Monday, July 31, 2006

A smidge for Monday

FIRST - Go to yesterday's post, read it, embrace the idea, and commence to thinkin' about the story with which you will wow us on Wednesday. You CAN do it! You CAN!

SECOND - My family is back home, the kids are back to school, the alarm clock is once again set for oh-dark-thirty a.m. in the morning, and the cycle begins all over again. THIS time with a kid in middle school and one in 4th grade, which makes me the mother of "tween" children, and consequently makes me very very nervous indeed...I'm sure the "girl thing" will start popping up sometime soon.

THIRD - That last sentence sounded a little dirty. I'm sure you know I didn't mean it to be.

FOURTH - I got a "100 things about me" kind of thing from an old friend late last weekend, and while reading through her answers I thought "she really sounds cool!" and then realized I've known her for over 20 years and I really OUGHT to think she is! Otherwise, why keep her around?

LAST - Yesterday afternoon, while the kids were upstairs playing GameCube and unwinding from their vacation (!), I was down the hall doing laundy. I had just put some aloe lotion-y goop on thing 1's shoulders to soothe a sunburn, which I'd done for Thing 2 about an hour previously. While the GameCube controller clicked and Thing 2 hummed a little tune, I heard them talking, as follows:

Thing 1: "Wow, my back sure feels better since Mom put that stuff on it."
Thing 2: "You know, Mom and Dad's gentle touch seems to make everything better, doesn't it?"

You may all go "awwwwww" now. I know I did.

Sunday, July 30, 2006

The 500-Word Challenge Picture

Hi all y'all out there who said you write a story from a picture! I have your picture! Yay!

A word - I did NOT make it easy, y'all. I had several suggestions from folks, and thankssoverymuch, but I TOTALLY IGNORED THEM, and picked a whole other picture.

Now, now, dears, don't BE all hissy like that! I'm fairly sure that, once you settle down from your current indignant state and really really LOOK at what I chose, you will be inspired and realize that I am, naturally, correct about this issue, as I am about so very many other things.

So, here you go. Write a short story in 500 words or less about the picture below (titles do NOT figure into the final word count, but can be no MORE than 10 words long), and send a link to the resulting post to sweatinggoddess@yahoo.com. I will set up a linkapalooza on Wednesday, from which you can leap eagerly over to other people's sites to indulge in the juicy ripe fruits of their labors. There is but one prize, which is the shared joy of perfectly prepared plots and luscious word use, accented with fizzy little pops of humor, warm buttery slabs of poetry, or perhaps the rich dark tang of lust.

Whatever your taste may be, you have 2 days. Go. Write. Be wonderful. I can't WAIT to see what you can do.

Saturday, July 29, 2006

They come home tomorrow!


After a week at the beach with Dad, all three of my guys come home tomorrow.

I sure have missed them.

But the quiet was nice.

I'll miss that once they're back.

I guess there's no pleasing me, is there?

Friday, July 28, 2006

What is wrong with you people?

Gah!

I was just now idly perusing my sitemeter stats, and made the egregious (nay, nearly heinous!) mistake of going to the "where did they COME from?" part, where a nice map pops up and shows from whence the last 10, 20, 50, or 100 visitors have come.

Like, geographically.

And HELLOOOO? South America? Africa, and ASIA? Where the heck ARE you?

Billions and billions of people out there NOT coming to my blog. What the heck is up with THAT?

Geez, it's not like they don't have computers all over the WORLD now, practically one in every hovel and shanty, or at least one in every impoverished hill village along those low brown currentless rivers I see on the plasma flatscreen when I watch National Geographic in HDTV.

There's a problem, here, and I shall get to the bottom of it if I have to leave my air-conditioned home and drive in my air-conditioned CD-playing car to my carpeted corporate office and ask every college-educated person THERE for their opinion. In writing! Even the womyn! Because here, at least they KNOW how to write; not like in those countries in which NOBODY comes to my blog.

Again, gah.
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Every once in a while, somebody (or some people) do something on the interwebs that really tickles me. I intend to begin linking to these things on a regular basis, because, let's face it, it's really easy blog fodder and y'all just don't have enough to do and so need to fill your days with random links from a person (me!) most of you have never met.

You may thank me later. Or now. WhatEVs!

Today's linkification is to "Ask Hyperion and Tracy," on the
Hyperion Institute as well as on Kaply Inc., Tracy Lynn's site. I rationalize doing the linky thang because Hyperion gets people to visit his site from places like ASIA and SOUTH AMERICA (though, perhaps if I posted something about pimento loaf I might gets my OWN hits, eh Rennratt?), and Tracy Lynn is the object of affection for many a high-rolling interweb superpower, and through web bleed-through I figure I might just be able to ride those coattails to a few hits of my own.

Same way I'm going to ride
Trinamick's coattails to get the Midwest readers. Oh yes, yes I will!

The rest of y'all - your turn is coming, and I hope you don't mind.

=====================

If anyone is interested, there will be a "
worth 500 words" story challenge circulating around a few of us bloggers next week sometime.

If you're interested in joining in, even if you don't think you'd actually post your story (and why wouldn't you? What you do is so MUCH better than most of the dreck that's out there, you know it is, and this might JUST be your chance at the big time when some mover and shaker comes to visit your website and sees the genius that is your writing and offers you a huge contract which you of course negotiate higher until you've got 7 figures and a new Jaguar plus pool and pool boy (or girl!), that you should really consider joining in, because man, I want to be there when you get all famous and stuff so I can come over your house on the beach and eat sushi straight from the belly of an Asian chick, who coincidentally you hired becuase she started reading my blog, thus tying several loose strings together right smartly), comment me, or e-mail (sweatinggoddess@yahoo.com) and you too can play along at home. Or work. Or by the banks of a low brown currentless river, if it so happens that way.

Thursday, July 27, 2006

Song in my Head

Some CDs (we USED to call them albums) have one or 2 tunes I really like (Indigo Girls I'm looking at YOU), but there are only a few I can listen to all the way through without having to skip a song or two (or 7).

This song is running around in my head this morning. It's from this album, which is now eleven years old.

We listened and listened to this CD the summer before our first child was born, and I think I could still sing along with almost all the tunes. IMHO, it's very nearly a perfect album.

