SpareTime

What I've been doing with my spareworktime. And it's all because I brought my artwork in and hung it on my walls and a writer sat next to me who asked me to draw a storyboard for him so that now I draw them all. They all seem to be convinced they look like something- and with varying degrees they do- sort of. Though I sit with shame at my poor illustration skills. They take forever- and usually I don't pay enough attention to the image and it turns out all gobbly-guk but sometimes I hone my concentration skills enough and they end up having some character. And it's an interesting study in how text translates to image- what needs to be expressed verses said...etc. all for the love of the CGI recreations.

Animal Facts Wednesday

I haven't learned anything new and magical yet. ( I will consult my notes to see what I've been working on since last wednesday).

Ok, I've reviewed my notes and there is something interesting. Crocodiles really freak me out. I've mentioned before I used to have these anxiety dreams about being trapped in enclosures that were dark, muddied water, high-walled, and i knew there were alligators/crocs- i just couldn't see them... So whenever I see these reptiles I think anxiety dream. Though lately everytime I turn left over a bridge and stop under an over pass I always imagine it giving way-- but usually its in a survival note capacity. So that's a plus. Sort of.

Well anyway, crocodiles have these things called "sensory pits" which dot their entire head and it alerts them to prey with a mere impulse it sends a signal to the brain to chomp-- apparently crazy peeps all over the world who like to play with large man eating lizards can desensitize these nerve/impulses by teaching it that the signals are wrong- so prodding it with a stick for instance all over causes a short circuit in the signal thereby allowing a person to stick their head in the alligators mouth or arm... of course unless they don't do it enough then well-- you end up on our show...

So basically in the water they'll just hang out with their mouths open waiting for something to touch them and set off their impulse. Fairly cool. And I thought I didn't have anything to talk about!

ps. will get to more impt things like friends, drug addictions, storyboards, forthwith. i'm percolating.

Underwheres

I’m pretty surprised at the results of our sidebar poll! Who knew there were so many shovers-in-the-drawers. I myself am a semi-reformed folder and stacker—I fold out of habit, but then shove it in the drawer. Because what’s the point, really. Although, folding will allow more space in the drawer. My drawer’s so small, it doesn’t really matter what I do with my drawers. Ha ha, get it??

There is one day left to vote, people! Or maybe just half a day. Inquiring minds want to know.

Night Showers, by Pen

I'm a recent convert to this phenomenon. It happened by fluke, really, when I cut *shower* out of the usually obligatory routine one day for the sake of getting the hell out of the house in a somewhat timely fashion. I'll do it later, I thought, and do it later, I did. After the children go to bed, it's like totally fantastic. Washing that day right out of your hair. It's alone time, for one, which doesn't seem to happen really with a daytime shower, because you've got to be in tune to house events all the while, as best you can, making sure no child is screaming or coloring the walls, or dying in some imaginative fashion. And it gets the grime of the day off one's shoulders, all the battles, the strategery, the soap bubbles and the crumbs. And then I can change into my comfy clothes, snuggle up with the J.Lo, the TV, and the Internets, and not think about being parent to the children for awhile.

Until one of them screams, and I must clock on duty again.

But whatevs, the benefits are substantial, and night showers it is.

Night Showers, by M

let me just say first: night showers = amazing. they are my preferred method of showering. for one afterward, when you go to bed and get btw the sheets you're all silky and smooth and luxuriant and clean feeling and you don't just slip into that ordinary going thru my day like i always do. it's a conscious, mmm i feel lovelygood. i also find, sometimes, going to bed with damp hair increases their curl (no gravity) which lets me wake up feeling even cooler and more awesome then when i went to bed. i love waking up with tousled wavvy hair- no blowdryer needed. i can't help it. plus its just a good way to decompress after the day, a little recap, a little core warming/cooling depending. i cannot say enough about night showers.

i was a little stressed on wednesday and my initial instinct was just to just go home but i pushed through and found myself at the gym and then in the glorious water- which despite its chlorinated form and its increasing need for filtering and vacuuming, it felt so good to dive down and hit that mirrored ceiling before you break the surface with the bubbles trailing behind you in the blue. it still makes showering unfortunately necessary despite itself. but water definitely must have healing properties. we are composed of it.

but too often showering is seen as a chore, like brushing teeth and is too often associated with our obsessive need to be odorless, clean and have dry skin, brittle hair- which is all symptomatic of over showering and yes, the weather. but when i'm in my right line of thinking showering becomes a glorious way to honor all of me. down to my delicious oil-tangerine-sugar scrub from TraderJoes to my pomegranate body wash. shuffling off dead skin, moisturizing, meditating and giving my body that whole tingly alive but calm feeling.

and there's something about doing it at the end of the day, that gives you pause to everything you've just been through or done. and helps sometimes to evaporate it, dispel it, or nurture whatever it is our psyche is churning over.

mmm. awesomeness.

