Not in the I’m so upset I can’t think straight sense. Nor in the I am seeing pink elephants this can’t be good sense. Merely in the I can’t remember shit and I must be getting old sense.
Hear that sizzle? That’s brain cells frying.
Earlier, it took me about three full minutes to remember the name of the villain played by Jonathan Pryce in Tomorrow Never Dies. Come! On! I wrote the frickin BOOK.
My IQ is just whithering away. I need sex. Sex would fix this. Don’t try to tell me otherwise.
This is big news. Big news. Changing my life type news.
[NBC’s] biggest hope next fall is “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” a new series from “The West Wing” creator Aaron Sorkin. With Sorkin’s pedigree and an all-star cast that includes Matthew Perry, Bradley Whitford and Amanda Peet, the network scheduled it for the key slot of Thursday night at 9 p.m.
The stars will play the backstage operators behind a network sketch-comedy show.
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, I love you already.
P.S. I find there’s a blog discussing that this show will be up against Grey’s Anatomy. GET TIVO PEOPLE!
It’s possible that it’s unforgivably dorky to comment on the McCartney-Mills breakup, but I venture forward unafraid.
There is no way that 90% of the adult population of the U.S., and Great Britain, and most of Europe, didn’t see this coming. Rich man. Disreputable woman. Old enough to be her father. She feuds with the children of the previous marriage. He’s on the rebound. I mean, DUH.
But. » Read more..
In looking into the whole “hug the tar baby” thing, I find citations of Tony Snow using the phrase as far back as 1999. It seems it’s a pet phrase of his.
On the way to work this morning, I was listening to Rachael Maddow, and she explained that yesterday, she’d called Snow to task for using “tar baby” because, although it is a phrase meaning “sticky or inextricable situation,” it’s also a racial epithet. Later in the show yesterday, she used the word “bohunk,” which she didn’t realize was also an offensive epithet. So today she apologized for it, laughed and moved on.
It was so easy. It astonishes me that people don’t know that apologizing is easy. It is a natural thing, because sooner or later, we all need to apologize. It can be discomfitting to approach, but is often pleasant in the hearing.
The current administration seems structured around the idea that apologizing is offensive and wrong. “Stay the course” is not just their watchword in Iraq, it’s their watchword in everything they do, because they cannot and must not be wrong.
It’s not the worst thing about Bushco, but it may be the most inhuman.
I had to go to the Brazilian Consulate and submit a visa application, but when I arrived, I discovered I had somehow somewhere lost my official 2×2 passport photos. But an enterprising photographer has a shop just across the street, so across I go, up three flights of stairs, and smile for the camera.
While we are waiting for the photos to develop, the cheesy photographer chats me up about where I’m going and he says “Be careful in Brazil” (everyone says this) “I had a seven thousand dollar camera stolen in Rio.”
“Wow” says I, “That’s terrible.”
He continues, “I only put it down on the beach for four or five minutes, and it was gone. The insurance company only paid $5,000. I lost $2,000.”
And I thought “You left a seven thousand dollar camera on the beach? In Rio? What did you expect?” I didn’t say these things, but I thought them.
I suck.
On Feministing I found a link to an interesting and highly readable article discussing the economics of prostitution. The author (mathematics professor John Allen Paulos) suggests that prostitutes are relatively well-paid to compensate from the economic loss of marriage prospects (because marriage economically benefits women).
I think this model is very limited, because what prostitutes lose is not simply, or primarily, the opportunity to marry, but the opportunity to be respectable. I think this is an important distinction, because in some cultures, only married women are respectable, but in cultures where it is respectable to be single, respectability; reputation, is still an economic advantage. » Read more..
People disappear. It’s one of life’s mysteries, one I often wonder about.
Sitting next to my keyboard is the contact information for a young man very interested in learning traditional Wicca (the kind I teach). He came with referrals. We had a good conversation. He was enthusiastic. I told him I was sending an application (everyone enters my group with an application). I sent the application. (Actually, the first time it bounced, then I got the right email and re-sent.) Nothing. Never heard again.
