not so for my intestine. It was on it like clockwork. I mean, I could practically hear the exclamations of "yeeeeeeaaaah babbbbeeeeeeee, let's do this shit!" There was some Arsenio Hall-esque fist pumping and street-fair dancing. For real, I have a terribly bout it bit of intestine.

I've also been thinking maybe I want to lose a little weight. Yes, I am truly this vapid. It was not even a year ago that I was fighting for my life in a hospital bed with tubes running in and out of me and no hope of having the smallest drop of water pass my lips, much less food. Now, though, I notice I eat without enjoying what's passing my lips so much. I eat when I'm bored or agitated about something, especially if I feel I cannot talk to anyone around me about my agitation. That should be on the decline for a while as my chief source of agitation has thankfully resigned and is moving oout of th state. Still, though.

I realize it's silly because I'm not anywhere near unhealthy or overweight. I'm just a little control-freakish. I like me at a particular point, I am not willing to cede that bit of self-determination in exchange for unchecked access to really not very good food most of the time.

I also realize that eating for me is a social activity. Put me in a group of people whose company I enjoy and I'll eat, but I'll also stop when I'm full, and getting full doesn't take much. However, leave me home alone or out and about and lonely (not necessarily alone, but lonely) and i'm clearing the fridge, scarfng everything on the plate and coming away hungry.

I suppose I am not hungry for food as much as companionship, an exchange of ideas, laughter and insight into the worlds of others.

that's some food for thought, i suppose.

heh heh heh.

What The Hell???

What The Hell???

Okay, I got CRITIQUED on my blog? But you did have a good point, I did get distracted and bored and I think I was writing too late at night because I didn't feel like being as thick about the friend thing as I usually prefer.

So, let's get more specific (in contrast to Kanye talking about his overdue bills in College Dropout). Let's just say that the thought was touched off by a mail message from someone with whom I was friendly in college. This person probably knew me better than I knew them. So getting this mail message, encouraging us hanging out, struck me as mildly ridiculous. For what point, I asked myself.

Then today I got a message from another person I knew in college. This person called me and - I shit you not - was asking me to co-sign a loan for medical school. Yes, you read it right, CO-SIGN A LOAN FOR MEDICAL SCHOOL. Now, we've been in touch enough for this particular "friend" to know I've been in and out of the hospital for quite some time and some other stuff. The last conversation we had I was solicited for money and then told I was wrong for suggesting that black american women should open their dating pool to include non-black men. It was a little stronger than being told I was wrong, I was called a hypocrite and a lot of other things for the suggestion. It wasn't as though I'd just been shooting off at the mouth, my opinion on the issue was solicited.

But what really tore me up was the fact that the conversation in question was at least 2 years old by my friend's count. Huh? Who in the hell remembers a conversation from two damn years ago (this person, obviously).

So yeah, I've had ample opportunity lately to look at my "friends" and figure to whom the label still applies and to whom it simply served as a designation of convenience. Or, as I suggested in my last, much-critiqued blog, I've outgrown the relationships.

And, Tera-byte, i think we should both go back to school and get another degree. I'm really thinking that English Ph.D could come in handy some day when I need a way to find hot young men. Where better than on a college campus?

Feel Flows

Feel Flows
Has anyone else noticed a tendency to grow away from friends? I know I'm not the only one. It's funny, I'm not terribly good with remembering things. I don't remember events that were/are major for other people simply because the event doesn't register as exceptional at the time for me.

But, then, I tend to stir up trouble often and much. It takes a fair amount to get my attention. Earlier today my friends and I were talking about another friend who had an SUV (a navigator or something) driven into her bedroom by her house-mates drunk boyfriend. I didn't even believe her when she told me about it a day later. Being a 'show don't tell' person, she insisted we walk over to her place and *voila* there was the demolished wall and telltale tread marks over her bedspread.

It was a mess. That impressed me, especially since it is one of my odd fears. I heard this story in middle school about this guy (it was one of those Be Christian, Be Good, God will still get you, but hedge your bets lectures) and his wife and a semi drove into their house and he even lifted his shirt to show a whole gym full of kids the tread marks on his back.