Animal Facts Wednesday

Sure sure I'm late. Yesterday was actually a hectic work day, that and another incident or two like a friends drug addiction and some heavy scrabble playing I was fairly mentally in frazzle mode. (to be updated forthwith)


My facts are these:

M@rlin: aka. swordfish (black, stripped, atlantic blue)

- They can reach speeds of up to 80 miles an hour.
- They can sustain speeds of 20-50 miles an hour.
-The Old Man and the Sea: he battled a blue marlin.
-They can get up to 14ft but are typically 11ft!? and can weigh up to 400lbs.

Storyboard drawn: Young man in harness, with fishing pole. Marlin leaps out of water. Spears him in the mouth, narrowly missing piercing him through the neck and only gashes the inside of his cheek and breaking some sinus walls.

this just makes me happy, by pen

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

In Dreams, by M

So I was all, kudzu, I love DREAMS! And then last night i had some whacked series of dreams...(idiot you!) ok, i guess I still wouldn't trade them in but still. WTF...

Series:
1. With mom and dad in a big tent atmosphere, consumed with trying to make sure the generator is charging the batteries to the light supply... lots of debate.
2. With a friend. We're in an apartment complex, or a series of apartments. Very clear I need to move or that where ever i was was not where i should be... vague sense of danger.
3. At a school that is more like a business complex. Something is wrong with my eyes, and I feel mentally disabled though I'm in an academy for smart people. There is a vague feeling that the clock is ticking down or that something is about to happen.
4. This is where things take an absolute turn for the worse and is the most vivid part I remember: puppies-- little black and white spotted ones all around this outdoor complex and some of them have dumb rabies- sitting there listless- and some are playing with venomous snakes and are inevitably going to get bitten by them. Remembered that as the puppies were being infected (resident evil style) I had to avoid them, and also had to avoid the slithering snakes. I seemed small and contained.

Woo. Good times. Whatev!

Congregation of Vapors, by M

My saturday was consumed with painting the universe on the theatre floor and for Hamlet no less. Since it is one of my favorite all time plays, for a friend, for my old theatre company, I had a hard time saying no. So I said yes. In my old life , from about 14-24 I was heavily involved in the theatre and then I ran away to Chicago to find the writer and artist in me- I've never been able to find my way back and it does in fact represent a lonely gaping hole in my life- but theatre is demanding - an all consuming mistress- so I suppose I'm looking for a perfect alignment of stars in order to get back there. All this to say it was weird to go back to a place where I'd spent so much time. Probably what made me so agitated and restless being there- though at the end of the day, I did have a vague sense of being watched or haunted. It would not surprise me. Anyway when I finished I hated it. Or was rather very dissatisfied as my body was crying and my back aching and my head blurring... It was a little overzealous and INSANE of me to try and do it all in one day-- but I did, whatever, it's done. And I'm going to get back to loving it a little bit more and will probably be sad to know it was painted over. But hey, 1st large scale work, first universe. Not a bad days work.

PSA: Windows Live Writer

For the last two weeks, I’ve been using a super-cool blogging tool, one that’s good enough to share. The biggest hang-up I have with Blogger is formatting. M & I are hardcore Blogger loyalists (thus far), and I’m impressed with their continual improvements and efforts to make the system more user-friendly. But I’m a little nit-picky when it comes to things like pictures, and spacing, etc. I’ve had many a post where I fuss with it and fuss with it, and finally just throw my hands up in aggravation before posting. It does not look the way my little OCD heart desires, but what am I going to do.

So my mom, who is always looking out for me in good-mom fashion, told me about Windows Live Writer, which was boasted about on another blog she reads, and I thought I’d give it a try. I’m hooked.