The thing is, this happens all the time. In my years of teaching Wicca, I’ve sent thirty applications for every one I got back.
But this isn’t a Wicca thing. I mean, when I think about the dating…! Because this is commonplace, isn’t it? You meet someone, or you’re about to meet someone, and all of a sudden, they’re gone. Poof. Puff of invisible smoke. And following up is mostly useless.
Sometimes it’s even people who have been in your life a while. They stop returning phone calls. You didn’t fight or even disagree. They just stopped being there. And sometimes that’s very sad.
But mostly it’s mysterious. Mostly it just speaks to the vast space between you and me. We think we know each other but we don’t. We reach out to each other, but sometimes we don’t connect. The thoughts in your head are unknown to me, and mine are unknown to you, and the times we really know each other are wonderful in part because they are rare.
Some people hate the Internet (clearly not the people reading this). They think more tech is less touch. But I think anything that keeps us connected is for the good. When I think about why I blog, is it worth it, am I killing time typing “little” things instead of writing the next book, I come back to this. That I am connecting. I have not disappeared.
Got this from Shakespeare’s Sister:
Accent: Pretty strong New York accent, I’m told, although I was raised in New Jersey.
Booze: Vodka (Stoli) martini with a twist.
Chore I Hate: Washing the floor. If anything could ever make a person feel like Cinderella…!
Dog or Cat: Cats!
Essential Electronics: Computer, duh.
Favorite Cologne: Spellbound
Gold or Silver: Silver. Very lunar & witchy.
Hometown: I don’t identify with any one town. I live in Rockland County, NY but I still think of myself as a Jersey Girl.
Insomnia: Very rarely, but with the disk problem in my neck, I don’t sleep well.
Job Title: Technical Writer. Or Queen, take your pick.
Kids: Arthur
Living Arrangements: Townhouse condo; me, Arthur, and the Gang of Two
Most Admirable Traits: Honesty (bluntness, even); loyalty; willingness to communicate fairly and openly
Number of Sexual Partners: More than Shakes. More than any of the ones linked at Shakes.
Overnight Hospital Stays: Most recently, knee surgery in 2003, I was in the hospital from Tuesday through Friday. Before that, I think the only time was when I was five. (On edit) Oh, yeah, there was this other thing. Not going there.
Phobias: Car washes
Quote: “Just go ahead and admit you’re an asshole. You would be in some good company.”
Religion: Wicca
Siblings: One older brother. Four younger sisters. One younger brother. Two step-sisters.
Time I Wake Up: The alarm goes off at seven during the week. Weekends I can stay in bed as late as nine.
Unusual Talent or Skill: I can lick my nose, cross my eyes one at a time, and bend my fingers back to touch my wrist. This makes me very special.
Vegetable I Love: Almost all of them, but fiddlehead ferns make me shudder with delight.
Worst Habit: I have a blurty thing. And my voice is too loud.
X-Rays: Gazillions. I think my left leg must glow in the dark. I have to say the screws in my knee are very entertaining on an x-ray.
Yummy Foods I Make: My specialties are my goat cheese primavera, my marsala portobellos, my breaded spinach, and my split pea soup.
Zodiac Sign: Taurus with a Capricorn moon and a Scorpio ascendant.
Tuesday I had an MRI on my neck (“cervical spine” which means “neck”). I had originally scheduled it for Sunday, then I had to reschedule.
So when I schedule it for Sunday, they ask “Are you claustrophic?” I say “no.” When I call back to schedule it for Tuesday, they ask “Are you claustrophic?” I say “no.” When I arrive and start filling out forms, the forms ask “Are you claustrophic?” I say “no.”
Oh, sure, I’ve had a Lincoln Tunnel moment, like everyone else who’s read The Stand (twice), but mostly I like small spaces. I am not nervous in elevators. I like to mummify myself when I’m in bed. (Drove my ex-husband crazy, that did.)