I think the wife died. The whole point of the rally/lecture was anti-drinking and driving, but all i could think of was "Jesusjehosephat! A Semi careens into your house and runs you and your wife over?! There you are, sleeping all peaceful and suddenly a monster is in your bedroom, on top of you...a bleeping SEMI?"

So, when my friend had a Navigator climb into her bed, I was completely undone. It's part of the reason I don't believe in ground-floor dwellings.

Hm. Lookit that, I'm two views away from a whopping 5000 since I started this blog. I still wonder if the times I look at my own blog before writing the new missive are counted. I tend to think not, now, but I'm pretty sure people read this blog by accident a lot.

Thanks for dropping in , btw.

I did start participating in the writing class again last night. I don't know if I'll submit anything for review, but I'm getting back to critiquing the work of others and I hope I offer encouragement. I don't care for telling people what does and does not work when they are on Beta draft and really just need "hey, that's interesting, i like the characters but your sentences are a little flukey, keep writing, I'm intrigued."

Or maybe that's just me. Perhaps I need the pats on teh back and I'm projecting onto my classmates.

LOL.

Well, I'm typing with one eye closed and the other one is drooping. Big yawn, feels like my jaw is going to unhinge one of these days.

Keep it freaktastic!

Fighters

Fighters
"Fighters"
(feat. Matthew Santos)

[Chorus:]
When the fighters are all around
All the lovers are underground
No one will save you anymore
So what's happening, what you rapping about?
little boy. Is it cars? Is it girls? Is it money?
The world?

[Verse 1]
Or is it something they can never believe?
Or is it something you can never achieve?
Is it
Beyond your means?
Is it
Inside your dreams?
Can it
Never come out cause it's scared to
Unprepared to
Too worried about the words of the people it's weird to
You don't want them to hear you
You just wish there was a door that would appear that you can go disappear through
Well I'm feeling your pain
I was feeling the same
But I said I'd never feel that again

[Chorus]

[Verse 2]
Man
I really miss my pops
Hope that God watches over him and that he's on top
That there is no more disease and that he's alright
That he's one of the generals inside the army of the light
And grandma, you know I had to bite something from you
So after every show it's "peace, and much love to you"
Auntie Tweetie's on the way, please look out for that girl
I know we'll meet again, so it's never me against the world

[Chorus]

[Verse 3]
I hope that God forgive us, all of us sinners
Turn us back into beginners, put us up where the winners go
Holy apartments in the gardens in which the rivers flow
Thank you for all your blessings and all of your miracles
I thank all my fans and all my supporters
Shout out to Bishop G, congrats on your new baby daughter
I tip my hat to all my family and friends
Now we just got one more to go
L - U - P - END

What can I say? It's on my mind. Some KrAZy movie with Dennis Rodman is on the tube, but I've had a day. Last night I had my moral compass challenged. Actually, my moral compass has been getting dicked around consistently lately. I know where my moral center is, but other people keep coming along and they make honest attempts to turn me around.

It's not that I'm unmovable as much as I have a desire for something specific. Mostly the desire centers around moving my life in a different direction, which I won't do until I'm somehow finished with whatever this is that I do most of the time. I fantasize a lot about getting my act cinched tightly, writing daily on some interesting work, shopping it, finding my voice as a writer.

It's well and good to fantasize, but in the meantime I'm not writing a damn thing. I'm past feeling lukewarm about the writing class and into the realm of non-attendance. This was not my intention. I certainly don't spend hundreds of dollar on something just so that I can skip. This is not, after all, college and I am not a scholarship student burning someone else's money. It's my change.

I don't think it says much about the class that over half the participants have dropped it.

An aside - i have not been to Paris, New York or Miami in a painfully long time. I talk to myself in French, which is ever-so-tragic and quite lonely-making.

Lately I've been fighting a lot. Well, I guess that's my nature. i'm always up to my eyeballs in something, I like it better that way. As long as the something changes periodically, i feel pretty good about things. All last year i got cut apart and sewn together. this year I'm doing similar operations on the business I work for.