Here’s what you can do with WLW:

• compose all your blogs offline
• preview the post before publishing
• set the publish date and time
• select categories from a big checklist that also contains “add” and “find” features
• drag and drop photos
• FORMAT those photos easy-peasy
• crop, add borders, resize, and rotate the photos
• insert videos, tables, tags, etc.
• set it up to auto-save your drafts as often as every minute
• switch easily between blogs, if you’re a triple-blogging maniac such as myself
• automatic spell-check
• all that usual good text tool/formatting stuff like bold, underline, italicize, hyperlink, and strike-through

WLW snatches your blog’s login and style info, which you can also update easily if need be, so while you’re drafting, it’s like you’re “in” the blog. Pretty cool. You can use it with several different services, Blogger obviously included. You don’t have to have a Live account. You do have to have a PC, but well, if you have a Mac, maybe you have a cool blog-editing software already.

Want to be my WLW pal? You know you do. Download it for free here.

 

 

fun at work, by pen!

 

fun at work...

Animal Facts Wednesday, by special guest writer pen

May I begin by saying, *ew.* I don’t know how m can write these things every week in such a kind and generous way. Acknowledging that undomesticated animals are all beautiful and complex and integral to our ecosystem and whatnot. This week, we are talking about a housefly. Because, as previously mentioned, there a lot of houseflies in my house at the moment. I do not know why. I still have visions of poisoned rats littering the space underneath our deck, though I have no logical explanation for how these theoretical creatures would have gotten there. And it’s not like it smells or anything—I have smelled a dead, poisoned rat or two in my day, and there ain’t no mistaking. (Plus, I looked under the deck. No rats. No dog poop, either.) But the flies are on the slow and sluggish side. At least slow and sluggish enough that they appear to be having a coffee hour of sorts, or maybe a book club meeting, like the French door windows are just the place to be at the mo, to meet, and hang, and discuss. I will say that a) their presence has diminished somewhat in the past three days and b) I still have no viable theories as to their presence. Or c) how to get them the fuck out of my house.

BUT, houseflies are wonderful and magical, people. It’s true. And I am here to convince you of this truth with the following facts (courtesy of the wiki):

• Adult flies are 6-9 mm long.
• Female flies are slightly bigger than males.
• They are primarily gray (thorax) with 4 dark longitudinal lines on their backs.
• Their bellies are yellow. Yellow-bellies! Ha. Ahem.
• They are covered in hair.
• Female flies have a larger space btw their compound eyes.
• Their compound eyes are RED.
• They have one pair of wings, but also hind “halteres,” which balance them in flight.
• EACH female fly can lay 9000 eggs, which are white and 1.2 mm long.
• They are born as MAGGOTS, and live and feed in things like garbage and shit.
• After a week of being a maggot, they crawl to a cool, dry place where they transform into pupae, and then into a HOUSEFLY.
• They don’t grow after becoming a housefly. If you see a small housefly, it just didn’t get enough to eat while it was a young maggot.
• After 36 hours of being a housefly, females are ready to breed.
• Females usually only mate once, store the sperm and use it for multiple egg-layings.
• Male flies are territorial. Shocker.
• Flies need warmth.
• Flies take in liquid food only. They spit on solids for pre-digestion, and then suck it up.
• Flies can walk on walls and ceilings. Glands near their feet secrete liquids that create a surface tension, making said wall-walking possible.
• When they’re not flying around, they’re preening. They like to preen.
• Fly swatters have HOLES in them to lower air resistance, which would clue in the fly to its fate.
• Flies have been around like, forever, but the real housefly evolved about just 65 million years ago.
• In colder places, houseflies can only survive around humans.
• They can carry diseases aplenty. Typhoid. Dysentery. Anthrax. Stuff like that. Parasitic and bacterial diseases, viruses. You name it.
• They eat constantly, and poop constantly, which helps them to be such good disease carriers and filth perpetuators.
• They can fly for several miles!
• Houseflies are active in the day, and sleep at night.

 

Well I, by M

Today is off to another start that didn't quite ever leave the 2" space above the floor. Cat thwaping at the door, wanted to get in. Could not relent due to ensuring positive reinforcement principles. Threw 2 pillows. Had strange dreams. Woke up in turquoise and burgundy and on my way to work. Eating, supping on a diet coke. Watched episodes of Firefly and found something about that intro song makes me sad. Makes me longing. Find myself tethered to this place and wanting to be in a western... incongruous. with bad grammatical uses and a gun. Find myself on a strange land anyway with debt, and kicking dust up at my feet, walking in a forest of sunflowers, and the cool breeze coming at my back. Counting pennies and watching time, soon to make a universe on the theatre floor. Going where only I can go, and no one follows. And it seems I am already here.