Other very nearly perfect albums, as far as I'm concerned are Paul Simon's "Graceland," Nancy Griffiths "Other Rooms, Other Voices," Elton John's "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road," and the Talking Heads "Stop Making Sense," to name a few. I still remember almost all the words to almost all THOSE songs on all those albums as well, and sing along unabashedly whenever they're on.

Because this is a Shortie Mc Short Short post today (because the work, she is trying to murder me lately), I'll close by asking you:

What are YOUR very nearly perfect albums of all time?

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Worth a THOUSAND words?

I was offered up a challenge by Hyperion the other day, to write a short story of 500 words or less based on a picture of his choosing. We would each write a story on the SAME picture, and trade links so that the truly curious could go to each and read 2 riffs on the same image.

(FYI - Hyperion's story is called "Unmade." Contains adult language. You can handle it. Go, read, I'll wait for you to come back)

After starting and stopping a number of times, and with a number of widely varying themes, this is my end result, and, oddly, not at all the direction in which I had suspected it might originally go:
========================

Patient Faeance

Faeance could best be described as a gentle warm breeze that caressed the surface of the cesspool that was Inhverhaven, and from the time I was a young boy I loved her with all my heart. She was the only thing of beauty in an otherwise gray monochrome of hunger and frayed hopes, my most deep passion even before I knew what passion was. She was my everything, and, as the daughter of a rich man, she had no idea who I was.

Inverhaven was, at that time, a thriving town famous for its rendering plants and beef jerky factories; the smell of crisping flesh and salted meat hung heavy in the airless smog of prosperity that smothered the valley in which Inverhaven lay. On fair days, when the sun would break through the grease-slicked clouds, my mother would take us children up Clerehorn Hill to the wishing spring, into which we would throw nail clippings and other precious items while whispering our heart’s desires. Mine, naturally, were always to be close enough to Faeance to touch her hems, and perhaps see her delicate feet. My mother’s wishes, I later learned, were always to escape the hellish life my father afforded her. On later reflection, I realized that I never asked my several siblings what their dreams might have been; though I hope they all came true.

My father was a man of temper and intemperance, of great wit and looks, of small patience and humor. At one time he’d been considered the best catch in town, until my mother caught him, shortly after which I was born and he turned sour. He would travel the countryside from post to post, a wandering tinkerman with little skill who was eventually removed from every small job he ever had because of poor choices in entertainments. We would shudder with fear at his footsteps on the front steps, and pray for his eventual departure.

The summer of my 13th year I was walking to my apprenticeship at the rendering plant; a trip that took me throug a small copse of beech not far from our shanty home. I heard a noise of struggle in a clearing not far from my path, and then the grunting of an animal. There was an outcry, and through the beeches burst my father, clutching his pants to his waist and grinning like a madman. Knowing no good could come of that visage, I hastened to the clearing, where I found Faeance, rumpled and splayed, her skirts around her waist, a sheen of perspiration on her brow, and the play of a smile on her lips.

After the judge and barristers had committed me to prison for the murder of my father, I had the time to learn to paint, and gained a degree of fame from it. What you see in front of you, My Lord, is what I once wanted with all my heart, and what my rage took away. My waiting, always waiting, Faeance
.

============================

Silly me. I had thought there would be zombies involved, and then this came out.

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Anti-fol-de-rol-i-gistic

So. Yes. Right.

Where to begin? Where indeed to begin on a day that had several inauspicous harbingers (mmm, big words!)?

Where to start with the telling, and the whinging, and the poor-me-ing?

Perhaps, at the beginning, so that in the telling I can try to remind myself to avoid the following things which have occurred in my world today (and in which you are all, no doubt, raptly interested and upon learning of which you will commiserate appropriately):

• Waking up and feeling the "sproing" of some small lower back muscle that heretofore I had no knowledge of possessing sending up a little notice that maybe I need to do more ab work to counteract this whole freaking aging thing I got going on. Those damned "sproings" are going to be the death of me, Isweartogawd.

• The chicken package I threw out 2 days ago doing it's stinky thang in the garbage can under the sink, which rank-gassed me full force when I opened the cabinet to throw out the old coffee filter this early morn. Dear gentle reader, the hacking and gagging were all-encompassing; I even had to blow my nose to get rid of the smell, then mist generously with some orange smelly spray stuff that I found under the bathroom sink. After this came the mad shuffle-ow-dash (the back thing still in effect at this time) to the outside garbage can, during which I held my breath the ENTIRE way so as not to pollute my innards with redolent deceased poutry odor. I do NOT know how coroners do it, I truly do not.

• That remaining half a gallon of milk in the fridge? Not so good anymore. I am now greatly afeared of what the 3 gulps I swallowed before I figured that out are doing to my gastrointestinal system. And yes, I drank straight from the bottle. My family is not here to see the slothful slob into which I transform myself in their absence. For what it's worth, I'm letting the dogs lick out the cooking pots before washing them, and using the same bowl over and over again to avoid emptying the dishwasher.

• Speaking of dogs, they magicallly learned to open doors this morning (which I, in my haste to rid the house of the stinky chicken thang, left ever-so-slightly ajar in my Festus-like sideways shuffle), escaping with speed-of-light enthusiasm into the rainy morning to lark about the countryside with abandon and little to no concern over the half-crippled woman (again with the back thing) who, without benefit of proper clothing or eyeglasses, mustered herself into the car to chase after them, by which time they'd got a good 5 minute head start. As it happens, I found them in the tobacco field several hundred yards from my house, leading me to believe they're nicotine freaks and needed a chaw fix.

So.

As a substitute for these things, and as a way to start my day afresh, I intend to say that the following things happened to and around me instead:

• Waking up to find that I, through some trick of immense good fortune, lost 20 pounds and had a boob job overnight, after which I spend half an hour ogling myself in the bathroom mirror and jumping up and down while naked. Don't say you wouldd't do the same thing. Unless of course you're a man, in which case you can substitute getting a nice expanse of Fernando pecs for your chestal area, or, you know, request additions to whatever body part about which you feel insecurity.