You know, I sound kind of impressive when other people talk about me. My sister told someone I manage a multi-million dollar company, which is true on it's face, but mostly that involves me trying not to cock up the company, building flimsy allegiances and budgeting like a a new fool.

It's not exciting stuff in the least. it can be interesting, but not exciting. We won't even roll our eyes over my compensation (or lack thereof). I mean, i read industry standards on compensation and stuff and I seriously wonder "what in the HECK am I doing wrong?"

I've been driving a borrowed convertible sports car for about a week and it's the life. Truly. Sun shining, fast car, top down...that's me with the hair whipping everywhere, smiling my fool head off. The moments speeding down the highway blasting Prince's "Purple Rain" album are some of the happiest moments I know. They are magic moments, I feel so good and lovely, as though the heaven's have opened and are smiling at me.

If I didn't have those little moments I might go homicidal on fools.

Ciao!

Fighters

Fighters
"Fighters"
(feat. Matthew Santos)

[Chorus:]
When the fighters are all around
All the lovers are underground
No one will save you anymore
So what's happening, what you rapping about?
little boy. Is it cars? Is it girls? Is it money?
The world?

[Verse 1]
Or is it something they can never believe?
Or is it something you can never achieve?
Is it
Beyond your means?
Is it
Inside your dreams?
Can it
Never come out cause it's scared to
Unprepared to
Too worried about the words of the people it's weird to
You don't want them to hear you
You just wish there was a door that would appear that you can go disappear through
Well I'm feeling your pain
I was feeling the same
But I said I'd never feel that again

[Chorus]

[Verse 2]
Man
I really miss my pops
Hope that God watches over him and that he's on top
That there is no more disease and that he's alright
That he's one of the generals inside the army of the light
And grandma, you know I had to bite something from you
So after every show it's "peace, and much love to you"
Auntie Tweetie's on the way, please look out for that girl
I know we'll meet again, so it's never me against the world

[Chorus]

[Verse 3]
I hope that God forgive us, all of us sinners
Turn us back into beginners, put us up where the winners go
Holy apartments in the gardens in which the rivers flow
Thank you for all your blessings and all of your miracles
I thank all my fans and all my supporters
Shout out to Bishop G, congrats on your new baby daughter
I tip my hat to all my family and friends
Now we just got one more to go
L - U - P - END

What can I say? It's on my mind. Some KrAZy movie with Dennis Rodman is on the tube, but I've had a day. Last night I had my moral compass challenged. Actually, my moral compass has been getting dicked around consistently lately. I know where my moral center is, but other people keep coming along and they make honest attempts to turn me around.

It's not that I'm unmovable as much as I have a desire for something specific. Mostly the desire centers around moving my life in a different direction, which I won't do until I'm somehow finished with whatever this is that I do most of the time. I fantasize a lot about getting my act cinched tightly, writing daily on some interesting work, shopping it, finding my voice as a writer.

It's well and good to fantasize, but in the meantime I'm not writing a damn thing. I'm past feeling lukewarm about the writing class and into the realm of non-attendance. This was not my intention. I certainly don't spend hundreds of dollar on something just so that I can skip. This is not, after all, college and I am not a scholarship student burning someone else's money. It's my change.

I don't think it says much about the class that over half the participants have dropped it.

An aside - i have not been to Paris, New York or Miami in a painfully long time. I talk to myself in French, which is ever-so-tragic and quite lonely-making.

Lately I've been fighting a lot. Well, I guess that's my nature. i'm always up to my eyeballs in something, I like it better that way. As long as the something changes periodically, i feel pretty good about things. All last year i got cut apart and sewn together. this year I'm doing similar operations on the business I work for.

You know, I sound kind of impressive when other people talk about me. My sister told someone I manage a multi-million dollar company, which is true on it's face, but mostly that involves me trying not to cock up the company, building flimsy allegiances and budgeting like a a new fool.