OH WELL, BY m

So far the day is off to a sluggish start.

• cat woke me up at 9. nice cat. work officially started at 9 but luckily no one is watching the clock. though there's this one girl who knows i barely do anything and she is always burrowing death rays into me with her hostile eyes. I would help you Pris but I don't get paid to be a producer.
  
• just now discovered my shirt is on inside out. awesome.
• reviewed finances, too sleepy to be horrified
• reviewed evening watch carmen at the hollywood bowl: lovely
  
• am watching southpark reruns on watchtvsitcoms .com ... will update should anything more significant happen to me.
  

random whys, by pen

1. Why are there like a million flies suddenly by our back door? First ants in the kitchen, and now flies by the window. I shudder thinking of where they’re coming from, and yet I have no viable theories.

2. Why is it that everything feels better after restocking a few sundry items: tissue boxes, Oil of Olay daily facial cloths. It’s like I can’t live without these things and now that I have them again, I feel *clean.*

3. Why when I have a moment do I naturally gravitate toward the computer and Internet, rather than my book.

4. Why am I such a slow reader, sensitive to every word?

5. Why isn’t J.Lo’s new eye working the way he wants it to.

6. Why are Pisces, Aquarians, and Libra/Scorpio cusps all (apparently) moody creatures. At least at our house.

7. Why is my daughter deathly afraid of everything from airplanes to “shoo flies” to puppets. Is there a common thread?

8. Why will they not play Gossip Girl in order, why. Or at least throw in the missing eps sometime before summer is over.

9. Why didn’t this new DVR system (hate it, btw) automatically pick up the series recording of ProRun for later this week.

10. WHY doesn’t the dinner menu occur to me until an hour before I need to have the food on the table. Especially when certain dinner elements need thawing.

Backed

I confronted my pool fears and it was a good day to return as fridays are normally quiet. And it was as beautiful and cathartic as I thought it should be and as a bonus I talked to the guy who yelled at the asshat! He was swimming in the lane over and he said, "Oh was that you? That's why I was getting so upset, because I saw you had to stop your swimming a few times and then I saw the guy collide with you and I thought it was a different guy who collided with me!" I said, Thanks for defending me. And he said, "Yah I thought it was wrong and the time in the pool shouldn't be like that." Aw. Chivalrous guy! Wow.

That felt good.

Bad Workout Mojo

Worst workout in history!

Though my amusement at the gym has waned with the lack of said posts about ever-sweaters (guys who sweat allovertheequipment) and sweaty-cakes (girls who wear makeup to the gym)... and well jason the trainer and i, broke up, like i just couldn't afford the lifestyle he kept throwing me into. But everything slipped into a tranquil bliss of liking to go to the gym and routine and the pool being one sanctuary that I looked forward to... though it be small and humble.

I had a recent knee injury as it's all angry and sorta swelly- I blame my affection for the rowing machine. Anyway which means I've amped up my swimming, and lately my time in the pool has been unpleasant-- with summer it's brought out all the bullies.

And by bullies I mean people who walk in with the attitude of hi, i'm an aggressive swimmer. People fear me in the wake that I create. I will kick and plow with an unparalleled and disruptive vengeance because as you see I'm very VERY serious about what I do. And I will somersault, violently pushing off from one end to another. Mostly these asshats are male but occasionally we get a gung-ho asshat girl. Yesterday they all came out in record numbers, scaring all the quiet, graceful water nymphs away.

I maintained my position as a fight for all the meditative meek ones out there, though I'm not that. I'm just a middle of the road big woman who wants some peace and quiet and not the pool lapping up at me like I'm in open water. At one point 2 guys come in (speedos, caps, goggles, swim toned bodies- sure asshat warning signs). I see the one in the redhat jump into my lane already filled with one marginal ass-hat and me...who uses hand paddles to improve performance. (eyeroll) I think you've got to be kidding. And sure enough midway thru he collides with me, pops up and tells me pertly that "It's protocol. We swim in a circle."... Right. Like I can keep up with tweedle-dee and his dumber brother. In a beat he moves to another lane and collides with ANOTHER person. An older man who, by the time I popped my head up was fully chastising him about courtesy, manners and not being an ass-hat, bringing all the people in the pool to a water-dropped screech. He stuck it out with the 2 asshats in his lane, defiant. Daring them to provoke him. By then a vast desert of awkward muck had evaporated most of the swimmers. I moved into the middle lane, quiet and peaceful which was not to last.