• The kitchen sparkling clean, with a surprise guest appearance by Tyler Florence, who knows I'm a little lonely and, in order to appease my emptyness, is scrambling some eggs and kneading biscuit dough while shirtless. As an added bonus, he has been hit with the pec stick, and also, apparently, the delt stick. And the glute stick. Thank you, muscle faerie!

• Mimosas in the fridge.

• No dogs. At all.

============================

Now, I’m not one to say that people shouldn’t make every effort to live in the here and now, live out LOUD, live strong, be grounded in reality and all that, but come on, with this kind of malapportioned start I deserve a Mulligan, don’t you think?

Monday, July 24, 2006

Was it cold where you are today?

I think it's official, Hell has indeed frozen over.

Do you know how I know?

Well, it's not because the voices in my head have stopped telling me to shave the cat, and it's not because all the deer flies suddenly turned to ash in a great "whoosh" of insecticidal conflagration, and its not even because my walls have stopped bleeding (finally!).

It is, rather, because: I ironed today.

An aside: All the other things happened too, but only after I ironed.

Oh, hey, Darkness? You big ol' red swaggering sulfurous sweat hog? You'll just have to put on some clothes until this passes.

I promise, it won't happen again.

Saturday, July 22, 2006

Sure do wish I'd come up with this

Oooh, look, linky action in the title!

Until I learn how to inset a direct link to a video, you'll have to do the click here thing to acess the lastest in late-breaking news. But, still, you're getting the good and the inside scoop on what really happened at the latest papal installation, so what's a little click between friends, eh?

CLICK HERE for the REAL story.

Just a little silliness for the weekend, because goodness knows I'm altogether too serious most days.

======================

UPDATE - I do believe I've figured it out.... we'll see if it works. Tell me, please, in the comments if you could launch by clicking on the picture below.

A NEW POPE

Friday, July 21, 2006

Nu-Nu-Nu-Newstime!

Let's bring the dusty old saw out from the shed and use it once more for old time's sake, shall we?

Time for the Fractured Friday Headlines!

========================

Neanderthal genome project launches

Ook and Ack, having finally graduated from college after 20,000 years, were invited to don the white lab coat of science and get in the rocket of discovery to decipher the code of life.

(Oy! I can do better. Let's see.....)

Castro visit changes tenor of trade summit

Pavarotti quits in disgust, Bocelli signs on.

Schools juggle holidays for other faiths

They got up to 5 (Christmas, Easter, Roshashana, Yom Kippur, and Ramadan) before losing their touch and dropping the whole lot. Buddhists laughed heartily at the misfortune.

Democrats set to shake up primary calendar

Leaving the world to rely on the lunar cycles as the emergancy back-up.

Eli Lilly swings to 2Q profit, RadioShack slides to 2Q loss from profit

Walmart's over there on the teeter-totter not knowing WHAT to do.

Woodpecker halts Ark. irrigation project

And thus was halted the second great flood, thereby saving the world. All hail the mighty woodpecker, offer loud hosanas to its power!

This just in from the "No Shee-yit" department! Study shows benefits of kids' playtime

Tiger pulls to 3-shot British Open lead

But fails, once again, to make the cut for the Egyptian open, because, as we all know, there are no tigers in Africa.

(very very very LAME Monty Python reference. MopeyChick, if you don't get it, I'm taking it down).

=======================

Also funny:

The Fish Slapping Dance

If you don't laugh at that, I don't want to know you anymore.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

I'm not a death bed blogger

But boy, am I close.

Here it is, after 1 on Thursday afternoon, I have WAY too much to do in the next few hours, which is when I should quit working and go home to my family, and yet, and yet, and yet....

I blog.

Because I am a consummate time-waster.

I do this wasting of time, apparently, so that on my drive home I can castigate myself for being so freaking lame as to leave the sword of utter failure still swinging by a hair above my head, when I could have taken it down, polished it, killed several threatning ninjas (or pirates) with it, had it re-forged with the blood of my enemies, used a butter knife to inscribe on its tang a terse message of warning to all who dare use it for evil, and hung it back up with some stout cording in the time it took me to waste the time I did.

But work is so, work-y, and blogging is so,,,,, fun! Fun!

Though, thinking about it, perhaps not as much fun as whuppin' ass on a bunch of ninjas.

========================

Why is it that the kid who woke you up at 3:30 in the morning with first the noises of puke-age and then the actual puke, can bounce out of bed a few hours later as bright and cheery as if nothing at all had ever happened while you clutch a cistern's worth of cuban coffee in your shaking hands, willing the caffeine to wake you up enough to make a cogent thought?

Being a parent is fun! Fun!

========================

One upside of the whole early morning urping episode is that, once I fell back to sleep (at 4! Fun!) I had dreams so real that I could have sworn to you that I did indeed get into a horrific car accident that threw me through the cracked windshield, at which occurrence my first thought was "good, now the insurance company will pay to have it replaced"?

I mean, wha??? Where'd the dream of Captain Jack Sparrow go, the one in which he discovers I am not a cabin boy after all but a living breating woman with creamy white cleavage and breastal heavitude of astounding proportion? Huh? Where'd THAT one go?

=========================

I'd also trade the windshield dream with the Jean Luc Picard one. You know what I'm talking about, I know darned well you do. No? You mean you don't know the one in which Jean Luc P is near death after a fight with Q, and you, as the wraith of space-time with a capacity to heal the most mortal of wounds, sweep through the airlocks from the gamma-plus quadrant, invisible to everyone, and wrap him in tender plasma tendrils, exchanging your strength for his injury, at which point you become flesh and blood and the most beautiful thing he's ever seen, and you smile kindly and place your soft new hand on his bare chest and offer to share some more?

Well, now you do!

(Picard haters out there, feel free to substitue Captain Kirk, or Spock, or Number 1, or Uhura, or Dr. Crusher, or that empath woman with the crazy Mom and the terrific hair...)

And now that I've outed mysef as a geek of reasonably high order, I will also admist a certain facination for Snape. And Lucius Malfoy. Rowr!

And that's enough for today, y'all, eee-nuff.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

A gentle wind of truth

A little riff on Wordnerd's Blogthing revelation....


You are a wanderer. You constantly long for a new adventure, challenge, or even a completely different life.

Author's note: Some people call this ADD, but whatever.

You are a grounded person, but you also leave room for imagination and dreams. You feet may be on the ground, but you're head is in the clouds.