It's not exciting stuff in the least. it can be interesting, but not exciting. We won't even roll our eyes over my compensation (or lack thereof). I mean, i read industry standards on compensation and stuff and I seriously wonder "what in the HECK am I doing wrong?"

I've been driving a borrowed convertible sports car for about a week and it's the life. Truly. Sun shining, fast car, top down...that's me with the hair whipping everywhere, smiling my fool head off. The moments speeding down the highway blasting Prince's "Purple Rain" album are some of the happiest moments I know. They are magic moments, I feel so good and lovely, as though the heaven's have opened and are smiling at me.

If I didn't have those little moments I might go homicidal on fools.

Ciao!

Pretender

Damn.

Foo Fighters. I've been feeling them for a long time, every once in a while, though, they come out with a video that is absolutely captivating. Like the video for Hero, that was the shit and a half. Now the Pretender video - shit and a half AGAIN! Fawkin' A man!

So, here are my all-time favorite two Foo Fighters videos/songs. Well, maybe not my fave songs by them. But definitely the fave videos.



okay, so i cannot find a video - well, the actual music video - for these songs so enjoy the grammy performances.



Okay, on the phone helping a friend through a paper on modern-day China with a historical perspective. Possibly in chinese. Wooot Woot!

How to wheel and deal while drunk

Talking wirk, briefly: had an interesting convoe with an opthalmologist who has some office space for rent. He called me at 7:00pm, i was half a glass into some sweet white wine and had NOTHING in my stomach. It's rude to smack into the phone, so I settled for drinking wine. 45 minutes later I slurred to the close of the conversation, "Okay, Dr. Opthalmologist, thanks so much for taking time to call me, I'll be sure to be in touch tomorrow..." and he said "huh?!" and not just because he's not a native english-speaker!!! Hot mess on the phone! But I had to get him off so I could eat something since I could not feel my toes, fingertips or tongue and my lips were pretty much nonexistent!

A friend asked me why I support Barack...that's a complicated question, especially since I've been inclined toward Hillary. However, there is an intangible Mr. Obama posesses - nevermind the surplus of intelligence, the skill and diplomacy, the willingness to listen and the background that is less isolationist and more inclusive than any other presidential candidate in history. I can't tell you the intangible, perhaps it is a mixture of desire and destiny: powerful stuff. But, hey, I don't discriminate against intelligent, focused, talented, bold people. I suppose voting is an intensely personal decision when you get down to it. Obama reminds me of Clinton from 1992 - young, smart, willing to build across perceived gaps and adamant about involving young people in the political process. It's rare, you know, that young people are courted for their youth and idealism, not simply treated as not-quite-old people who are to be led blindly down no path in particular.

Okay, tonight's book: Size 12 is not Fat by Meg Cabot. Anyone else out there read a book a night? Tomorrow looks like Jurassic Park or Why Black Men Marry White Women (a well-reasoned argument, I'm intrigued).

Ta!

Sunday Morning, Beautiful Day

Some strange animal is outside making noise. I'm still in the country, at the ranch, feelin' relaxed and loved. I'm probably about one year from a severe and sweeping "fuck-all" moment, quitting everything I know to branch out in some new direction of my life.

In pop-psychology parlance, I am feeling genuinely inauthentic in most of my endeavors at this point. I could care less, which makes me sad, so I try *hard* to care more. Do I really care about the foolishness physicians get up to, especially when they are so tolerant of one another? Nyet.

Do I give a screaming dodo's flip about people in the office, transient as they are? Hell, fuck, no.

You know, I want to convert the office to a nice immigrant cash-only endeavor for the staff. Get off payroll. Always have some folks on call. Who cares about anything else? It's not brain surgery. It sure as hell isn't fun. (retch, gag)

Last night I watched Indiana Jones with the fam. I took a bath and slathered lotion and oil all over my baaahhhhday. I contemplated my toes, came to peace with not wanting to participate a'tall in my writing class. Spent some time debating salsa class and weight training (I think I can dance, I'm not sure I should be bench-pressing).