Abruptly ruined by an older ass-hat who was putting on fins. Yes. Fins. Whose opening line to me was "Want to watch a beautiful body in the water?" ... He promptly took off and flipped water into my face. I thought, that's it. I have to leave. I've been broken. They've beat me. I got out and sat in the bubbly hot water goodness and tried not to think of ways to drown them all, but it persisted all the way out of the gym and home. Fully marinated in badvibes and hostility.

I need to return to the gym just like returning to the murder scene. Try to sort it out, understand, walk in a place that's normally so full of peace and goodness that it's incomprehensible that such evil could take place there. Maybe lay some flowers down and put it to rest. And hope it won't happen again. Or if does have a better answer for it than murderous rage? Maybe not.

Animal Facts Wednesday

Rabies.
I had to do a search for rabid animalpics and it was totally a downer. Especially with the proviso of 100% FATAL to humans. Yikes! Which led me to a disturbing video or two of actual people doomed to die who had it. Gross. UGH. Damn internet. Another reason I suppose we can have affection for our government here in the US is that they do go thru a great deal of effort to vaccinate wild life populations so that it becomes increasingly rare for people to contract it via domesticated animals HERE... because once signs appear you're deadzo. Though i do know here in SCali rabies is alive and well in the angeles crest forest- squirrels and bats you know. Ah well. Which is why people are always like if you get bitten ensue panic, capture the animal... whose fate is never anything other than death, bcs well you know animal dead is better than you dead. Reading about things like this makes me trepidacious about living. And doubly so of rescuing animals who look ill.

Part of my vaccine retenue for central america did include rabies vaccine but the deep discount price for a vial is $171. So by not doing it suddenly you feel your kissing caution to the wind. But my mind was immediately put to rest when I read on the CDC (i've grown to love them by the way) that the vaccine only buys you 24 hours-- and then still another 4/5 shot round. Either way. So don't get it: get bitten: get shots. Get it: get bitten: get shots... so there you go.

Here's some rabies info should you want to keep reading about things that go bump in the night:

• There are 2 forms of rabies: dumb and furious (fairly awesome categorization names). dumb rabies is actually the more common form.
• Rabies free zone: Ireland, Taiwan, Japan, Hawaii, Mauritius, Barbados and Guam
• Dogs are the most common domestic carrier.
  
• Racoons are 50% of possible victims but bats are where its at for most all the initial trouble.
• World Rabies day: September 28th
• Vaccinate your pets.
• Meredith on the Office contracted Rabies.
  

http://www.cdc.gov/rabies/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabies

your guide to JULY summer fare, by pen

Continue watching:
1. Gossip Girl reruns, IF you can piece them together in order. Which I am having trouble doing, alas.
2. Celebrity Family Feud!
3. The Baby Borrowers, because it's funny.
4. Season 3 of Weeds, Netflixed.
5. Legally Blonde the Musical: Who will it be?? My money is on Southern Belle Bailey. But maybe Autumn, I love her, too. Actually, I sort of love them all, and the way they try to embody the "spirit of Elle Woods," even when they're not trying out for the role.
6. Last Comic Standing.
7. Old and new episodes of House Hunters. Because that's what you do in the summer, catch up.

New for July:
1. ProRun, July 16th! This is the last season the show will be on Bravo, which makes me scratch my head in puzzlement, but what can you do. It's moving over to Lifetime, and California. Hmmm.
2. Monk, July 18.
3. Psych. Ditto.
4. The Secret Life of the American Teenager, with Molly Ringwald! ABC Family, Tuesday night.
5. Extreme Living on HGTV. There are some super-badass-cool looking houses on there. Can't wait.

Please add your own lists/suggestions in the comments. I'm *slightly* out of the loop these days, and my taste doesn't include really include stuff like Burn Notice, although I admit I'm slightly intrigued, mainly because Jeffrey Donovan is so.darn.hot. Let me know if it's worth it. And stuff like Great American Dog? Do we dare?