Author's note: Some people call this multiple personlity disorder, but whatever.

You believe that people see you for how you are, not how you look. But deep down, you know that's not exactly true.

Author's note: some people call this dysmorphic syndrome with narcissism, but whatever.

Your near future is in a very different place (both physically and mentally) from where you are right now.

Author's note: I'm hoping it involves tequila and free liposuction

For you, love is all about caring and comfort. You couldn't fall in love with someone you didn't trust.

Author's note: It only took me about seventy-jillion cases of heartbreak to learn THAT.


See? Now you can say you really know me.

Monday, July 17, 2006

My Lunch with MopeyChick (plus audio)

PREVIOUSLY, in this entry:
Y'all....this is a teaser entry, which tomorrow will be updated with the title "My Lunch with MopeyChick," in which I will describe, in detail, every nuance of my meeting with the reknowned Charlotte-an.

You WILL want to come back tomorrow, for it will be rich with oozy gossipy goodness and sticky with the sweetness of shared blogger-on-blogger action.

Consider yourselves teased.


==================

What follows is the REAL entry:

Hear the author read it, badly:


this is an audio post - click to play


The first thing I noticed about MopeyChick, after I made it to the ranch where she instructed me to meet her, was the soft golden glow that surrounded her and made her look not-quite-real. Like a moth to a flame, I was drawn to that aura, wanting to bathe in the light that shimmered from her hair and skin, and also from the diamond tennis bracelets on her wrists, the pearls at her neck, and the several toe rings on her perfectly manicured feet.

She was, in a word, dazzling.

Everything about her spoke of a woman of control and style: her glistening french knot hairstyle, the shell pink linen blouse, the bright floral pattern of her tasteful-yet-playful capris, the coordinating Manolo espadrilles with the daisy applique, and enhancement of a subtle hint of "White Diamonds" perfume.

I reached out to grasp her hand in greeting, and she drew back as if burned and hissed "Do not touch the Mopey! You have not filled out the proper forms and it is simply not DONE without permission!", at which point I know I was dealing with a true Steel Magnolia, and was instantly enraptured.

Once she'd inspected my credentials (I was glad to have found the college transcript, because she pored over THAT one for at least a minute), an agreement was made to, in the words of her Junior League friends, "Nosh and Natter" at a vegan steakhouse called "The Veal and Veggie" that she co-owns with her gangster porn-star brother, Mickey the Schlong. It wasn't a long trip to the restaurant, but it was made more difficult for me to get to because her chauffeur insisted on taking all side roads and driving the Boxter at incredible speeds. My Kia was having a hard time taking the turns.

In short order we arrived, parked the cars (hers in valet, mine on the street), and just before entering I was made aware of the rules of our engagement (other than the no touching thing): I was to speak only when spoken to, not look at her boobs, and agree with everything she said. "Of course," I recall saying, "of course, Miss Mopey, whatever you want."

Once inside, and after the flambouyantly gay maitre d'hotel had gushed over her new rack and her ability to match lipstick to manicure, we were seated in a plush velvet banquette, at which point the liquor started to flow. Perfect Skyy martinis with pink onions on the bottom of the quart-sized glasses were offered at regular (5-minute) intervals, and Mopey slung 3 down "just to get ready," she said. I sipped at mine, not wanting to embarrass myself with my inability hold any kind of liquor, and too afraid to refuse any at all.

And then, she started talking. She spoke of her exhausting trips to Milan and Rodeo Drive, of her aggravating dealings with her children's private schools and how she thought it might be best to hire a hot British man to teach them privately and give her backrubs on his days off, of the troubles she was having finding yet ANOTHER pilot for her jet, of things of drama and substance and such fascination that I didn't mind when she kicked me "accidentally" or threw her fifth drink at me because I was "looking at her improperly" or when she stabbed me with her fish fork while gnawing on the ribs of the dry romaine leaves that were her lunch. The glinting from her bracelets blinded my eyes, the scent of her perfume filled my nostrils, the sound of her whinging voice echoed in my head, and I knew I was in the presence of a creature the likes of which I'd never met before.

If I had to make a comparison to someone in the common experience,, I'd say she was like Lando Calrissian, all smooth and beautiful, which is but a luscious scrim of loveliness that hides a rodent-like sense of self preservation and narcissicm unequalled in this quadrant. I felt like she was just as likely to embrace me (once the correct forms were approved) as encase me in carbonite. Fire and ice, fire and ice....and oh, the very zenith of humanity.

Alas, all too soon our 30 minutes of nosh and natter were over, and she declared that I had tired her with my incessant jibber-jabering and she "must go somewhere quiet to recover." As she staggered demurely toward the door, leaving me to pay the bill, I swept up her used nakpin, inhaled her scent once more, and began to dab at the tears of joy and shame that dropped from my dazzled eyes.

The end.


======================

Really. That's JUST how it went.

================

OK, fine, that's not REALLY how it went. Mopey tells all.

Sunday, July 16, 2006

Hot Asian Men plus One (with TRIPLE the update goodness)

They're just too beautiful, really, particularly the one I like to call "Blue."

Please, feel free to offer up your own caption.

(see bottom of this post for the real pic.....I promise you won't be disappointed)

=====================
UPDATE!!

I nearly bust out laughing when I realized that today, this link goes to a picture of the President and a crying baby! What caps the whole OOPS factor is that Mr. Bush is wearing a blue shirt.....

Y'all. That is NOT the photo to which I was referring! Sadly, I cannot now offer you the exact picture, because Yahoo seems to have obliterated it in it's ever-updated hott photos of the day space. So, in an effort to provide you with up-to-the-minute content, I leave you with this photo, whichI have captioned "does this dress make my butt look big?"


Feel free to provide your answers in the comments section

======================

UPDATE UPDATE!

Bwah!! Loves the Go Fug Yourself!!

======================
UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE:

Stolen directly from Hyperion's page (thanks, good sir, your taste in amusements is primo!), is the ORIGINAL PICTURE for this at-one-time short post:

And the request for your captions can now continue.

Saturday, July 15, 2006

Didn't you know

That nobody posts on the weekend?

Nobody.At.All.