I like having freshly trimmed hair. I finished reading A Year In the Merde (again) and marvelled at the guy in France I met years ago now, who was so severely well-connected and so damn French, in the best possible way. He definitely ascribed to the "if you like 'em, move 'em in" philosophy (thank god), and the "it's not what you know, it's who you know" philosophy. Certainly we got along like a house afire. Damn shame I haven't seen him in person since that initial meeting, but life takes you places sometimes.

His fractured English was tres mignon.

Alright, I'm off to go shopping.

You look like Alicia Keyes

Wow.

Go figure. So i finally left the house last night for something other than a work-related event. I went to a club where I thought a friend of mine would be singing, but she wasn't, instead Rich Medina out of Philly was there and it..was...so...lovely.

Starts out, i navigate to a parking lot and get out of my car just as these two well-dressed guys are getting out. So I ask them where the club is and they say they are going there as well, so we all walk together. Polite chatter, then one of them says, "You must hear this all the time, but you know, you really look like Alicia Keys."

No, actually, I haven't heard that in aeons. The last time I heard that, Alicia Keys had her first album out and it was mostly shorthand for "you look mixed." Perhaps that was the case last night, too, but the difference is HARDLY ANYONE EVER COMPLIMENTS ME ANY LONGER!!! So it was a nice change of pace.

Then, we're in line for the club and there is a severely drunk woman in front of us. That's funny all by itself, drunk people are fools. This one is five-foot-two and about 200 lbs. She's celebrating her birthday and falling out of her top. She manhandles every single guy in line - she's stroking and caressing and giggling and cooing madly. Her friend keeps explaining "it's her birthday, it's her birthday." So, she gets up to the bouncer and she has a go at him too. The line that sent me over the edge was "Oh, that's my daughter's name too!" (pet, pet, caress, fondle).

I'm so busy laughing that I do not notice the guy in front of me pay my entrance. Color me surprised. He disappears by the time I get inside, so I sit down to see what's happening and the music is so live. SO LIVE. For all my SF friends - it was deeply reminiscent of DJ Somuchsoul at the Baobob. yeah. that nice. The place erupted when they played Marques Wyatt and came off the hinges when the air went still, then Crystal Waters' voice reverberated with "She wakes up early in the morning/to put on her makeup/ gotta have her makeup."

With that I even had to stand up and dance a little. Like, half the song. I was already sleepy. But one of the parking lot guys had swung by my table and brought me a water, so I was tired but hydrated. I had a great time!

What was really, really dope was the vibe. Usually in ATL clubs (not that I'm an expert, but from my limited experience) folks are not all that friendly. And the music is not all that hot. If it's a younger crowd, then it's all strip club music. Older crowd and it's all old-school. I may be blasphemin' but those are my observations. So, this was great vibe, beautiful people, fantastic dancing and hotness music. Hotness.

Yaaaaaay! It was the first night in a very, very long time where I wasn't thinking about the j-o-b or the idiots involved in the j-o-b. I was just taking in all the humanity and having a good time. No more idiots! I'm ready to start telling folks what I think of them. The telling-offs will start with "does your mama like you?" I always think that's a great jumping-off point, especially for those who labor under the illusion that their shit does not, in fact, stink.

Bitches.

Anita Bryant and Pie Face

Oh god. My computer is going soooo slowly. But I have to share this little story. There was this woman, Anita Bryant, who hated gay people with a purple passion. She was convinced they preyed upon kids etc. etc. and was very vocal and very public and galvanaized Dade County to support her.

Well, one day she's having a press conference and someone walks up to her while she's talking and throws a fruit-cream pie in her face.

Yes. Really. So, her husband or some random fella is sitting next to her and he tells her "honey, let's pray for him, pray for him" and so she starts praying. Now, in the account I'm watching, Bruce Villanch is saying "she was already in trouble, no one would do her hair" (pie insert) "and no one would decorate her condo (more pie) and I swear to jeebus, I was crying it was so funny. One, the timing was crazy - insanely funny. Two, pie in the face - freaking PIE IN THE FACE!!! So 3 Stooges and Charlie Chaplin. Terribly funny. She was mid-word "the gays" etc. and then (blammo!) PIE!!!