July Fare, by M

my "darn" hot summer list for july:
*snarf*

netflixed: six feet under (s3) (rainn wilson makes an appearance, eee! and though morbid the character development on this show is awesome though occasionally soulless), nashville 1975 (robert altman 'masterpiece'), grizzly man (i guess?), persepolis, the bostonians, holes.

will not miss: deadliest catch s3 (i cannot get enough of these guys bcs they're all guyish and on a boat and though not attractive damned appealing). i fought this show for 2 years. i'm fully onboard now. i suspect mike rowe is lulling me into a must watch trance.

will catch them on the day or on a repeat: monk, psych, kathy griffin, project runway (but rest assured i will NOT miss a single episode. but USA and BRAVO are masters at repeat or die institutions. so i'm not afraid.

Today I

feel like i've stepped on a rollercoaster that's mostly smooth but has a few jarring moments. i wonder how long i've been here and when i can go home. i feel laden with carnival treats and not enough protein and miles to go before the gas is spent and i can collapse in the grass.

Today I

feel like a sunflower against a blue sky, made too hot by the sun but delighted by the bees at my belly and the breeze that teases my fine yellow petals. I droop with the heat but relish in my place and look forward to the cool night of sleep.

Today I.

feel like a black ball, shiny and glisteny wet from floating in a wide deep-red bucket. It's in shadows so sometimes the wide bucket looks a dark green and there are reflections of the blue sky and the clouds and trees on the dark water.

be brave. for your country.

Guys, you should totally make this cake! Print it out and put it in your recipe box for next Memorial Day or 4th of July. I had always seen the flag cake advertised in magazines, but admit I was totally intimidated by it. It looks kind of *involved.* But really, it's so easy, a 2-year-old could do it. And a 2-year-old did do it. K.Lo helped stir the Jell-o, and lay out the pound cake slices, and mix up the fruit into the Jell-o. I recommend completing steps one and two on the night prior to your extravaganza, and then putting in the fridge overnight. Then, when you wake up, finish it up. Easy, breezy.

And, may I say, it's one darn tasty cake. Happy 4th of July!

WAVE YOUR FLAG CAKE
Ingredients:
4 cups fresh strawberries, divided
1-1/2 cups boiling water
1 pkg. (8-serving size) or 2 pkg. (4-serving size each) JELL-O Brand Gelatin, any red flavor
ice cubes
1 cup cold water
1 pkg. (12 oz.) pound cake, cut into 10 slices
1-1/3 cups blueberries, divided
1 tub (8 oz.) COOL WHIP Whipped Topping, thawed

SLICE 1 cup of the strawberries; cut remaining strawberries in half. Set aside.

STIR boiling water into dry gelatin mix in large bowl 2 min. until completely dissolved. Add enough ice cubes to cold water to measure 2 cups. Add to gelatin; stir until ice is melted. Refrigerate 5 min. or until slightly thickened (consistency of unbeaten egg whites). Meanwhile, line bottom of 13×9-inch dish with cake slices. Add sliced strawberries and 1 cup of the blueberries to thickened gelatin; stir gently. Spoon over cake slices.

REFRIGERATE 4 hours or until firm. Spread whipped topping over gelatin. Arrange strawberry halves on whipped topping for stripes of flag. Arrange remaining 1/3 cup blueberries on whipped topping for stars. Store in refrigerator.

source: Kraft.com

Where I'm Going

To rose colored hills
To the wheat colored mountain
Where a black tree had tried to rise against the blue sky
Cut down and disintegrated
My view unencumbered
But my nails black with paint
To the stream and the dappled light
Down to a faraway place
Out into the future

Animal Facts Wednesday

~Did you know cows can drink about 35 lbs of water a day?
~They also spend about 7-8 hours chewing their food-- you know ruminating... uh huh.
~There's evidence of their domestication going as far back as 6500 bc.
~There are over 800 breeds of cattle.

Bonus: 2nd AFW

Geese have serrated bills and make excellent watchdogs- I think they also eat ticks and snails so that's a plus.