It's a desert out there. A vast scorching plain of old posts and tired material, a dried-up well of entertainment, a wrung-out rag of fun.

"Always offer 3 metaphors where one would do," my teacher once told me, "that way there's something for the editors to cut and you still get your colorful language."

That was a lie. Nobody ever told me that. I just do it because that's how I think. In metaphors. Lots of them. As in scads, gobs, loads, heaps, and tons-n-bunches.

I've been reading around the interweb this morning, avoiding the work I know I must do or be verbally (and perhaps professionally) castigated by powerful people at a client company who have placed their trust in me to do a thing for them that I've somehow lost the drive to do, and I've come to the realization that there are a lot of people out there in the blog-o-sphere who write better than I do, and if they don't actually WRITE better then they're funnier or do more interesting things or write about something that's not what's going on in their head (the concept! amazing!), thereby creating the impression that they do interesting things.

I, I have decided, write in very long sentences, and that's about all.

Lord, lord, is this the voice that I've looked for for the past many months? Is THIS how it's going to be? Am I relegated to long-winded yawps about something that Mark Twain could have communicated in 3 words or less? Which leads me to wonder - Would I have even LIKED Mark Twain? I mean, the moutache is cute and all, and a nice white suit will never go out of style, but really, was he one of those humorists who was a royal pain in the ass to his family and cheated the tithe at church? Would I have picked that up about him if I ever met him strolling down the streets of Hartford, or would I have been swayed by his power and influence and have become a yes-girl to his every whim because he was Samuel Freaking Clemens, for God's sake, and a shining beam of iconery even back in the day.

(Here is where a bunch of pictures of Mark T would have gone, complete with humorous commentary, if Blogger had decided to participate in the hilarity. Which it did not, leaving you without something at which to chortle and without fodder from which to decide that I am, indeed, the most clever bunny in the Downs. Le sigh.)

So, the answer to the question seems to be "yes." To all.

=========================

So, in that spirit, I take upon myself to alert you to get ready for more stream-of-consciousness as I try to move ever deeper into the voyage of self-discovery and self-actualization that I started lo those many months ago. I feel as though a dam is about to burst loose in me, a flood of emotions and ideas are pounding incessantly to be let free, a backlog of ideas is pressing against the locks, yearning to traverse the canals of clear thought and expression that I KNOW lives within me, a throbbing, seething, pulsating mass of inventiveness that lusts for freedom and expression......

==========================

Bwahahahahahaha!! Hee!

Gotcha!!

Back to poop jokes and superficiality on Monday. I gotta get to work now...

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But wait! Maine's got something to say, and I agree with him so much that I'm puttin' up a link to his post so y'all can go read it while sagely nodding ya heads mumbling "yes, yes, so true."

Lemme know if you did, 'kay?

Friday, July 14, 2006

Quickies

Because, I'm sure, from time to time, we all enjoy a quickie, don't we? No fuss, no muss, just get the job done and move on to other things.

Well, here we go, the first NAY quickie. We'll see how it goes.

First - a LOL kind of post from a lovely lovely man who no doubt will one day want to marry me, because with his criteria I am the hottest grrrrl on the planet. Thanks Dusty!!

Second - a similar kind of post, but a different kind of take on matters. A joint effort of sorts, and worth your time.

Third - how dumb ARE some people?

Fourth - what we will all be wearing next summer. God help us all.

Fifthly - I am proud to announce that I am now a member of The Monkey Barn. Oh yes, my influence spreads far and wide, and sometimes results in an invitation to join a group of people who proudly call themselves morons (I'm hoping that's not just a joke to get me calling myself one, but hey, whatever, sometimes I am), which suits me to a "t" and makes me happy, because they do stuff like write group stories and post odd things and actually answer e-mail, which is cool and also maybe hott. Plus which, check out the photo of Kapgar and me....which makes me think that if only my chestal area were CLOSE to being that awesome I would not mind if Dusty found me not hot.

There you go - a quickie from Tiff - and all, might I add, thematically aligned so that you may be feeling a little bit warmer now. Or, you may be scratching your head in consternation. Either way, it's all good when it's a quickie!!!!

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PS - I thought about polishing up the old saw of the fractured news headlines, but the wit, she is not cutting it today, and seems to have left me bereft or anything snarky to say.

I blame it on my new mermaid tail. Because honestly, who can be silly when you're half-fish, half amazon princess, and apparently have a smoking hot merman to dance with? I have to concentrate so hard on things like "how do I pee with this daggone TAIL?" and "where am I gonna find clamshells that will cover THIS rack?" that I simply don't have TIME right now to joke about the stuff going on in the world...

Because some of it? Not so funny.

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Hear me!

OMG, y'all. I am so proud. I have birthed my very FIRST audioblogger post!!! My thanks to the great and powerful Hyperion, who gave me the idea nd guidance on how to git 'er dun. Mwah!

(just click on the button to hear me and my fake Southern accent talk to you)

this is an audio post - click to play

It's uh, pretty rough, and is mostly like an AD for AUDIOBLOGGER, because I was lame enough to NOT have anything READY to post, but shoot, it worked, and now I'm all "hey man, I'm all THAT and a side of fries" about this thang.

I know, the thrill is probably only mine alone, but you know, that's cool. It's good to thrill yourself every once in a while.

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Update - it's a daggone good thing that I did the audio thing before I took my horse pills of wonder and power, because now one of them is lodged in the back of my throat (or so it seems), and I feel like I'm going to heave at any moment.

Bleah - the supplements are supposed to quell my appetite, but make me want to hurl? That's a little extreme, don't you think?

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Update-Update - a quick thing, really. You do NOT need a microphone to audioblog. You just need a phone-phone. A regular phone. You do have one of those, right? Then, you're all set! Audioblogger gives you a phone number to call, you speak your message of great import and influence, and BOOM, once you accept the message as good enough to be distributed, it gets posted to your website.

A-flipping-mazing!

I do recommend you plan to have something to say. Unlike me.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

The eyeball is g-g-g-gone

I had to give the new avatar a little more exposure, so the eyeball that previously identified me to all in blog-land is outta here. Y'all already KNOW I've got blue eyes, and it was getting kind of boring, and Trina got herself a new avatar and I want to be just like her when I grow up, so I bowed under the peer pressure (a heavy burden, let me assure you) and started something new.