And she gets two sentences into her prayer and breaks down crying. Crying. Sobbing. Then you see a shot of the guy who threw the pie and he's licking his finger. Which completely undoes me. He's enjoying a bit of cream pie and she's so shocked she can't even wipe the pie away.



I just had to share. Had to.

On boredom and coming to terms

Life is just a crapload easier when you're honest. But have you ever noticed how easy it is to deceive yourself? To either be so oblivious that you shut down every thinking part of yourself or to just flat-out lie to yourself in an effort not to acknowledge the obvious.

I think it's called ignoring the elephant in the room. I've been ignoring the elephant in the room. Lately I've gotten rather down, quite forlorn, amassing little hurts and developing a severe case of unhappiness. It broke, in a way, on Mother's Day while I sat outside my Grandmother's church and wrote about everything I saw around me. I also spent some time talking with a Jamaican shyster. In our short exchange I learned that he had 8 kids, considered himself a Rasta, wanted to get in my panties, was all about "young girls" but wanted to marry a woman 40+ who could support him financially, despised his youngest son's babymama of 7 weeks because she was a. unfortunate looking and b. a p/t lesbian. We had to cut the conversation short when he lit a cigarette. I can only take so much, after all.

Back to my elephant - I sent out an email to friends and family a month ago asking if I could or should fire myself from my job. It's not much fun, you know, and I like action and results. I understand life has plenty of plateaus but living on a plateau is not much fun. Nor is having someone's foot in your neck. I've been living with both. I suppose I'll have to take it all one moment at a time. I've lost my sense of optimism about work, though, and the joy I found in returning to society and my vocation has dissipated. I've even considered putting together my resume and shopping it.

We'll see. If nothing else, shopping my resume would be fun and a way to meet new people. I'd like to meet new people, they are entertaining most of the time.

And now, for your daily dose of Obama:

My Appointed Husband

Sorry, watching Oprah on the FLDS and plural marriages. That, of course, has fuckall to do with your daily dose of Obama...



Whoa. I haven't heard that in a while "a woman's hair is her crowning glory." Funny story - in college a girl from my hometown came up to me and looked in shock and horror at my freshly shaved pate. She pointed, finger trembling, and stuttered "but your hair is your crowning glory!" I think it is relevant that she's a preacher's kid. Pretty girl. I wasn't so much in the mood for a PK lecture, though, so I asked her, "but I thought that was my brain?"

We didn't ever speak again. She shook her head, full of long, straightened hair and looked beyond me. I heard she ended up cutting her hair and maybe there was a lesbian rumor as well, but I could be confused because there were a lot of those.

Watching the Cosby Show, more later...

Realities Collide

Oh LOOK! there is a Category for Politics! It's under News. Fabulaux!

Now I can share my happy new thingie with you all, observe:



And every day I will show a new one. There is a great one that talks about "this is your brain on hope..." fantastic. of course, it won't be all fun and games to get this world fixed. it's going to hurt and hurt quite a bit, but i like to think my generation is up for it. i like to think most generations are up for it.

I've just finished another Mrs. Pollifax novel. They are mysteries and i think they are set in the late-70s early 80s, but the writer makes her descriptions of places so specific and her descriptions of time are broad. Always, there is intrigue and treachery in the world. It is only balanced by hope and charity.

Well, hope you enjoy the video and get out and vote. Make the right decision!

xoxo - camille

FreeBird

Yayoi Kasumi's dots make my heart pitter patter and shorten my breath.

And now for lyrics:
If I leave here tomorrow
Would you still remember me?
For I must be travelling on, now,
cause theres too many places Ive got to see.
But, if I stayed here with you, girl,
Things just couldnt be the same.
cause Im as free as a bird now,
And this bird you can not change.
Lord knows, I cant change.