Way more cowfacts from the magical internet:
>> # A cow stands up and sits down about 14 times a day.
>> # A cow that weighs 1000 pound can produce an average 10 tons of manure every year.
>> # A cow usually spends 6-7 hours in day eating cud and around 8 hours on chewing it.
>> # Almost all the cows chew at least 50 times per minute.
>> # An average cow has more than 40,000 jaw movements in a day.
>> # An average cow produces 30 lbs of urine and 65 lbs pounds of feces daily.
>> # Cows are venerated in the Hindu religion of India.
>> # Cows can drink up to 35 gallons of water a day.
>> # Cows do not bite grass; rather they curl their tongue around it.
>> # Cows have a single stomach, but four digestive compartments.
>> # Cows have almost total 360-degree panoramic vision.
>> # Cows have an acute sense of smell and can smell something up to 6 miles away.
>> # Cows produce around 90 percent of the milk in the world.
>> # Dairy cows can produce up to 125 lbs of saliva a day.
>> # The average body temperature of a cow is 101.5°F.

On a Given Saturday

Risen early. A leisured morning. I wore my darkblue sun dress, having lately reclaimed the color from my somber past. The compliments I received and the look of my warm complexion in it overrode the fleeting cringe. A couple months ago I bought the first yellow shirt I’d ever owned and I would have rather worn that. But the white skirt, coincidentally bought with the blue dress was stained- it was the first of that color for a skirt too, and the yellow and white made a pleasing pair. Daring I thought, in all my now 32 years.

I stood on the train platform glancing around to make sure I was where I was suppose to be, favoring my right knee and noting with a smile that though silver and slick, trains had lost none of their romance. My meager supplies wouldn’t carry me far but my trip down the coast to San Juan Capistrano carried me far enough out of my own mind and into the fabric of my heart- azure sea, old plastered walls…

I tested several seats and still found myself going backwards and windowless, but it seemed perfect to tuck my feet up and incline my large frame- read my book about an island and wished myself there as the train blurred the landscape. My brow, in unguarded moments contracted in dissatisfaction- Claudius would say to bear our hearts in grief and our whole kingdom contracted in a brow of woe… but I have no idea what this bearer mourns, and yet she does, unabated on two weeks.

I heard the clipped cadence of “tickets please” and with things for though contracted, a smile of amusement would play upon these lips, as this anachronistic man stopped short, hand extended, punch, punch, with his hat just so in all seriousness moved through the train.

I arrived and was not upswept in arms embraced. Neither a man, nor a lover, my friend was late. My feet brandished the concrete nature of here and now as I was carried into the orbit of my friends distress, her joys, her questions, and how she speaks to me as kindred, as an artist… and we landed after many turns on a quiet Café Mozart for lunch. I had chicken schnitzel and with each bite incongruously took me to Turkey. The Germans are everywhere I said. Elisa nodded in agreement. From one German to another it seemed to be so… I wished to be everywhere also. And we were the only diners at the restaurant.
As we talked I wondered how the place stayed in business and she said, parties. And like a magic word uttered the crew quietly set themselves up around us. One stack of white something or others moored themselves before my eyes and then tables with rapidity rolled by and built up like a break to the right and then the umbrellas around us flew off their ornamented tables and one by one they themselves disappeared in the wake. Until our table, lonely and the sea impatient, waited to consume it.

And finally when as we rose and wadded past the shops it seemed as if the structure of our lives was breaking up around us so that I was quiet and did not wonder where we would land but felt the sand, and noted the sun and we, racing toward I know not what. Until with luck and a late train I bounded to meet it.
But the arch of the evening came on and I found myself in Hollywood sitting on a curb waiting to be picked up and feeling the quiet of a side street about to give birth to a sprawling complex. It would never whisper as it did now- and over dinner and a chance encounter with other friends I found myself full and brimming. And Kerry said, here I bought you this. And out came this black workout outfit for $10. And in the parking lot by our cars I put on the pants and took off my dress and found myself garnered in the soft comfort of mourning colors. My red bra only exposed for a short time…

i do not like them, pen i am

TEXTURE issues, noticed as of late:
-Grapes with that weird grittiness on their skin, the kind of grit that doesn't come off when you wash them. Hate that chalk-on-chalkboard feel on my teeth.
-Dry  palms, like sandpaper. Didn't think I used the antibacterial hand stuff *that* much, but clearly I am amiss on this assessment.
-Great green gobs of greasy, grimy algae in the fish tank. I know. It needs a good scrubbing. But I dread it with every fiber of my being.