Of course, there's no real sense having an avatar that looks just like me, becuase who's going to be compelled to come play with a middle-aged "blond" lady who's soft around the middle (and sides, and bottom, and, oh crap, everywhere) and needs glasses to see but not to read and who notices the little lines around her mouth are no longer little and maybe she looks a little like a ventroloquist's dummy in strong light with all the lines and whatnot?

Who? Anybody?

I thought as much. Middle age is boring, except that now I know a ton of stuff that I didn't know way back when, which makes me more INTERESTING at least, and possibly even FASCINATING at best, but you can't tell that from just an eyeball.

It's ever so MUCH better to be a ghostly white punk-girl in all black with pink hair and some very cool shades.

Just like when I was in my 20's.

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And so, a story of me in my 20's, that goes a little like this:

I once skiied down a black diamond slope at Killington,* in a snowstorm, at dusk.

On my ass.

Rhetorial questions time: Did you know that it's difficult to see the moguls on a wind-scoured ice sheet that a ski slope becomes when burnished with 40-mile-an-hour winds? Did you also know that once ON the hilltop there's no way to get down OTHER than under your own power, because the lifts do NOT pick up, they only drop off? Did you also know that crying and hanging on the arm of your supposed beloved-of-the-moment will NOT convince him to walk down the slope with you, and may even go so far as to prompt him to taunt you for WANTING to take off your skis and hike?

Well, now you do.

Once the tears and flop-sweat had dried up somewhat, I realized that here was no other way for me to get down the slope than to sit and scoot and claw at the face of the mountain with my mittened hands, because I do not now, nor did I then, have 3-D vision and, stupidly, refused to wear my glasses because if I did I would not look like a cute snow bunny, so everything just looked like a purplish-blue glacier of doom somewhere under a swirling vortex of snowy death, forcing me onto my cute size-8 snowpants clad ass in fear for my life and limbs (forget the dignity).

(That was one looong sentence, wasn't it?)

I had (I thought wisely) chosen to skirt along the outer edge of the slope, near the trees, in order to avoid the madmen and women who had chosen to actually SKI the hill of fear; however, what I had not taken into account was that there are moguls even near the edges of slopes, and that sometimes those moguls are the launching pad for people who like to "ski the trees" (at dusk! in a snowstorm! insane!), and that my gray ski jacket may have blended in a smidge too well with the shadows that remained of the aforementioned moguls on the purply hillside of terror, rendering me maybe a little bit invisible as I ass-slid my way toward a nice glass of burgundy, and so I not only had to sit and ski, ignoble and defeated, down the decline of doom, but I had to watch out for those insane thrill-seekers who had a life goal of scaring me to within an inch of involuntary micturation with their aerial derring-do and near-decapitation.

(again, just one sentence. what is my problem here?)

And where, you ask, was my supposed beloved?

Waiting for me at the bottom of the hill, after skiing the trees.

(*don't quote me here, but I think it was the "Ovation," which I've since (today!) learned is one of the most difficult slopes to ski in New England. Go. Young. Me.)

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So, there you have it. A fine example of "something I would NOT do now that I'm older" that I stupidly did as a younger person because I simply DID NOT KNOW BETTER.

Heed me, you post gen-X-ers out there (or whatever the 20-somethings are called now), heed me well. Because of my vast knowledge base, finely tuned self-preservation skills, and aversion to injury or embarrassment, you will no LONGER find me freezing my ass off on some dark frigging icy ski slope in a blizzard trying to wipe frozen tears off my face so I can see enough to avoid being conked in the head by some crazed speed addict!

Unless you dare me.

Because, even though I might LOOK grown up doesn't mean I don't have some stupid left in me.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

I wish I hadn't looked

There are times when having a Sitemeter is great. I can peek around and see who's coming here (all 10 of you - thanks!), figure out where you're from, ascertain how often people come around, take a gander at who's new in town, all that kind of stuff.

Fun, right? Helps to create a sense of community, right? It's all good, right?

Sure, it's great!

Except for the occasional "ew" factor that creeps in.

And "creep" is the operative term here.

All of us who put a part of ourselves on the interwebs have them; we all get the creeps. We get them from the people who use search phrases like "10 year-old little teases," or "soiled panties," and who leave very quickly after finding that a site, in fact, does not contain content to their liking.

Creep, creep, creep.

Ew.

Y'all know I try to keep this blog reasonably clean. I don't use a lot of cuss words, I don't discuss too much in the way of smut or sex or odd habits, nor do I delve with any regularity into the seamier side of life or strange things in which I might happen to be interested (OK, I will admit to a certain fascination with conjoined twins, but I don't GO INTO IT). Yes, fine, I do mention boobs and tell about dreams in which I imagine myself to be a young asian girl on occasion, but that's just to keep your attention....is it working, by the way???

Back to the point - which is, the thought of someone out there purposely looking for 10 year old little teases or content deailng with soiled panties squicks me out. Mightily so.

Perhaps I am too white bread in my take on the world. Perhaps I am naïve , isolated, childlike, ignorant, or so obtuse as to not realize that LOTS of people are interested in these things, but I hope it's not just me. I hope a lot of y'all are also struck by the "ew" factor of these kinds of searches.

As an FYI - I think the soiled panties one is more understandable and a touch more palatable than the other search phrase. Putting children in any kind of sexual light is more than distasteful, it's a perversion and so wrong in my book of life that it's not even mentioned in the footnotes. I can't even rail about it, because then I get to thinking about it, and I start to hate the people who are interested in it and want to find a large knife to strap to my back and some chain mail clothing so that I can hunt them down and subject them a world of hurt the likes of which they've not ever experienced. Pedophilia, to be quite frank about it, makes me sick.

So, sometimes? I wish I didn't look so carefully at the sitemeter particulars. I'm happier not knowing some things.

An aside - I'm NOT aginst folks getting their groove on sensually, as long as it's consensually. Go ahead, get out the ropes and paddles and nipple clamps, dress up like a pony or a nurse, pour chocolate syrup or hot oil on one another, get something amputated or pierced or whatever, as long as you BOTH (or, perhaps ALL of you) agree that it's all in good fun. What I cannot abide is the objectification of, or surreptitious and perhaps illegal securing of, materials or experiences in which one of the parties does not agree to the activity or could be hurt by it, either physically, emotionally, or developmentally.