I was thinking about change earlier. I just finished reading Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire. I read it once before, in 2000, and I think I was really sick and probably not a little drugged because I found it annoying. Now I am charmed. So, it got me to thinking about change. The book is a "insider's look" at the life of Cinderella, but told from the perspective of one of her stepsisters and Cinderella (better known as Clara Van de Meer) doesn't show up til halfway through. For reference, Maguire is the author of Son of a Witch and Wicked (the basis of the Broadway sensation).

Anywho, every character goes through quite a few changes and their actions reveal their motivations over time. A well-told tale. Probably arduously written. There are a lot of ruminations on beauty and some compelling stuff on charity and survival. The end of the book has a lot to say about the inheritance children take from their parents: not the money stuff, but the emotional inheritance.

That makes me think of myself (naturally), but an interesting comment made to me by a guy I met once in Chicago. We walked all over that damn city that night and he told me about his father, the artist, and his mother - who I think became a pastry chef or something after their divorce. His mother had the last word, his father, so dedicated to art, would not work so as not to clutter up his artistic spirit. Mom supported herself and her child with her art. Necessity is always the mother of invention.

Well, this is enough prattling for one night. Dinner plans were scrapped due to family emergencies, so thank god I had a fantastic lunch at a new place up the street where our waiter had Bell's Palsey and the visigoth could not resist talking to him about treatment options. I went away to the bathroom and came back to spy the visigoth contorting his face while talking to the waiter and had a moment of alarm - he could not Possibly be poking fun! And he wasn't, they were involved in an informal discussion of symptoms and remedies and the waiter was genuinely grateful.

There is an itch inside of me, I am growing dissatisfied again. It's the most unpleasant and unrelenting sensation. Only slightly less troubling than a leaking suprapubic catheter.

Ah. perspective.

WOrD

Yeah, has anyone noticed there isn't a blog category for politics on Myspace? Again, myspace is for skanks. Nevermind I'm here. I'm just helpin' out.




Enjoy. Dance. Register to Vote. Vote.

Once, a long time ago, when I was an aspiring journo (this is before you become a journo and mostly hang out for the food and backstage passes) I covered the first G.W. bush election. Nasty business. Anyway, I was stationed out in suburbia at a church. I saw NO people of color. Everyone was boomer-ish and as they passed out of the polling place they would smile and chat with me and say to the person walking in "make the right decision."

Without fail. "Make the right decision." It was a community convinced about their candidate *Dubya* and enforcing it with one another.

Well, this is me telling you: Make the Right Decision. If you're not old enough to vote, you ARE old enough to REGISTER people to vote. My birthday is election day, so I missed voting the first time for Bill Clinton. However, I spent the summer canvassing churches and shit in the blazing Florida sun, registering everyone from panhandlers on the street to church congregations to vote. They would ask me if I was going to vote and I would say that I would not be old enough. So many people loved that, I was out there working to get them to vote even though I couldn't do it.

Sometimes I get disillusioned, the Bush years (Alpha and Beta) are disheartening. But we have a chance for change and it's young people who will make that change. Sea Change (check the Beck album, but not if you're depressed cause you will slit your throat). Obama is about change. I donated to his campaign. I couldn't afford the $2300.00 a plate dinner for Hillary, sorry. She's a cool lady, she's smart as hell, but she's not what I NEED in a president right now. She'll do great work regardless. Just, she doesn't belong in the White House.

Make the right decision.

Got my mind made up (I’m a Lady)

Got my mind made up (I’m a Lady)
Great new quote:
Arthur C. Clarke formulated the three "laws" of prediction which apply well to the evolution of technology in my lifetime.

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

LOL. ROFL. I'm such a fucking geek sometimes (okay, all the time, but fuck you, I'm in denial about a lot of things and my geekiness tops the list).

I just spent the past few hours making myself incredibly happy by reading up on open-source electronic health records. I had a terrible jolt earlier today when I demoed a EMR that I've been DYING to see, oh, I've heard such GREAT things about it and I was so excited, I would have forged the check myself.

