Back from Disney!

I have some very festive things to write about my trip to the wonderful world of Disney (ugh); however, I'm at work right now and it wouldn't be prudent to spend the time it would take to relate the stories of Crazy Neighbor Lady, Hairy Arm Guy, Wacky Belinda, The Swan, and Shaggy Has His Hand on My Boob! Therefore, I will have to fill in the blanks at another time. I also have a couple of pictures (yes, there's a can-I-get-a-witness picture of Shaggy and his roaming hand!) but will need to get off my ass and load the software on to my computers. Everything in my personal life has fallen so far by the wayside that I feel like I live in a vortex...the saddest part is my house, which is a nightmare wreck and we're literally living out of boxes and pulling clothes from piles...Spencer's dresser is empty!! :-( I think I will operate a lot more functionally when we move to a more permanent place and I feel like I can actually unpack the suitcases and put away the clothes...there's no point in doing it now since we're moving in less than three months!!

M-I-C-K-E-Y (WHY? Because we LIKE you!)

I'm off in the morning for the technicolor, tacky, and oh-so-all-American land of Disney in lovely Lake Buena Vista (aka, Orlando, to the rest of us), Florida. I don't expect to be having too much fun since I'll be attending a conference the whole time, but of course I bought a new bathing suit (see above, no pic available of the bottom, but it's bright pink boy shorts) and sandals any way. I'm suffering immense and unreasonable amounts of guilt that Spencer isn't coming with me (it's spring break, after all), but I keep trying to remind myself that I will be busy literally the entire time I'm there, and he would have to spend the weekend with a sitter or some Disney childcare cult group of nutballs. Therefore, this isn't the best time for him to come along with me on a trip....even if it IS to Disney at Spring Break time...
Anyhoo, I finally got some new batteries for my camera and will take pictures galore while I'm there. We have a night at Epcot and another at Universal Studios International Avenue, so there are a few photographic opportunities available. I won't be sad to leave the weather in Boulder for a few days. It has been cold and snowy and grey, and you know how much us Coloradans like to bitch when we have one gloomy day, so the 'tude has been decidedly negative around town. Luckily for me, it's supposed to be nice and warm by the time I get home on Saturday!

Monday Monday

Okay, so it's Monday again. Due to the fact that this Monday morning was the same as every one of my Monday mornings - Murphy's Law Monday, I like to say - I opted to stay in bed for a couple hours past the usual rising time. Spencer wasn't feeling well, there was ice on the streets, I immediately dropped my water cup when I first got up...for all these reasons and more, it seemed safer to stay home for a while. For two hours I read the Oscar-edition People magazine from cover to cover. This is unusual for me because normally I would rather stick a hot poker in my eye than read about spoiled rich people's parties. Lately, for "real" entertainment, I've been reading a book called "Devil in the Details", which is about a woman who suffered from scrupulosity (a form of OCD) in her childhood. She's very candid about everything and it's quite amusing.

I bought a digital camera on Saturday -- woo hoo!! Hopefully some day I'll learn how to use it and download the software and all that fun stuff. Then, I'm sure that I'll develop an obsession (though not scrupulous) with posting a million photos of Spencer and lots of stupid shit, too. I took a few shots on Saturday night and realized that not only have I lost my ability to write stream-of conciousness style, I have also become dreadfully non-artistic with my photography, too.

Funny weekend story: Will and I were in Wild Oats at about 10 am on Saturday, buying breakfast stuff and Pop-Tarts (they're not just for breakfast anymore!)...our check-out guy was about 35 and a total spaz, the kind of Boulder guy who could either be on Ritalin or just be high on life, you can never tell without asking. Anyway, so we had paid and were gathering up the bags when the guy bounces past us and says to Will, REALLY LOUDLY, "Hey, take good care of the babysitter, man!" I was almost all the way to the car, with my mouth hanging open the whole time, before I could say anything. Will wanted to go kill the guy later, but at the time we were both too shocked to do anything other than laugh hysterically. I guess I must look older than I think I do. It doesn't help any that Will cut his hair and got contacts...now he looks 12 instead of 20.

Oh, geez, I almost forgot...on Saturday night, I met a lovely couple from Auburn, AL, named Katie and Jonathon. They have two kids, Isabella, who is 4, and Pace, who is 1. And here's the kicker: THEY KNOW TAYLOR HICKS. How crazy is that??? It's funny because I am all amazed that they know him, and they're in shock that he's on TV every week. They said that he sounds pretty good on AI but that he's much much better with his own band playing in a bar.