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And, hey, all the rest of y'all, please keep coming back. I'm usually not so serious, and I occasionally talk about boobs.

Monday, July 10, 2006

Handy Tips from Tiff

----NEW FEATURE ALERT!-----

Because I try to do something useful almost every day, and, perhaps more importantly, because I'm a fabulous purveyor of opinion, both requested and not, I thought that it might be time for a new feature here on NAY, in which I try to help you, dear reader, through some common life issues by using my own life as an example.

Therefore, it is my distinct pleasure to offer you:

Handy Tips from Tiff for a Life of Peace and Tranquility

Tip 1 - Face Saver! If you're going to make a music video, use this one as the baseline of what your video should be better than. Especially the dancing. And maybe even the hair. I won't even mention the outfits.

Tip 2 - Stress saver! If you work near an airport, it's good idea to view air travel positively, rather than chanting "please don't fall out of the sky" whenever a jet takes off over your head as you're driving into work.

Tip 3 - Frustration Saver! If you're going to have a dream in which you're a young Thai girl with bouncy boobs who is clad only in a leather thong while searching frantically for a lover to ease the raging physical craving that infuses your whole body with a sharp sense of longing, it's useful to try to set the dream someplace that's NOT a bus station bathroom. Your chances of sleepytime scoring will be much, much better, I promise.

Tip 4 - Sleep Saver! If you're looking to find a nice place to get some shut-eye so that you can have the dream in Tip 3 (though not intentionally, perhaps) and you have already nixed sleeping with your husband because in his dreams he's apparently a big-game hunter who is actively chasing a herd of antelope across the wide plains of the Serengeti, complete with arm waving and guttural exhortations, do NOT choose to sleep where the cat does. Cats are nocturnal, and love to have company in the night so that they can show off their eating, peeing, pooping, purring, and playing skillz. For hours. And hours.

Tip 5 - Gorge Saver! If you smell something bad coming from the trunk of your car, hold your breath before opening the hatch to make your investigations as to what the source of the stench might be. Because it might be a pool of greenish goo swirling nauseatingly around the spare tire well, and it might have little bits of something that might be meat in it, and it might just smell like a dead mouse. Even if it's not.

So, there you go - Handy Tips from Tiff installment #1.

Here's hoping they work for YOU!

Sunday, July 09, 2006

Not me, but how I wish it was...


This is what happens when I try to design my own avatar. So, so cute. The people at the Monkey Barn made me do it.

People should know better than to let me out of the house by myself, you know??

If you'd like to make YOUR own avatar, go here and commence to playin'. Oh, and the cool ghoul and zombie character bases are a little hard to find, but totally worth it if you ask me.

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Oh, hey! This is post the 2-hundredth! Wooot!

X's and O's to all y'all who have made it this far with me....there will, of course, be MORE TO COME!

Friday, July 07, 2006

Carnival of the Mundane 14 - Freak Show Junk Mail


I've worked at the Post Office Office of Forwards for a long time now. It's not the job that keeps me coming back, really, it's the acronym. Hard to hate a job that is so well described in just a few letters like that.
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I send the mail to where it's supposed to go. Mostly it's making sure all those "change of address" stickers get put on your mail when you move, but that doesn't last more than a year, so I never really get a sense of who most of the customers of P.O.O.F are.
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That's different with the Carnival of the Mundane's Freak Show, because they're always on the road, and they write to me to tell me where they're going to be each week so they can get their mail. I'm friends with them, kind of, and they rely on me. They're a baker's dozen of oddiments, that's for dang sure.
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You would not believe the stuff they get. Lemme show ya!
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Right here is a new copy of Drunkard Wranglers magazine for Hyperion, the strong man. You'd think a guy his size wouldn't need tips on how to handle himself, but I hear he's a pussycat, and I guess everybody needs help from time to time.
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Then there's Doug, who's letting his subscription to hahacomix lapse again. I know he likes the Xtreme adventure in Mediocrity section, so I don't know what's up with him. He's the gosh-danged Soothsayer of the group and should really KNOW when his stuff is coming to term, wouldn't you think?
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Boy, here's another batch of fast food coupons for Wordnerd, who usually works the age and weight booth because of that extra brain lobe she's got. Sure hope she's having better luck at the drive through than she did a while ago.
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Hmm, looks like Kapgar, the alligator boy, is taking that recent episode of thievery pretty darn seriously, because it looks from this like he's signed up for a correspondance course in numchuckery. I pity the fool who tries to dupe him if he finishes the class. With those chucks and his big ol' pointy teeth he'd scare the bejeebers outta anybody!
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Now, what's all this? Michelle, the contortionist, is getting weekend invites to a yoga camp? Pssht! Like she needs it. Hear tell she can lick her own elbow. I'd like to see that someday.
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Let's see, oh, here's a good one. Muse is getting a new copy of "Road Rage Magazine," I wonder if her bus story is in it? Too bad it's wrapped in plastic, or I'd take a peek. It's not every day you get to read a story written by a 3-legged beauty queen, now is it?
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Boy, they get so MUCH mail. Not all of it is all that interesting, and most of the boring stuff I just throw out, but here's one for Miriam The Half-Girl about a new used bookstore opening up that I guess I'll send along. She oughtta like that. I just hope THIS place has ladders so she can reach the higher shelves.
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Now here's something special that I think Tracy Lynn, the Laser-Beam Woman might like. The Grande Olde Spectacle Shoppe is having a blowout sale! She burns through glasses like noody's business and might like to have a couple of new pairs that can withstand her blazing eyeball power.
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Looks like I'm getting to the bottom of the pile here. Better pick up speed, it's almost break time here at P.O.O.F.
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Leesepea, the new conductor of the flea circus's band, seems to be getting a LOT of mail from tour companies about Alaska. This hot weather must be getting to her. Wonder if she needs a bunkmate? I could use a break from the heat as well, or at least an air conditioner. Cheapskates at P.O.O.F won't spring for anything but a fan.
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Ah, one for Lisa, the web-footed wonder. Looks like some personal mail...I'll bet it's about her kid, L'il Duck and what he's up to. Guess I'd better send that one on too.
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Only a couple more to sort through. Too bad, because these guys get the most interesting mail! Once I'm done here it's back to pasting on stickers again...
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Oh boy, here we go. Neil, The Human Diving Board, is getting hate mail from those sitcom people again. I could tell him things about how to behave in public, but he won't listen. He's just much too rigid.
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Hey! Here's one for Folkcat, the tiger lady! Looks like a new piece of electronic tomfoolery is being sent to her house. Sure hope they FIND it this time, because I can't stand having to send things more than once, especially packages. It's too much like work to do all that chasing around. Whadda they think, I got 4 arms or something?
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Well, here's the end of the bag - one for Kingfisher, the conjoined triplet. It's their newest installment of "Moon Houses Monthly Magazine." Some day, buddy, SOMEday regular jamokes like you will have your place in the sky, where the gravity that holds your bodies to this earth will be loosened and you can bounce like a cheerleader across the dusty terrain......
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Guess I'd better go get these out to the truck. The freak show is all over the place nowadays, and are probably wanting their mail.
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Nice talking with ya, stop by again anytime, and if I'm in the back just ask for Tiff, the 4-armed woman.

