I’m delighted to mention that according to my polls, not only do I have more than one dog among my viewers (see poll archives) I can also claim a sentient plant!

I’ve seen seven people already today sleeping–one sitting straight up at his computer with his hand on the mouse.

And it’s not even midterms!

Time is running out if you want to cash in on Baby Promotions!

MUAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Now you know how I see myself.
(more…)

I was finishing changing into my gym clothes when a woman walked over to me and said, “I remembered my top today!”

I surreptitiously glanced around while she was putting down her bag, to see if she was talking to someone else.

No one else in the locker room.

“I brought two of ’em this time, since I forgot my top last time,” she clarified.

I made a non-committal noise and tried to finish getting ready, perhaps just a little faster.

She began to change. “Gotta take my bra off. When it gets wet, y’know…”

“Yeah,” I said, and shoved by gym bag in the locker, grabbing my mp3 player and the lock. “Have fun!” I said as I hurried out the door.

Of course she was there when I was done working out. She’d showered and was now finishing her dressing.

“Almost left my clothes in the shower!” she said. “Almost forgot my clothes!”

“That would be bad,” I acknowledged, trying to balance on one foot while trying to put on my pants without touching the locker room floor. She wandered over to the shower to retrieve her clothing. She took several moments in the process, rather surprising considering the size of the locker room.

She finished getting dressed and I had a chance to survey her clothing: a too large, somewhat ratty t-shirt; shorts that were really too small short, all things considered; and support hose, two shades darker than her flesh, and pulled up to her knees.

“Better dry my hair,” she said. “Don’t wanna catch the pneumonia.”

“It seemed quite pleasant out,” I offered, shoving everything in my gym bag.

“I felt a chill when I came in!” she said, and wandered over to the hair dryers. “Don’t wanna get sick!”

“Have a good evening!” I called as I quickly walked out of the locker room.

I checked the thermometer in the car. It was 76 F.

And that’s pretty much exactly how it went.

While we were in Wyoming, I discovered that the 28 degree morning temperatures really required a scarf to keep me warm, and I had neglected to bring a scarf (Gloves, yes. Hat, yes. Scarf, no.) So we ended up wandering around Jackson looking for a scarf.

I wanted to spend my money at a local business, but figured I’d end up taking what I could get, since Jackson is very much a tourist trap. Not only did I find a local business, but I found an organic and fair trade scarf there!

Although Whyoming Outfitters where I bought the scarf does not seem to be on line, the company that made the scarf is: Indigenous Fair trade + Organic. I figure that as someone with disposable income, I really should support fair trade and organic products whenever possible, and the higher prices reflect the true costs of the products as opposed to the prices at chains and superstores that are subsidized or bought at the price of paying employees a living wage.

Do I do this all the time? Of course not. I have a minimal amount of disposable income, I’m not rich. But it’s nice to know that when I am able to make those choices, there are companies that allow me to do so.

Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day!

My pirate name is:

Black Ethel Bonney

Like anyone confronted with the harshness of robbery on the high seas, you can be pessimistic at times. You can be a little bit unpredictable, but a pirate’s life is far from full of certainties, so that fits in pretty well. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.

Here be a very nice English t’ Pirate translator page

Fats Waller

(to get around the character limit, write the previous word = and then your word.)

Congratulations to Kim and Mike!

Photos will follow in the coming days, including photos of me in…

(drum roll please)

a dress!

I don’t even know how long it’s been since I last wore a dress, but it’s been years.

Let’s hope I don’t stumble in my heels and break my wrist or something.

Happy 1st birthday Helena and James!

(yes, those twins)

So those of you who don’t read this by RSS feed have seen how I’ve personalized Word Press, but believe it or not, there is more to this site than my blog.

Really!

I’ve maintained a personal website since 1998. Initially on Labyrinth, then on Earthlink, and then on various web hosting services. I started my weblog in February of 2002.

Why yes, I did all the coding my hand, thank you. All my web design was done in Arachnophilia, which was a code editor. So no permalinks or anything like that in the early years.

If you go back, what you’ll discover is that since I was writing for myself and sometimes erin (hi erin!), I wrote whatever came to mind. In essence it was to replace the paper journals that I was never capable of keeping up.

Obviously it worked in that I’ve been at this for over six years, but somewhere along the way I seem to have lost that sense of fearlessness about my writing I had then. For example, I can’t remember the last time I wrote about religion, and my posts about politics are few and far between.

Still, that’s a lot of words I’ve written.

I also have a section of writing in general, that contains links to short stories that came from my dreams (I have exceedingly weird dreams, and I sometimes used them as a writing exercise in coherency), and a couple of papers I wrote for school. Those were actually fun. There’s something about a good research paper…

Er… never mind.

OK. So, this somehow ended up being all about the blog anyway. Fine. Tomorrow then.

Does my tap water smell like beta-mercaptopurine first thing in the morning?

It’s really disconcerting.

And unpleasant.

I found someone’s marbles.