Mandisa, Queen of the Mouse Kingdom

Mandisa is indeed NOT "Every Woman," which she proved last night by bringing down the house....you GO, girl! :-)

Busy busy busy at work learning a new invoicing program, and I'm going a bit nuts. Spencer's birthday slumber party is Saturday and I guess I'll have to prepare for it on Friday night since I have things going on both tonight and tomorrow nights. I'm tired just thinking of it all. I slept for five whole hours last night, imagine that! I was up reading Mothering magazine well before the sun came up, and then I drowsed a bit but had a weird dream involving going to a farm to get chicken feed for my new puppy (???) and there were dead mice all over the floor of the barn (as in, thousands of them) and the farmer had strung one of them up in this little harness thing made of yarn that swung it dangling over a table and was slowly cutting through its stomach. I guess this was to punish it. The person I was with distracted the farmer and I let the mouse go. We were going to take it home, but it turned out to be a rare hairless pink variety of Mandarin mouse, so we let it go under a shelving unit because it would be too hard to take care of. I don't recall feeling bad about putting it back in on the poisoned floor of the barn, just sad that the farmer was so mean. This farm had pigs and a really mean dog that looked like a pig but snarled like a dog. Oh, and I was wearing thongs (shoes) so I was freaked out about walking over all the dead mice....I guess it's apparent why I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep. (and she wasn't really in the dream, I just needed a blog title)

Why is it that I can't dream about normal things like winning the lottery and whatever it was that Freud analyzed?? Perhaps I'm going nuts but it's only really obvious when I'm dreaming. It would probably be conducive to my sleeping pattern if I didn't have all these messed up dreaming about death and dead things and dying and disaster!!!

Taylor Rules!!

Taylor is still on American Idol...yay! Next Wednesday will not come soon enough for me, but I'm afraid that he might get booted because he didn't do the Commodores justice...one of my favorite songs of all time, no less...with his awesome gravelly deep voice, he should have kicked serious ass. I KNOW, I KNOW, Chris and Mandisa are going to be the two left at the end (unless Mandisa gets booted for being ENORMOUS and Ayla takes over because according to Ryan she's apparently perfect in every way, annoyingly enough), but I'm still going to be Taylor's biggest fan. I'm not in any way practicing fatism against Miss Mandisa, I think she's beautiful, but people are cruel. I still can't quite figure out if it's a joke that Kevin, aka Frankie Muniz, is still on the show. Yes, his voice is good for a fourteen-year-old, or whatever he is, but he would for sure end up on one of those "Funniest Album Covers" websites:

http://porktornado.diaryland.com/albumcover.html

Check it out...someone sent it to me last year, and I was laughing so hard that I hads to leave my desk. No wonder I got fired from that job.

And shut up about me watching American Idol -- blame it on Joe, he got me addicted last year!


This is pathetic:

Convicted Nipple Pincher Gets Days In Juvenile Hall
GOLD HILL, Ore. -- High school student David Thumler is a convicted nipple pincher. He's going to have to spend four days in juvenile detention for refusing to write a letter explaining himself after twisting the nipple of another boy while they were standing on line at a deli. Thumler was convicted of offensive physical touching in July 2005. The victim's parents had complained to Gold Hill police. The Gold Hill, Ore., boy has already served three days of community service emptying trash cans, mowing lawns and shoveling gravel, along with paying a $67 fine for the offense. But he refused to write the letter holding himself accountable, which would have spared him the time in juvee. Thumler presented a rough draft but balked when told he must also describe his "criminal thought processes." Thumler said he had no criminal intent because he considered the victim to be a friend at the time. He said writing it would imply malicious or criminal intent. Thumler, who's 16, said he was just fooling around. The victim offender program that requires the letter said it prepares teens to be accountable.

FRIDAY...WOO HOO!!!!

Nothing much to say...had some thoughts about life -- but I'll have to get into that later because life is getting in my way and I don't have time...here is a funny thing sent to me by Connie:

Dear Kotex,

I recently noticed that the peel-off strip of my panti-liner had a bunch of "Kotex Tips for Life" on it. Annoying advice such as:

- Staying active during your period can relieve cramps.
- Avoiding caffeine may help reduce cramps and headaches.
- Drink 6-8 glasses of water a day to keep you hydrated and feeling fresh.
- Try Kotex blah blah blah other products

Obviously the person behind this was someone who has never possessed a functioning set of ovaries.