Until they told me how much it cost. I was disgusted then. Absolutely repulsed. Shock and Awe. For real. The military could have saved a billion bucks and just quoted the price of this web-based software to Iraq if they wanted to scare the shit out of everyone. It was disgusting and lazy and designed to boondoggle the unsuspecting out there. I had even tried to like the salesperson, but now it's solidified, I don't. He knew he fucked up when I wrote back after the demo "the price is steeper than expected." So THEN - adding insult to serious injury - he starts telling me how he can talk to his manager and see if they can bring the price down.

I flashed back to every single sales-instruction video I've ever seen in my life and could imagine him wearing polyester pants, a wide tie, a combover and his belly hanging over his pants as he tried to scam me out of good sense and money. Dumb bitch. Here is what killed, in order to save money, he wanted me to decrease MY expectations. Yes, truly.

That's like walking into a clothing store and being told that the expensive shoes you want to buy are all yours for the taking at full price as long as you're okay with them being 3 sizes too small. W.T.F.? Why not just find the shoes elsewhere - hell, on sale even?

Well, it was just enough disillusionment to prompt some therapeutic wolfing of steak and broccoli and crablegs (all you can eat!!!) and for me to come home and baste in bathwater scented with "French Kiss" bath stuff from Lush (Merry Christmas to me from my little sister!)

Now I'm listening to 2080 by Yeasayer and preparing to go write nice comments on my novel writing class. The class, btw, is not a phenomenal waste of time, but I won't be taking it again. It's too...esoteric. Plus, as I have detailed at length, i can't stand the instructor. Working with other writers who are trying to gain a toehold is painful. Painful I tell you. There is a reason writing is an alone activity. Most of it is ugly and unredeeming. But you keep going and it gets better. Being a part of someone else's process doubles or quintuples the agony. It's infinitely worse to share your early ugly moments with others as well.

Won’t you come over love, so I can show you love?

Won’t you come over love, so I can show you love?
Bring it all to me...

Love that Estelle...Bring it all to meee - oooooh, ooooh, oooooh

My newest nefarious plan (heh heh heh) is to 1. attend my sister's graduation and spend a week sun n' funnin' it in Florida (hometown-ish!) and 2. To see Kanyizzle at Madison Square Garden.

For real, I gotta get on the stick on both plans. I can be so retard about things. That's the french pronounciation, btw, meaning slow. And I know i misspelled pronounciation, but i don't care.

Why Is Portishead's Three album hot as a cautery tool? I remember my first job in medicine, I worked at an orthopedics convention. The first couple of hours I wanted to throw up because there was a vendor across from me who played the same damn video of a knee replacement over and over and over. By lunchtime, though, I was immune to the grossness of blood and muscle and tissue and I rather thought the knee, skin pulled back, looked like a hot steamy slice of pizza. Things change pretty quickly.

he power and beauty of the human spirit

he power and beauty of the human spirit
Television done right. This American Life on Showtime (Sunday at 10) - Just had a show
"Escape" about a guy who has no muscles, but has managed to live into his late 20s. He has a girlfriend, he's trying to move out of the house, but he's on a breathing machine and has been in a coma twice in the past year.

But he's in love. And he writes, he blogs, he wants and is a part of the world as much as he can be. Watching him made me feel good. Not in a "thank god it isn't me" way but in a "this is why I keep trying" way. Sometimes, especially when things are going awry, I wonder "why do I keep trying, I'm just a puddle and things keep going wrong" but then I get over myself and I get back to trying.

Sometimes it feels as though I'm just stupid, too stupid to stop trying even when everything suggests stopping is the only logical thing to do with myself. I guess it's a matter of knowing the limitations and constraints and then artfully dodging them. Remember that character from Dickens, the Artful Dodger? That's me. Artfully dodging my limitations, working within them, putting a pinkie toe outside just to see what will happen.

Oh, and I gained 5 pounds. So, now I have something to do with myself, something to be all manner of self-absorbed about to the exclusion of everything else, which oddly enough, makes me highly efficient in all other endeavors because i want to spend all of my time taking care of my corporeal form again.

Tomorrow is my ostomy anniversary. That makes me smile. What great things have happened for me, what strange and interesting adventures I have taken. I predict there are more to come.

Happy Monday all!