Thursday, July 06, 2006

shameless self-promotion

Yours truly is now participating in the International _____ Day, where every day is a holiday, or should be.
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Some big fun going on over there. Sweartogawd there is. Check it out. Go on.
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A further enticement is that today's entry is written by a good friend of this blog, and should be cooed over like the gem that it is.
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DebR! - Congratulations! YOU win the theme competition for the Carnival of the Mundane post that will be issued tomorrow!
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The title of the entry will be:
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"Freak Show Junk Mail."
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As a reward for saving my buttal area from the jaws of defeat, DebR gets her very own copy of my autobiography once it is written, and published, and stuff.
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Might be a while. Don't hold your breath.
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In other news - I'm still not unpacking. Which, coincidentally, makes moving in kind of hard to do.
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In other other news - you will all be glad to know that it looks like I will be around a while longer. I took the leap and visited the physician this morning, who, after poking and prodding and examining and administering shots and ordering my blood be drawn for examination (no doubt to look for the chemical that makes me beloved by all and hated by none), I was pronounced free of any obvious signs of disease.
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This is wonderful, I think, because there is a panoply of other minor irritations I have to deal with an a daily basis, and a major blow might knock the good ship Tiff off her moorings and into the deep dark ocean of self-absorption and fear. Tiff is not a vessel built for such stresses, and so it is good that at least for now they're not blowing on a vile wind into her harbor.
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And that, dear friends, is how to craft a metaphor and then beat it to death, soundly, with the rightly dreaded Big Stick of Bad Writing.
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For all y'all fence-sitters out there - There's still time to submit a post for the carnival. Now that you know that title, don't you want to be a part of it??? See the previous entry for how to join in on the fun, fun, fun.
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That is all!

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Matters Carnivalistic (and not) - UPDATED

Y'all, I'm back from vacation.

You may begin breathing again.

Say, if you've bounced merrily over here from the Carnival of the Mundane blog site, trying to get some small notion of how to submit your wonderful posts that transcribe everyday occurrences with great enthusiasm and a dollop of affection, please send a link to your posts to:

sweatinggoddess@yahoo.com

I would dearly love to have a sample of your work/ play/ musings/ ramblings/ cogitations to work into a carnival post that is to be so very cleverly titled as to not really need its own post at all; the title alone can stand on its own merit and be the source of mental amusement for hours and hours and hours. However, the regrettable fact is that CONTENT is king on the interweb, so content must be provided. This is where YOU come in.

Send.an.entry.

If you don't have a blog but read this one, please conisder starting one and sending me a link to your initial efforts at blogging. If you DO have a blog but have not participated in a carnival before, well NOW'S YOUR CHANCE, baby! Grab that brass ring, go for the gold, shout a bellowing "I am HERE" from the rooftops and let your VOICE be HEARD!!!

I will use you to your very best advantage, this much I can promise you.

If you do NOT send me a post to work into the Carnival, and I know you've read this by checking the details on my sitemeter, I shall go get one of your entries myself without your knowledge, and it will probably be the one in which you use a lot of swear words or talk about your penis or vagina (or perhaps in which your penis or vagina talks to you). Oh yes, I will!

(Can I do that?)

So, yeah, this is a down-on-my-knees BEGGING session for y'all to send me something, send me ANYTHING, to put into the Carnival so that I can show the entire INTERNET what you can do with a tight timeline, a dream, and your Dad's barn.

Here's the update part - y'all, if you're here, and submit a link to me for the carnival, I thank you most sincerely. If you're here, and submitted a post through another means than DIRECTLY e-mailing me (like, say, if you rely on throwing a random post up onto a submissions server that sends your stuff to multiple carnivals or whatnot), PLEASE re-send you post to me at my e-mail AFTER reading the rules for submission on the carnival of the mundane website.Remember, the carnival is about MUNDANE stuff, and you must E-MAIL me a link to your post, and I get to decide if it's MUNDANE enough to go in, and I get to pick from multiple submissions from the same author, and I basically am all-powerful and stuff.

THIS is why I was interested in hosting, quite frankly. I'm power-hungry. And like to play by the rules.


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I got sunburned on vacation. This is WITH using SPF 30. I shudder to think what degree of burnitude I might have experienced if I'd not used anything at all.

Plus, the frecklage! Oy!

The only skin that remains the lovely frog-belly hue nature intended is where the sun di'int shine. The remainder is a pastiche (second definition, please) of red and freckle colorful enough to satisfy the most rabid pointillist.

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Oh, and a word to the wise (which, coincidentally, is.not.me.): mixing beers and liquor, then going out on a boat to watch fireworks and getting home at 11 p.m. only to have a nightcap and another beer before falling asleep at midnight?

SO not a good idea.

Especially when the first half of the trip home involves traversing wind-ey turn-ey skinny mountain roads.

Urp.

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Mmm-kay, I'm outta here for now. Go back and read the first part of this entry, and know that I hold you and your blogs in the very highest regard and wish to USE YOU for furthering my aim of completely dominating the internets.

But only in the nicest way possible.