Go ahead and tell a menstruating woman TO HER FACE that drinking 6-8 glasses of water will help keep her feeling fresh. See what happens and report back. I'll wait.

While you're at it, dump out the coffee at work and remove the chocolate from the vending machine. I garan-friggin-tee that the first responders will be females who just ovulated.

Look, females don't need or want tips for living on feminine hygiene products. Younger girls are already hearing "helpful" crap like that from their elderly relatives. Veteran females have already concocted their own recipes for survival, mainly containing alcohol.

Printing out shit advice while sneaking in ads for the brand THAT WAS ALREADY PURCHASED is just plain annoying, not to mention rude, and enough to send a girl running to the Always brand.

Mostly we'd like to forget that we even need these products. It's not a fun time, but DO NOT try to cheer us up by adding smiley faces or bunnies or flowery cutesy crap to your products or the packaging. Put the shit in a plain brown wrapper so we can throw it in our carts discreetly and have it blend in among the wine and beer. There is nothing more annoying than having a blinding pink package announcing your uterine state to everyone in the store.

The ultimate goal of your product should be functional invisibility at every stage, including at the point of purchase.

So take your tips for living and shove them right up your ass. Try drinking six to eight glasses of water to make you feel fresher while you're doing it!

Ovarily Yours,

Miss PMS

Jack Wild, Star Of 'H.R. Pufnstuf,' Dies At 53

I loved this show. I am a bit mortified, though, that the KID, the one *I* called THE KID, is FIFTY-FREAKIN-THREE YEARS OLD. Goddammit. Life is going much too fast for comfort and it makes me feel very panicky.

LONDON -- The actor who starred in the television show "H.R. Pufnstuf" and played the Artful Dodger in the movie musical "Oliver!" has died. His agent said Jack Wild had mouth cancer. He was 53. Wild (see photo here) was discovered as a child playing soccer in a London park. He later appeared in the London stage production of "Oliver!" and then in the film, which earned him an Oscar nomination at the age of 16. On "H.R. Pufnstuf," Wild played Jimmy, the hero of the show. Wild struggled with alcoholism as an adult and he blamed his cancer on his heavy drinking and smoking. After he was diagnosed with cancer in 2000, he had surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy which left him unable to speak. Wild is survived by his wife, Claire Harding.

Second verse, more boring than the first!

Here are some pictures...my niece Grace, on her second birthday or thereabouts, in January. Also a lovely little napkin drawing done by my friend Art. I have known him for about 13 years, but I never knew that he can draw until he gave me that napkin. Go figure.

I wish I could figure out how to organize this thing to have photo album pages, but I guess that'll have to come later. Right now I'm trying to remember how to write....apparently I have lost my talent for writing stream-of-conciousness style after so many years of tech writing. Alas. I'll have to work at it, so bear with me when I make spelling errors or come off sounding like a loony.

Picture from the Rocky Mountain Institute's holiday party 12-05 at Bacaro. Spencer, Will and I are on the left/middle, and everyone else (Becky, Eric, Bernie) are now gone: Bernie to a new job, and the other two are back at Stanford.

First One EVER

I had a wicked and wild dream last night. I woke up thinking it had all been true, feeling it right down to actual physical sensations. It went something like this (unedited and, hence, sketchy):

Dream:

Walking down the sidewalk, I came upon a sort of courtyard between two buildings thyat were about twenty feet apart. The walls were studded with Mexican tiles…there was a back wall, about twenty feet from the sidewalk, with a door in it. I walked between the buildings and through the door and, on the other side, was the coastline of somewhere tropical and sort of rocky. I was on the shore and thrilled about it. I played around in the water for a while with Spencer and then went into a beach house because my tooth hurt. My former landlord Mike Senterfit was there and he was a dentist. I told him I had a toothache and he checked and said that I needed a “cap.” He squirted this orange stuff, like Cheese Whiz, into the tooth and then covered it all with a lump of something that was like white dental clay. He told me to hang out for about an hour to let it dry, and so I just lay there and stared at the ceiling for a few minutes. Then, people started coming in (there were others there the whole time; it was like a clinic) and reggae music was blasting from the other room and black people were dancing all over. I was very concerned that the clay would dry in a big huge lump so I kept pushing it around with my tongue. I woke up thinking it was still on my tooth.

I know, weird. Not as weird as the dream I had last year about a nuclear apocolypse in Boulder, which I will post later because I wrote it all down right after I dreamed it and it's BIZARRE.

Okay, first post down and now I'm going to figure out how this whole thing works. I'm sort of a tard about this kind of technology...